European train travel — a planning primer

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I just completed a two-week tour of central Europe (Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands, plus parts of France and Switzerland), starting and ending in Amsterdam, almost entirely by train.

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I built the trip around attending InnoTrans, the world’s largest railroad industry trade show, in Berlin. I traveled 57 individual segments (a single ride from one station to another) by train (in First Class), along with local transit, and the entirety of my transportation within Europe cost just over 600 Euros (about $672) — thanks in part to my purchase of a 15-day continuous Eurail Global Pass. Had I purchased a separate ticket for each segment, particularly at last-minute fares, my rail travel alone would have cost over 2,000 Euros. Here is some advice for planning a European rail trip, based on my experience:

Planning your trip

One of the main advantages of having a rail pass is the ability to change one’s plans last-minute. But if you plan to travel on popular routes or ones where reservations are required (including many high-speed rail services), you will need to make reservations at least a few days in advance.
Nearly every European railway (a listing of them and links to their websites is provided at the bottom of this post) has a website and a free smartphone app (both of which have easy-to-use English-language versions) that allows you to plan journeys and buy tickets (many of which can be simply displayed on a smartphone or printed at home or at your hotel or lodging). Even if you don’t actually buy a ticket, you can use the site or app to put in your origin, destination and desired departure time (remember to use 24-hour time and that the date format puts the day before the month), find which train schedules match your requirements, and make seat reservations without buying a full ticket (which you do if you have a rail pass). Some railways will even tell you which track at the station your train will depart and arrive on.

You can even specify other points you’d like to travel through en route from your specified origin to your destination. While European trains aren’t always 100 percent punctual, they are very rarely more than 15 minutes late, so don’t sweat a scheduled layover of less than a half hour at a connecting point. Generally, the shorter a train’s run, the less time will be provided for connections. Also, keep in mind that information on the reasons for a service change or track maintenance schedules on the railway’s website often is not provided in English.

If there are particular routes you wish to traverse, it will be very helpful to have a rail map handy. I can strongly recommend the products of British company European Rail Timetable Inc., the former publishers of the Thomas Cook European Rail Timetable. They have a great fold-out European Rail Map and an even more detailed European Rail Atlas in booklet format. These maps show distinctions between high-speed lines, conventional main lines and branch lines, between standard and narrow gauges, and highlight routes they deem to be scenic (though that doesn’t mean lines not marked as scenic are thoroughly uninteresting). The company’s European Rail Timetable, which is very comprehensive and updated monthly, is also useful for getting a sense of the frequency and pattern of service on particular lines, but information from railways’ websites and apps will be more up-to-date (last-minute service changes occur for a variety of reasons).

Finally, the Eurail Group (providers of multiple-country rail passes) has its own Rail Planner app with searchable schedule information and links for making reservations. Its main advantage is that it is available offline (using railways’ apps requires an active Internet connection), though information from the railways themselves is more up-to-date.

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