Luggage etiquette on European trains

I can provide personal experience from Germany, Denmark and Sweden.

In all three of these countries, as long as you can get your stuff on the train within a reasonable time, there should be no problem in taking seemingly excessive amounts of luggage. I travelled through all of Germany with a large trolley case, a medium-sized rucksack, a fabric-shopping bag and a cardboard case that contained a PC monitor. I travelled to Sweden via Denmark with (this is the largest number of pieces of luggage I had) the same large trolley case, a sleeping bag, an air matress and the same rucksack as above. I also saw quite a few people travel to music (especially metal) festivals by train (myself included) with their tent, a camping chair, table and two crates of beer.

Usually, there will be enough space in the overhead racks to put luggage, since most travellers will not have that much. Occasionally, you may require reordering other people’s luggage. In that case, I found it beneficial to look around, ask a quick ‘Is this your’s? May I shift it so my stuff fits, too?’, generally met by ‘yes, go ahead’ gestures and/or answers. In some trains (anything that goes Hamburg–Copenhagen pops up to mind) there may be not as much space, so also spaces between back-to-back seats are also used.

If in any way possible, try to not have your luggage obstructing the aisles, vestibules or exits. Depending on the conductor’s mood, they may require you to remove luggage from there so evacuation is possible.

If the trains have a bicycle compartment and there are no bicycles travelling along, go there because there is a lot of free space there. Caution though: Bicycles typically get priority.

I have not yet come across a luggage car or any other way to store luggage away from oneself in the countries I mentioned except for historic trains operating only on special occasions.

Finally, in some special cases you may be required to only put light luggage in the overhead racks. One recent example I experienced was an Øresundståg from Växjö to Copenhagen: Crossing the Öresund bridge I was asked to take my (large and heavy) trolley case down from the rack so that it wouldn’t turn into a projectile in case of an emergency brake. (That was actually the reason given, yes.)

I have travelled by train in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, Liechtenstein, Spain, and Poland.

In some trains in some countries, there is plenty of space for luggage. An example of that are Crosscountry trains in the UK, which have a dedicated storage area in the middle of the train. I'm often on very full Crosscountry trains, and some people actually use the storage area to sit down when all seats are taken. I've never seen more than 25% of this dedicated storage space used for luggage.

The other extreme are the Spanish Elipsos Trenhotel sleeper trains, that used to run at night between France/Switzerland and Madrid/Barcelona (Trenhotel apparently still exists domestically, but I don't know if the material is the same). I had one large suitcase in a sleeper car, and I was told to put it on my bed. There was nowhere else to put it, it seems they assumed nobody ever has any luggage whatsoever. Finally we put it on the floor of the compartment after all had gone to bed.

Most trains are somewhere between those extremes. The bottom line is that the variation in availability of luggage storage is so vast that there is no simple answer to give for all trains. A 70 litre backpack is not too large and you should manage on any train, but if you travel with more than two large suitcases — say, anything for which you would use a luggage trolley on a station (where those exist) — you should find out for the specific trains you are taking whether you should expect trouble (which can range from having to sleep on top of your suitcases to being rejected onto the train). It's always possible to ship luggage, although of course this can be costly.

Regarding your ScotsRail journey or any other 'small train' journey (2 to 4 carriages, see below image of example) in the UK. There is no set rules re: luggage, just common sense.

The racks above seats are not big enough for medium - large pieces of luggage. If the train has space, you are allowed to put your luggage on another seat next to you. In the unlikely event of the train being full, then I would stand with your luggage either in the aisle or at either end of the train/vestibules.

If you have small items of luggage, please do not put it in the racks for larger items of luggage, since that forces people with larger items to block the aisles and vestibules. So, in the first instance, try and get your item of luggage in the overhead rack, before opting for the larger racks.