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The Return of the Night Train

For decades, night trains seemed to belong to the past. Low-cost airlines offered tickets that were cheaper than a sandwich, and one by one the old sleeper services across Europe were cancelled. By 2016, even Germany's national rail company had abandoned its overnight routes, claiming that they lost money. Lines that had connected cities for more than a century simply vanished from the timetables, and many old carriages were sold or left to rust in depots. Yet less than ten years later, travellers can once again fall asleep in one European capital and wake up in another.

Several factors explain this comeback. The most obvious is growing concern about climate change: a passenger travelling by train produces only a fraction of the emissions of someone making the same journey by plane. Austrian Railways, which took over several of the routes that Germany had given up, discovered that there was real demand, especially among young people and families. Some governments have also offered subsidies, and France has banned short domestic flights on routes where a train journey of less than two and a half hours exists. Other travellers simply prefer to avoid airports: a night train leaves from the city centre, there are no long security queues and passengers can carry as much luggage as they want. On a journey of around a thousand kilometres, they also save the cost of a hotel night.

Not everyone is convinced, though. Night trains are expensive to run, because each carriage carries far fewer passengers than a normal train and needs staff all night. Tickets can therefore cost more than a flight, and they often sell out months in advance. Delays are another frequent complaint. Rail companies admit that many carriages are old and that new ones take years to build, so the number of beds available is still limited. In some cases, routes have been suspended only a few years after opening because public money disappeared. Still, for many passengers the experience itself is the main attraction. As one regular traveller puts it, "On a plane you are simply transported. On a night train, the journey becomes part of the holiday."

Gardens in the Sky

From the street, the old car park looks exactly like any other grey building in the city centre. But if you take the stairs to the top floor, you find something unexpected: rows of tomatoes, beans and lettuces growing in wooden boxes, a small greenhouse and a group of volunteers who are busy watering plants before the sun gets too hot.

The project began five years ago, when a group of neighbours noticed that the top level of the car park was almost always empty. They asked the local council for permission to use it, and after months of meetings they were given a two-year trial. Nobody expected it to last. The soil had to be carried up by hand, there was no water supply at first, and strong winds destroyed the first greenhouse in its second week.

Today, the garden produces enough vegetables to supply a weekly market stall, and the money it raises pays for seeds and tools. However, the organisers insist that food is not the main point. "People come here because they are lonely, or stressed, or simply curious," says Tomás, one of the founders, who used to work as an accountant. "They stay because they feel useful. Some of our volunteers are retired; others are students who have never grown anything in their lives. On the roof, everyone is a beginner at something."

The garden has also become an outdoor classroom. Primary schools bring children to learn where their food comes from, and a nearby university uses the site to study how plants cope with pollution and heat. Researchers have found that the green roof helps to keep the floor below it cooler during the summer, which could be important for cities that are getting hotter every year.

Not everyone is enthusiastic. Some drivers complain that parking spaces have been lost, and a few residents worry about insects and noise. The council has responded by limiting opening hours and asking the volunteers to keep the area tidy.

Despite these tensions, similar projects are appearing in other parts of the city, from school roofs to the flat tops of supermarkets. For Tomás, the lesson is clear: "Cities are full of spaces that we have stopped seeing. Sometimes all you need is to look up."

The Library That Lends Everything but Books

When Hannah Price moved into her first flat in Bristol, she discovered that she needed a drill to put up a single shelf. Buying one seemed absurd: most household drills, experts say, are used for only a few minutes in their entire lifetime. Instead, she walked to the end of her street, where a former bank had been converted into a "Library of Things". For a small fee, she borrowed a drill for the weekend, together with a ladder and a box of screws. The idea, which first appeared in Germany and Canada in the early 2010s, has since spread to hundreds of neighbourhoods across Europe and North America.

The principle is simple. Instead of every household owning objects that spend most of their time in a cupboard, a community shares them. Members can borrow anything from sewing machines and tents to projectors and carpet cleaners. Volunteers check each item when it is returned and repair it if necessary. According to the organisers, a single shared drill can replace dozens of new ones, which means less money spent, less storage space needed and, above all, less waste. Supporters also point out that the libraries are welcoming places where neighbours who had never spoken before end up exchanging advice. In Bristol, the most popular items are not power tools but party equipment: a set of plates and glasses for forty people is booked almost every weekend.

However, the model is not free of difficulties. Many libraries depend on grants that only last a year or two, and finding volunteers to keep them open at weekends can be exhausting. Insurance is another headache: if a borrowed saw injures someone, who is responsible? Some projects have also discovered that the people who use them most are those who could easily afford to buy the objects anyway, while the families who would benefit most often do not know that the service exists. To reach them, a few libraries have started working with schools and social services, which offer free memberships to the families they support. "We are not trying to stop people from buying things," explains one coordinator. "We just want them to ask themselves a question first: do I really need to own this, or do I only need to use it?"