The couchette car is a railroad car

Railroad car

A railroad car or railway vehicle , also known as a bogie in Indian English, is a vehicle on a rail transport system that is used for the carrying of cargo or passengers. Cars can be coupled together into a train and hauled by one or more locomotives...

 conveying basic non-private sleeping

Sleep

Sleep is a naturally recurring state characterized by reduced or absent consciousness, relatively suspended sensory activity, and inactivity of nearly all voluntary muscles. It is distinguished from quiet wakefulness by a decreased ability to react to stimuli, and is more easily reversible than...

 accommodation.

The car is divided into a number of compartments (typically 8 to 10) accessed from the side corridor of the car, which in daytime are configured with a bench seat along each long side of the compartment. At an appropriate time in the journey, the attendant who travels in the car (or by agreement the passengers booked in the compartment) converts the compartment into its night-time configuration with two (1st class) or three (2nd class) bunks on each long side of the compartment, creating a total of four bunks in first class and six in second class. Typically, in the 2nd class the seat serves as the lowest bunk, and the back of the seat is turned into a horizontal position and serves as the middle bunk.

The attendant provides a sheet, blanket, and pillow for each passenger. Unlike in sleeping car

Sleeping car

The sleeping car or sleeper is a railway/railroad passenger car that can accommodate all its passengers in beds of one kind or another, primarily for the purpose of making nighttime travel more restful. The first such cars saw sporadic use on American railroads in the 1830s and could be configured...

s, couchette compartments are not segregated by sex, and it is normal not to undress except for removing footwear.
One compartment at the end of the car is reserved for the use of the attendant (who possibly supervises two adjacent cars), who will sell (if not included in the fare) hot and cold drinks and continental breakfasts in the morning. In western Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 the attendant will take charge of passengers' tickets and passports at the start of the journey, returning them before arrival at the destination, thus ensuring that passengers are not disturbed by ticket and passport inspections. In some former eastern bloc

Eastern bloc

The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...

 countries this is not done, and it is normal for passengers to be awakened before and after each border by each country's border police and rail inspectors. Toilet

Toilet

A toilet is a sanitation fixture used primarily for the disposal of human excrement, often found in a small room referred to as a toilet/bathroom/lavatory...

s and washrooms are located at the ends of the car.

It is noteworthy that couchette cars have never been operated in Britain

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 - it was normal practice for British passengers to join long-distance overnight trains at Calais

Calais

Calais is a town in Northern France in the department of Pas-de-Calais, of which it is a sub-prefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's capital is its third-largest city of Arras....

, Boulogne

Boulogne-sur-Mer

-Road:* Metropolitan bus services are operated by the TCRB* Coach services to Calais and Dunkerque* A16 motorway-Rail:* The main railway station is Gare de Boulogne-Ville and located in the south of the city....

, Oostende or Hoek van Holland

Hoek van Holland

The Hook of Holland , also known in English as the Hook, is a town in South Holland in the Netherlands. It is situated on the North Sea coast, on the north bank of the Nieuwe Waterweg ship canal. The town is administered by the municipality of Rotterdam as a district of that city...

 after crossing the English Channel

English Channel

The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...

 or North Sea

North Sea

In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...

 by ferry

Ferry

A ferry is a form of transportation, usually a boat, but sometimes a ship, used to carry primarily passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo as well, across a body of water. Most ferries operate on regular, frequent, return services...

. There has been a substantial decline in the number of long-distance overnight train services since the mid 1990s, caused by the increase in the number of high-speed

High-speed rail

High-speed rail is a type of passenger rail transport that operates significantly faster than the normal speed of rail traffic. Specific definitions by the European Union include for upgraded track and or faster for new track, whilst in the United States, the U.S...

 daytime services, and competition from low-cost airlines.