Luna Rail – Treating night trains as a spatial optimization problem
Hi HN, I'm Anton, founder of Luna Rail. I've always thought night trains are a fantastic, sustainable alternative to short-haul flights, but they're often held back by a lack of privacy, comfort, and poor economics due to low passenger capacity. I became overly fascinated with this puzzle. I view it as a kind of night train Tetris (my wife less charitably calls it "sardinology"). I spent way too much time learning about and sketching various layouts, trying to figure out how to fit the maximum number of private cabins into a standard railcar, while making them attractive for both day and…
In plain words
Luna Rail designs optimized cabin layouts for night trains to increase passenger capacity and comfort. Founded by Anton, the company tackles the spatial puzzle of fitting more private cabins into standard railcars while maintaining appeal for both overnight and daytime travel. Based in Berlin, Luna Rail uses rapid prototyping with full-scale mockups built from wood, cardboard, and precision-manufactured components to develop solutions that could make night trains more economically viable alternatives to short-haul flights.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
Hi HN, I'm Anton, founder of Luna Rail. I've always thought night trains are a fantastic, sustainable alternative to short-haul flights, but they're often held back by a lack of privacy, comfort, and poor economics due to low passenger capacity. I became overly fascinated with this puzzle. I view it as a kind of night train Tetris (my wife less charitably calls it "sardinology"). I spent way too much time learning about and sketching various layouts, trying to figure out how to fit the maximum number of private cabins into a standard railcar, while making them attractive for both day and night travel. This eventually led to a physical workshop (in Berlin) and a hands-on rapid prototyping process. We've built a series of full-scale mockups, starting with wood and cardboard and progressing to high-fidelity versions with 3D-printed and CNC-milled parts, with various functional elements. Hundreds of people have come in to test our various iterations, because you can't test ergonomics or comfort by looking at renderings (although we did create a bunch of nice ones). The link goes to our home page showing our approach and some of the thinking behind them. It’s been a lot of fun working on this puzzle, and we're excited to share what we've come up with. We hope you think it's cool too and would love to hear your thoughts.
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