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SNCF--Delayed Train/App Functionality

I'd like to learn from an experience I had.

I had a trip yesterday, Angers-Nantes-Rennes, on one ticket. The incoming train to Angers was 30 minutes late, which would make me miss my connection in Nantes. I have the SNCF app, and it showed that, indeed, I'd be arriving in Nantes after my next train would be departing. It did not, however, offer any solutions, such as offering to move to a later train.

There was another train Angers-Nantes that left a few minutes later and would allow me to make the connection. I asked an agent if I could move to that train. She called someone, and came back and said no problem. I asked if I needed a new ticket (both the delayed train and the second one were TGV Inoui's, so reserved seating) and she said no, no new ticket needed, just sit anywhere.

I was not comfortable with this, as my French isn't good enough to have a discussion with a conductor checking my ticket that the agent back at the station said it would all be fine, so I just changed the ticket in the app for a small fee and went on my way. It turns out, I would have been fine, as tickets weren't checked.

Two questions...

Does the SNCF app not have the functionality to offer different options when it recognizes a connection is going to be missed? Or was I not navigating to the proper page?

And, is it standard operating procedure in this sort of situation to just let all passengers take a different train going to the same place, and tickets won't be checked?

Thank you!

Posted by
2492 posts

You should not have paid to change your ticket . As a general rule: Never, ever, ever pay something because the railways messed up.
So you should indeed just have gotten on the. next train, and asked the conductor to find a few seats for you.
The SNCF system does indeed not automatically put you on another train if you miss a connection. AFAIK no railway in Europe does this. Train travel is different from air travel. You do not buy tickets for a train, but for a route, and yes, in some countries these automatically come with reservations, but if you can't make your reserved train because of a delay you just take the next train. And what the next train is, you are supposed to find out for yourself.

Posted by
7837 posts

It is not standard procedure not to check tickets in that case- that was just what happened with that conductor on that day. With modern technology train staff can easily verify that your booked connection had been missed.

But otherwise you were too conservative. Having been told that you were OK you should have just trusted the information that you were given.

What I would always do in any country, when travelling by train (even the most routine journey, and even in Switzerland), is to have pre-planned an option B and maybe C. Therefore if a connection was missed (or a line blocked by some incident) I would not be suddenly looking for an alternative.

That can even work the other way, if a train is running early, and a theoretically impossible connection suddenly becomes possible.

And yes, understand the 'route' concept behind trains in Europe as explained above.

Posted by
6 posts

AFAIK it is possible (in the event if a late flight/train) to change a TGV ticket to the next available train on the same journey, but you might need to pay the difference between the two ticket prices. If you are using the TER regional trains, then any ticket is valid on all trains for that journey for that same day. I've almost always had my ticket checked on the TGV/TER trains.