France Rail Disruptions (Paris - Colmar)

Jay, I saw some promising news this weekend, that two of the four unions that had called for the strikes have come to agreement with the government. So let's hope that this strike fizzles out like the one in November !!

Jay, this happened to us in 2019 when the national rail strike happened. It started the day we had tickets to go to Colmar from Paris. We went to the station with our luggage as some trains were running.

As it happened, no trains were going to Colmar. I will say though, we got almost instantaneous refunds from SNCF.

We investigated taking a bus, but as we were only going for two days, it was a very long bus ride; not direct. If I remember correctly, it was something like 6 or 8 hours.

Ride sharing and renting a car were prohibitively expensive, although I don’t remember exact numbers.

Good luck.

FlixBus.

I agree with Kim that with 2 of the 4 unions already satisfied with negotiations, that the strike, if it even happens, will not cause a lot of problems.

On the other hand, in November when a strike was announced and we had a flight to the US at stake, we changed our travel date by one day and stayed in a Paris hotel an extra day. It cost more to exchange for new train tickets and pay a hotel, but still less than missing our flight to the US. I found plenty to do on this extra Paris day.

If your wife were to need an alternative, the options are fairly miserable. The bus or car ride is long. A taxi would be extremely expensive.

Much appreciated.