How to use the trains in Europe? (Germany-Austria-Czechia)

Are there passes we can buy for these trains for the entire trip, or
will we need to get tickets for each leg as we go?

There are passes, but single tickets might be a better idea.

Can you generally buy them in advance and are they open ended, or are
the times and dates set?

Yes you can buy them in advance. If the times and dates are set or flexible generally depends on how much you're paying for the tickets.

For travel within the cities, I assume is there a generally a card
that you can purchase to add fare money to use for hop on/ hop off
around town.

There usually is, but often there are short passes that give you unlimited travel for three days or a week or so. They can be a better option.

Are these going to be different in every city?

Yes, you can't use a Munich ticket in Vienna.

If you've not come across this site yet, the Man in Seat 61 is a very good primer on train travel in Europe -- https://www.seat61.com/

Badger, thank you for that information!

VAP, that is a great site, thank you! Is it kept pretty up to date?

Hi. As was said above, you can buy a pass, but almost never makes sense. Very easy to shop for and buy tix online. To get the idea, play around with options for your first trip. Since it involves two countries, you have 3 good options for purchase; they all have easy to use English versions:
bahn.de (Germany trains)
oebb.at (Austria trains)
trainline.com (3rd party site, covers most countries, very reliable and easy to use; may charge a $5 or so fee).
Just play around doing a pretend ticket purchase; enter from Munich (or Munchen) to Zell am See. Try different dates to see how fares vary depending on how far in advance you buy. Different fares will be offered with different terms (refundable, non-refundable, etc). Depending on your December dates, it may be too early to even see fares, but no problem, just play around with dates between now and then to get the idea.
Have a great trip!

Thanks for that information.

I just tried a few different sites to look for Munich to Zell Am See for tickets in late December. It will take more than one train. The websites were giving me errors. I went to the OBB Railjet site and it seems that they are not showing any train dates after 14 December.

Is it normal for them not to show dates before a certain time frame? Or do they cut off trains to certain locations at certain times of the years?

Thanks!

Train sites aren't always showing dates past 4+ months out. Just keeping checking weekly until your dates open up.

Safe travels.

14 December will be the bi-annual timetable change, so it will be a while yet before later dates are available. But you can plan on the basis of there being few if any significant timetable changes.

Ok, thanks to all!

For a trip in late December mark a date in your calendar in late October. That is when you normally can start booking for the winter timetable. You don't have to worry about trains "selling out". They don't. But booking in advance does give some nice discounts.

In Central Europe reservations are separate, so make sure to also reserve a seat when buying a ticket.

Good tip, thank you!

We were in Germany last month and used the German rail.
Our travels only concerned Bavaria and we did a Bayern Pass that was good for three days. Purchased on a Friday and good through the weekend. Very cheap, but we had to use regional trains. We had no seats for most of our travel due to crowds and two of our planned trains were cancelled.

We saved lots of money, but we had luggage and had to stand. We are in our late 70s and that got old. Also, we almost missed our connection with a tour group that we had booked for a river cruise due to the two cancelled trains.

If you want cheap. some passes you get what you pay for. Still, it worked out for us.

@geovagriffith
Was this a hop-on/hop-off sort of pass? How do we tell the difference between those regional, crowded trains, and something else?

Are there phone apps I should look into?

Yes!!!

Start with the three national rail companes for Germany https://int.bahn.de/en/ Austria https://www.oebb.at/en/ and the Checz Republic https://www.cd.cz/en/

Add the local transit app for each city. Here's Munich https://www.mvv-muenchen.de/en/index.html/

All of the apps I have used have a trip planner and the ability to purchase and store tickets.

For each trip I create a Folder on my iPhone for these apps. Also keep Google Translate in there as well. Once I leave a city or country I delete the app.

One other note about using apps. You don't have to validate apps in locations where you must validate paper tickets.

JKH, Thanks!

Was this a hop-on/hop-off sort of pass? How do we tell the difference between those regional, crowded trains, and something else?

The Bayern Pass is only good for regional trains and we didn't make reservations, but did our research on what trains were available and planned to use them. We paid about 39 euros for both of us for the entire period.

See.
Man in seat 61 website.

Our travels only concerned Bavaria and we did a Bayern Pass that was good for three days. Purchased on a Friday and good through the weekend.

We paid about 39 euros for both of us for the entire period.

Unfortunately, it's not quite that cheap. The Bayernticket is a day pass and the price of €39 is for one day for two people. Compared to the normal fare, it can still be a bargain.