France Rail Pass - Schedules were not found...every single time :-(...until I figured things out

Hi,

When it reads no reservations,restrictions needed on TER trains, that means not only are they unnecessary, the TER trains don't accept reservations, which means you just hop on, and if it's full, you go to the next coach, or you stand. Every one else does the same. That's the good thing about TER trains, you can make your mind up to board in the last mins. Whether you get a seat is another story.

I've not used a French Rail Pass in 30 years. When I did, it was mainly for taking night trains from France to Germany. Now, I would not get that Pass at all. If you're taking the TGV, that's where you need to book a reservation, since it's mandatory for TGV trains. Unlike in Germany with passholders, there is a quota in France on many passholders can be accepted on a route at a certain departure. I've encountered that, not the end of the world, but here is where you need some flexibility in your schedule or routes. In that case, ask about the next departure or what about 2nd class or the next day.

Make any needed TGV reservations right away and don't worry about the other trips that don't require reservations.

@Carol...your advice to make TGV reservations "right away" was exactly what I did.

After buying the pass, I immediately began attempting to make reservations...for over 80 days from now. On May 3rd (yesterday) I was attempting to make a reservation for mid-July, end-of-July, and beginning-of-August...and could not get a single reservation. If 80+ days ahead is not "right away" then what is? (Update 5/5/2015: things worked much better when I used the Rick Steves rail reservation site, rather than www.raileurope-world.com site).

Update: 5/5/2015: again, there were apparently seats set aside for the pass: but they do not seem to work on: www.raileurope-world.com site.

****Update 5/4/2015
@Laura: many thanks for your post/reply, as I will give this another try with the links you provided...perhaps using the other web site link you provided will be a bit less frustrating?...I'll update again in a day or so (and if I'm successful, I'll definitely adjust my original wording on my post which is a bit harsh)
@Fred: Mucho thanks for your feedback too: maybe next time I'll look into the Eurail web site...

Raileurope-world is only for people who don't live in North America. If you do live in North American, then you can use http://ricksteves.raileurope.com/us/rail/point_to_point/triprequest.htm to book seat reservations.

If any of these train rides include connections, then break them into pieces and just request the reservation for the part that requires it. The shopping cart often can't handle connections, especially between different train types. For the most objective overview of schedules and reservation requirements, get your schedules first at How to Look Up Train Schedules and Routes Online. For instance, from Caen to Reims, you need only reserve the TGV from Paris Est station to Reims. Note that schedules allow time for a local taxi, bus, or subway connection from Paris St. Lazare to Paris Est.

Several of your other routes include connections, as well, although there are some direct TGVs from Colmar to Lyon.

Some trains that don't require reservations also don't offer them. Without a reservation, you do just board those trains and find any available seat.

Woody,
If the pass refundable, turn it in and buy point to point tickets. It sounds like you are butting up against the problem with rail passes in France which is that seats available for sale to pass holders are limited. I learned this the hard way in 2011 when I had to pay full fare for four on a train that was basically empty because there were no seats still available for pass holders. As you may know by now, the problem is that TER trains are regional trains and if you traveling between regions, you need either a TGV or an Intercites. Some Intercites are like TERs in that they do not require reservations so you should check to see if they are also like TERs for purposes of the pass. I don’t know the answer because I don’t use rail passes. If the pass is not refundable, then you need to look at the TER train schedules. One way to do is to put in your trip and see if there are any TER trains running the entire route. By way of example, the route from Dijon to Paris is generally serviced by high-speed trains that require reservations but there are a couple of TER trains per day that take about twice as long to make the trip. You can look at the schedules at www.sncf.com/en and then plan to take the TER trains if there are any running on for your particular destination. I doubt it for most but you might get lucky with Tours to Paris. Another choice is to go to the TER site Ter.sncf.com/en look at the regions and figure out how to move across the regions; you’ll need to find a map of TER routes. It is going to take a bit of work to map out the connections and the trips themselves will take a long time because it looks like all of your trips are between regions. I am surprised that all the seats allocated to rail passes are already sold out on all of your routes so you may want to try again in case you got some kind of bug in the system. Also, you can try different train times to see if there any seat still available at different times for rail pass holder. Good luck. I feel your pain.

I don't use Rail Europe to buy my rail Pass. Instead, I order it through Eurail, free shipping...never had to pay for it being shipped to my address. This year the Pass, (11 days in 2 months, 2nd class) arrived within a week of my placing the order on line. That was usually quick.

JHK, your interpretation of the problem is not correct. Pass holder seat reservations normally do not sell out more than two months ahead, even in France. If it were one month ahead, that might be possible for some train departures. The solution is as I described above.

Fred, a one-country France Pass is not a Eurail-brand pass and not sold at eurail.com. What you had was a larger pass for more countries. (Most US agents do offer free shipping and do send passes by UPS Air or FedEx, so they will be trackable.)

@ Laura, Pass holder seats are subject to quota. That is undeniable. If you read the entire post, you would also see that I said the following "I am surprised that all the seats allocated to rail passes are already sold out on all of your routes so you may want to try again in case you got some kind of bug in the system."

@ Laura......I've used a 10 day/2 months/ 2nd class Austria-Germany Pass bought on-line from Eurail, free shipping. No Pass quota applies in Germany and Austria, only going to France. For that I use a different train arrangement since the three country Select Pass has been abolished.

"I'll never do a train pass again"

I can only quote our regular poster Lee: The siren song of railpasses is so sweet, until you see the rocks.

Always go direct to the national rail company site when you can ...
France http://en.voyages-sncf.com/en/
Germany http://www.bahn.com/i/view/overseas/en/
Switzerland http://www.sbb.ch/en/home.html
Austria https://www.oebb.at/en/
Italy http://www.trenitalia.com/cms/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=4ddd1a035296f310VgnVCM1000005817f90aRCRD

If you can’t get a refund and have to use the rail pass then you can also use the DB Bahn web site to find the TERs that run between towns.

When you get to the search page http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/e after entering your start and finish destinations, scroll down to the third section from the top of the page ‘Connections’ and select either ‘only local transport’ or ‘All without ICE’ and remove the tick from the ‘prefer fast connections’, this will return only the TER trains – then make your choice from them.

Best of luck

I'll comment on lack of transparency: true, you don't know whether the quota for a particular TGV route has been met for a particular dep time and day. I agree it's pure chance. This quota thing is something I've run into too going from France to Germany or vice versa in summer travel, high season, on the popular Paris-Frankfurt route, and a last minute reservation ( the day before or two weeks before) a few times. What to do? First, to use that trite expression,,,not the end of the world. My Pass then was 1st class, no go there, ask what about 2nd class? That alternative got me a seat/reservation, this worked a few times. What about the next departure, in either 1st or 2nd class? Only once was there no alternative, since clerk at Gare de l'Est told me all the afternoon trains going to Germany on that Sunday (summer) in 2009 were booked up. I found that hard to believe, either she didn't understand or didn't know what she was going. Sometimes you get that feeling too but no use arguing when you're not using effectively their language. Last minute, it's possible so I took the TGV to Metz to spend the night, should have gone to Strasbourg on the TGV, then go by S-Bahn to Offenburg. Nowadays, I don't include France in a Pass.