Growing demand for train connections between European cities and countries

Summary:

if travelling on those routes with high increase in passengers you should book early -(and don't expect the really low discounted fares)

none of the trends driving this seem to be due to better or more reliable trains!

I'm not surprised by the rise in demand , having followed this in the general news for some time , I have always purchased train tickets in advance at the earliest possible moment , my nature being not to procrastinate about anything . My upcoming trip this October involves two long trips ( Paris to Munich and Munich to Vienna ) and I purchased the tickets late last month , when the six month window opened . Thanks for the information , Mark .

Good news ! Growing demand implies also increasing demand for night trains as to routes and frequency.

The shortest duration of night train ride I've done is ca. 8.5 hrs, the longest 11.5 or more, absolutely no problem doing either one.

Steven: I don't want to worry you but we currently have a thread running from someone else who bought Paris-Munich in advance and got a short notice email (the exact wording of which is not clear) saying the route was affected by engineering and the ticket may or may not be cancelled/altered/in need of alteration/unaffected. The trend of opening reservations before the plan is confirmed is getting out of hand!

Fred: night trains are not really getting any better because they need too much investment and don't deliver the profit margins.

The trend of opening reservations before the plan is confirmed is
getting out of hand!

Better than the trend of not opening reservations till the last moment, leaving travelers wondering if they will be able to travel.

A few good things to know:

• The moment you have a train ticket from A to B you have a contract. The railways cannot step back from that contract at their own discretion. So if you have a ticket from Paris to Munich then they will have to transport you from Paris to Munich. Railways cannot on their own initiative cancel a ticket.
• If you get an email that says "your train has been cancelled, you can get a full refund" they are trying to trick you in to cancelling yourself, because then they are off the hook. When you get this message you should reply "Ok. How are uou going to get me to my destination".

And a good thing to be aware of is the IRT/NRT border.

In Latin Europe (France, Italy. Spain...) long distance trains use IRT, "Integrated Reservation Ticketing". That means that a ticket always comes with a reservation. That also means that you can only get a ticket once the seat inventory is loaded, which leads to sometimes short booking horizones, as people wanting to travel to Florence at the end of July are currently finding out.
It also means that if you miss a connection due to a delay you need to have your ticket exchaged for a new one.

Germanic countries have NRT tickets. "Non Reseved Tickets". So a ticket is for a route (even if it has train binding) and reservations are handled separately. That is why you can buy a ticket without a reservation, or a reservation without a ticket. And why it sometimes is possible to buy tickets for a route, but not (yet) reservations. So ticket inventory and seat inventory are handled separately. You can run in to a situation where you can eg. buy a discounted ticket Wien - Salzburg but not reserve a seat because the seat inventory is not loaded yet.

One interesting way this manifests itself in, is in what you get when you book a trip.
When you book at trip from somewhere in Switzeland to somewhere in eg The Netherlands, with a route via Germany you will get one single ticket for the whole route. Even if the route involves 6 different trains.
Whereas when you book a ticket in Italy from eg. Sienna to Venice with a change of train in Firenze you will get one ticket for Sienna - Firenze, and another one for Firenze - Venice.

This leads to some complicates whe crossing the IRT/NRT border, eg. as happens when traveling from Paris to Munich. From Paris to the German border you have an IRT ticket, with included reservation. SNCF normally does not open reservations unless they are very certain the train will run. But the German railways will sell tickets if they know that there will be trains but reserve the right to change schedules.

Note: When you buy a train ticket that always comes with small print somewhere that says that you must check the schedule yourself before you set out, to see if anything has changed. This is not air travel. Trains do not have passenger manifests. It is still possible to buy a train ticket using cash without telling anyone who you are, so railways cannot reliable know who is actually going to be on their trains, nor do they actually care. In my youth we bought train tickets to far away destinations without even knowing the schedule.

So if you get a message from DB or OBB that your train has changed, just look up your trip again with the same departure time you originally intendend, and travel according to what you find there. In NRT country your ticket is for a route, so you do not need to have it exchanged if you end up taking other trains than planned.

@ me. crewe Thanks for your kind thoughts , I appreciate your consideration . @ Wengen K - Many thanks for your post , Everyone who travels by rail in Europe should make this required reading . I'm printing this out for friends and acquaintances who may contemplate a European trip , and the clarification of how the reservation system works is tremendously useful . Again , really great advice !

I love taking the trains in Europe. Dating back to the 80s when rain was the best choice for long distance travel within Europe. Air fares then were very high those days, now airfares are way cheaper.

I remember taking the overnight train from Madrid to Lisbon, it was great. I researched doing that again in the past few years and found it had been discontinued.

We love the high speed trains. We have taken the one from Paris to Lyon; also, Venice to Rome. Also, we did one from Tokyo to Kyoto in Japan and another in China.

We are looking at taking Amtrak from Chicago to Seattle with three days touring Glacier National Park in Montana. Also, we would get to see the countryside on the way.

@ me.crewe.....Governments are investing money on night trains, as evidenced by articles in travel mags and other publications in the last 5-7 years.

Yes, a government can pull out, regrettably that did happen, when France decided to withdraw from the Paris to Vienna night route. I am sure you followed this because at its inception the route was hailed as a convenient and favourable route.

That route was one that was quite suited for my way of traveling as to dep and arr times on both ends plus stops en route , ie in Strasbourg and Salzburg. No problem for me pulling in at 5 AM in either city. Abolishing that direct night option Paris Est to Wien Hbf did indeed put a damper on my summer traveling between France and Vienna. ( What now ?)

Night routes are part and parcel of my trips, 4 of them planned for this upcoming 9 week trip in a few weeks. I make it point to be informed as to the routes available, arr and dep times, cancellations, (so far, I've escaped that but have seen it in Vienna, that from Wien Hbf to Dortmund) and other need info.

We can thank the OeBB for taking up the slack and pursuing and expanding the night train network.