Rail travel pros,
Planning a weeklong summer trip in Germany starting in Frankfurt with stops along the line to Strasbourgh, France and ending in Zurich.
It looks like I would need to do the Eurail pass for multiple countries and if I wanted a reserved seat it would be additional.
Since I’ll only be making 5 seperate trips would it be better just to direct buy in advance?
Thanks in advance …
We have traveled by rail in Italy, Germany, Austria etc. on a Pass. This was in 2016 so things may have changed. As far as the cost decision between the Pass and individual tickets you can probably do the math fairly easily. Paying for the seat reservations was worth it for us as seniors.
If you are willing to pay for it we found First class to a good choice. The seats are better, there is more space for bags and ( at the risk of being non-PC) the atmosphere was more enjoyable.
Another note of advice: sometimes the connection times can be rather tight and there can a long walk between platforms in the larger stations.
Have a great trip!
I also can’t tell you which might be better, a pass or individual tickets.
I will echo bedell’s suggestions. It may cost a small amount more, but business class tickets were worth the extra couple of dollars. Having a place for luggage was a big issue.
A friend and I traveled around Germany in 2009 on a Eurail pass. It was good for four days of unlimited travel. The conductor signs off on each day that you travel but no one signed on one day so we had a free day of travel. You buy it in Canada or the States and it must be validated at any station ticket office. For five trips, I would do it rather than individual tickets. You will need to pay a supplement for a seat reservation but that’s not much. Also first class travel can be reasonable- I needed a train from Berlin to Amsterdam. The train I wanted was full in second class. A first class ticket was only 5 Euros more than a second class ticket. it was worth it.
I would say Nein to a Eurail or Getman Ral Pass. For such short journeys, just use the DB Navigator app. Some of thise journeys might be on RE trains, some on IC or ICE. First class on the latter is very nice. In summer and definitely on weekends, trains are crowded because of special passes.
Thanks for the advice and the tip on the DB Navigator App. The better half would probably appreciate the better seats.
It looks like I can at least buy the SCNF side of things on the DB App .
Much appreciated
Robert
You are most welcome. You can probably get Swiss bookings, too.
Covers most of Western Europe (they should know the pecularities of each national system and you can ask questions interactively…they used to have a US based phone for questions but I have not dug into the website). Agree that unless your a college student wanting to really push the envelope, the individual tickets are better. I believe inidividual tickets are also changeable but you have to ask how that works:
Hi,
Did your rail travel work out ok?
Didn’t know I could buy SNCF tix on DB. I’ll have to make a note of that. Thanks for the tip!
For the topic starter, I have found that if you can plan your trains months in advance buying them individually is cheaper. If you’re like me who just wants to wing it when I get there, a pass is better than buying individual last minute tix. Like our airlines last minute tix can get pricey.
DB and other operators’ trains in Germany are crowded (RE and RB) and there are construction and equipment problems. This is especially true in summer. I haven’t bought passes in years.
So true. I’ve recently watched a few German allegedly high speed cab rides on YouTube and there are numerous complete stops for red signals all over the place. Shades of Amtrak!
NO railroad can guarantee that trains will get CLEAR signals at every signal they see - unless the line only operates one train at a time.
It’s a change for DB in recent years. While your CSX might have frequent halts, this was relatively rare even in the past on the much denser, more heavily trafficked DB trunk lines.
Even in the 1970s, DB was known for computer-generating and -monitoring passenger network traffic (e.g. ‘Netz B’) to minimize delays and optimize schedule-keeping. I was told that the programmers were so thorough that they accidentally programmed an accident into one of the schedules if a certain train was delayed in a certain way.
So I can understand why frequent unanticipated delays might be seen as unusual to some of us curmudgeons.
The infrastructure of the German railroads has been run down for far too long, actually since the attempt to privatize DB in the 1990s.
Now this has resulted in many construction sites, from track systems and overhead lines to signal box renewals, which are hampering train services and causing more and more delays.
And it’s only just beginning. In the time frame from 2024 to 2030, Deutsche Bahn wants to completely renovate track systems on the high-speed network at 40 construction sites with a total of 4000 km (approx. 2500 miles). The 40 sections will be completely closed with train detour or bus replacement services.
But things won’t get any better in the next few years.
Mix stolen signal cables, control center and signal faults, people on the track with all the construction work and you get, to put it mildly, unsatisfactory punctuality
Yes but this was delay after delay after delay.
Besides I rarely see delays on the French cab rides.
Italy is some delays but not much.
From DB’s own website 1H 2024.
Punctuality (whole journey) (DB Long-Distance)
66.8
May be better than Amtrak but it’s among the worst of the major world carriers.
“There is also a shortage of new track. In countries with efficient train systems such as Japan, Switzerland and the Netherlands, where 90-99% of all trains arrive on time, high-speed trains usually have an exclusive line. In Germany, high-speed trains like the Intercity Express (ICE) share a track with regional and freight trains. Only a few routes are reserved specifically for the ICE.”
This is likely why there are delays. Why they run freights and tram like regional trains on the HSR is beyond my pay grade. Italy initially tried that on the Firenze Roma HSR but dropped it years ago as it made the fast runs unreliable.
When you compare punctuality statistics you should take different punctuality definitions into account.
For DB, a train is on time if it arrives at a station no later than 5:59 minutes according to the timetable, regardless of the distance.
Amtrak’s definition of punctuality is distance-dependent and starts at 10 minutes later at 0-250 miles.
See table for other distances, second table: https://www.bts.gov/content/amtrak-time-performance-trends-and-hours-delay-cause
Regional trains In Germany (RB and RE) are hardly “tram like”
Germany is a country with a high population density in which most land is privately owned. It is not easy and cheap to plan a new HSR route and buy the land, just ask California with their HSR project.
ICEs and regional trains as well as freight trains on one track are not the main problem. The top figure in the following link shows the punctuality of long-distance trains since 2012: https://images.t3n.de/news/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/20241001_Zugverkehr_TR.jpg?class=content
All passenger trains combined the on-time performance was 92% in 2010.
To combine ICE, freight and regional trains on track freight trains are short to run at high speed so they can fit in windows between ICE trains. They are stopped were needed for ICE trains. Most freight trains are run at night during the shutdown of ICE trains.
Regional trains can be as fast as 100 mph some up to 125 mph. Often there are run-through tracks for faster trains at station stops.
These make out just a small part of the delays.
PS: Here is excerpt of some of the events leading to delays in August 2001:
Here are a few examples of events that the railroad could not influence in the week from August 20 to 26: 85 unauthorized persons were on the tracks, resulting in
track or line closures and train delays of around 4500 minutes. There were also 18 accidents involving people with around 10,000 minutes of delay. The Decin - Dresden line had to be closed due to a landslide after a storm, which added around 6,300 minutes to the punctuality statistics. In Magdeburg, an official order meant that a building in danger of collapsing directly next to the railroad tracks
had to be demolished. The railroad therefore had to close its tracks - around
3,400 minutes at the expense of punctuality.
Source: https://www.presseportal.de/pm/31465/278004
