This post is all about European train travel, and it's meant to help someone who might be considering taking some Eurotrains. I am not an expert (like this guy) but I did recently return from a trip where I took 13 trains over 7 days across 6 European countries. Back in 2015, I also did some train traveling between Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. Prior to my most recent trip, though, I had a lot of questions/concerns, especially about using the Eurail Pass.
Below is some information on the planning that went into THIS trip, some questions I had, and some answers I found along the way.
Planning Our Journey
Prior to my trip, I calculated how many train journeys my friend H. and I would each be taking and what the average cost of those trips would be if we bought regular 2nd class tickets for all of them. Then I looked at how much it would cost to get a Eurail pass (plus seat reservation fees) for those same trips.
For H. it turned out to be about $130 cheaper to buy the tickets individually (no pass), so that's what she ended up doing.
For me, my two estimates were really close at first... only a few dollars apart. But by the time we actually began booking our tickets (probably a bit later than we should have, but... live & learn) the price for my London-Paris leg had skyrocketed. The 7-Day Eurail pass was definitely the best option for me, now. So that is what I bought.
There are many different Eurail passes to choose from. Some give you more flexibility than others. Some give you just a few days of travel, others weeks or months. Prices vary depending on whether you want to travel 1st or 2nd class, and what age you are, and a few other factors.
One of the things you might hear about the Eurail Pass is that it allows you to board any train you want, whenever you want. But this isn't true everywhere. The London-Paris route requires a seat reservation. However, they only allot a certain number of seats that can be taken by Eurail passholders. So I ran into an issue where I couldn't take a train from London to Paris at the time I wanted, even though there were available tickets, because there weren't anymore available seats for passholders. So I had to take a much later train than I'd wanted.
Other routes have more flexibility. My London-Bath-London journey didn't require a seat reservation, so I was able to just board the train both ways -- and there were plenty of seats available.
On some of our other journeys, I got seat reservations, and was glad I did -- the trains ended up being pretty full and it was nice to have a seat to call my own.
There were one or two journeys, however, where I didn't have reservations and the train was kind of full. I was still able to board, though. Above the seats, a little light-up sign tells you if the seat is reserved, and for what leg of the journey. So if your train is going from Point A to Point G, but you're only going from Point A to Point D, and -- hey look! -- there's a seat that's reserved only from Point D to Point G -- that seat is as good as free as far as you're concerned. Sit down! (Unless there's an elderly person already parked there, in which case...)
If there are literally no seats to be found, you can stand -- there's usually space at the end of the cars or by the train doors.
Neither H. nor I were able to choose our specific seats on any of the trains when booking, though we were sometimes able to state a preference (window, aisle, etc.) Because we booked separately, there was no way to tell the system that we wanted seats together. I wasn't a big deal; mostly we were concerned about being in the same -- or adjacent -- train cars so we could stick together when making transfers and connections. As it turned out (and probably because we booked our tickets on the same day) we ended up being assigned seats in close proximity to one another on the majority of our journeys.
Ticket Inspectors
Ticket inspectors came by on about two-thirds of my train trips. On shorter journeys, sometimes no one ever checked our tickets. And only in Germany were we ever asked to show our passports as well as our tickets. (Between London and Paris I had to go through Passport Control while still at the station.)
The Rail Planner App
If you buy a Eurail Pass, you'll be prompted to download an app called Rail Planner. In the app, you can look up routes and get schedules and make plans, but you can NOT book seats or buy tickets with it. Nope, you have to buy seat reservations from an actual train ticket vendor -- I was able to do it on Eurail.com. I bought all my reservations in one transaction. Fees for the individual seat reservations ranged from $4.40 (Copenhagen to Vejle) to $33 (London to Paris).
After you've bought your seat reservations, go into the app and plug in the routes that correspond with your reservations. In the case of journeys where no reservation is needed, just plug in the details of that journey.
So let's say it's Tuesday, and you're planning to take a train from Point A to Point B. That morning (or anytime after midnight), go into the app...
It's also a good idea to print (or screencap) copies of your seat reservations. You probably won't need to show them unless someone makes a claim for your seat, but you will need them to know where to sit in the first place. Also, if your phone's signal ever drops, you won't have access to your info. in the app, so it's good to have screencaps or hard copies of your train numbers, times, etc.
What If You Miss Your Train -- Or Get On The Wrong One?
Both things happened to us, but in both situations we turned out fine. I doubt that outcome is typical, but here's what happened in our cases...
On one of our shorter journeys, we got a bit lost getting to the train station and the train we'd booked had already departed. Luckily, this was a route that had trains that ran several times an hour. H. asked someone how to exchange her ticket and was told she could just board the next available train -- she didn't need to exchange anything. With the Eurail Pass, I would've simply had to go into the app and change my time... but after hearing what they told H., I didn't even bother. And I don't think our tickets even got checked on that route that day.
If you wind up on the wrong platform and board the wrong train -- yeah, that can be a problem. Especially if the train's going in the opposite direction you want. With a Eurail Pass, you could simply get off at the next stop and catch the next train back -- if there is one that same day -- and reset your journey. What a hassle that would be though! Advice: always pay close attention to the lighted boards at the stations to find out which track/platform to wait at... there are often many platforms.
On one of our journeys, we had to take 3 trains and make 2 transfers. At one station, we'd gotten to the platform early, and then our train showed up. We double checked it was going to the city we wanted (yes) and then we got on. The train wasn't very crowded and I don't even remember if our tickets were checked or not. At some point along the way, an announcement came over the loudspeaker apologizing for this train being 45 minutes behind schedule. That's when it occurred to me... we hadn't gotten on the train we were supposed to have gotten on -- we had gotten on the very delayed earlier train.
Now, if this earlier train had been crowded and we'd had seat reservations, confusion might have ensued, but everything worked out. We ended up getting to our next city a little bit early, which made connecting to our next leg easier as well.
Other Stuff To Note
Some train stations, especially the ones in larger cities that also serve Metro lines, like Paddington Station and Gare du Nord, may require you to scan your ticket at a kiosk when going in and out of the platform area (just like you would do when going on or getting off the Metro.) My Eurail pass QR code often just made the kiosks beep angrily. The first time this happened, I stepped back and watched other people go through. Then I saw another person have the same issue. A human attendant came over, looked at their QR code, and then used their own badge to scan the person through. So from then on, whenever I couldn't get through kiosk with my pass, I just caught the eye of one of the attendants, gave them a pathetic look, showed them my QR code, and they let me through.
There was one city where there was NO attendant, and one of our tickets worked on the kiosk to enter and one of our tickets didn't. So -- what else could be done? -- we conga-lined, scanned the working ticket, and went through together. The kiosk sensed what we'd done and an alarm went off, but it only lasted a few seconds. We both had valid tickets so we weren't worried. I don't know why those kiosks were so cranky.
That's all I can think of at the moment, so I'm just going to stop here and leave this for now. If I think of more things later on, I'll add them.
If you have any questions/suggestions/corrections, drop a comment below!
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