How long should we allow to change trains in Hamburg and Münster (Westf)

Posted by RC (Nebraska ) on 05/31/25 09:11 PM

We are a family of 4 with Eurail passes and will be traveling through Germany in early July to get to The Netherlands. We are required to have seat reservations for the non-regional trains. I've heard the DB trains are frequently delayed or even canceled. Would the following times be enough time to change trains in either of these cities? (We will have carryon luggage only.)
Hamburg- :45 minutes
Münster- 1:12

Or based on the typical delays, do we need to add a buffer of multiple hours to change trains with DB? Any advice would be appreciated!

Posted by Eliz

05/31/25 09:48 PM

1 posts

I have traveled by train to/from both Munster (small college city) and Hamburg. You should be just fine with the amount of time that you have set aside. Enjoy your travels. Germany is a beautiful country!

Posted by Sam

Green Bay

06/01/25 12:11 AM

22267 posts

45 minutes in Hamburg and and 1 hour 12 minutes in Muenster is forever. You will be bored to tears waiting around for your connections.
No trains in Germany require seat reservations.

Posted by MarkK

Schwerin

06/01/25 12:26 AM

3864 posts

No planned maintenance with direct impact shown by Deutsche Bahn (DB).

Already with 20 minutes you shall be very comfortable at both stations. Website with station maps and info for per-orientation. Search by German name.

Posted by Russ

Paradise

06/01/25 12:42 AM

7412 posts

I've used railpasses for many years in the NL and in DE - including 2024 - and never have I seen an obligation to purchase reservations for any of my journeys. Yet the DB schedule is indeed showing a requirement for reservations on the routes you are contemplating! Please post the exact details of your intended journey (from/to/date/times) for review.

Posted by RC OP

Nebraska

06/01/25 02:05 AM

4 posts

Thank you everyone for your responses. We will be departing Kolding, Denmark, the morning of July 9, 2025. The goal would be to reach Amsterdam around 18:00, with as few connections as possible (yet not cutting the connections so short that we might miss a train). There are several different options.

8:15 depart Kolding EC 391
11:01 arrive Hamburg Hbf
11:46 depart Hamburg Hbf ICE 611
14:00 arrive Münster
15:12 depart Münster (Westf) IC 144
17:59 arrive Amsterdam Centraal

The following itinerary cuts 2 hours off the travel time, which would be nice. However, I worry 8 minutes is not enough time to change trains in Hannover. The train arrives in Hannover on platform #4 and we would have to get to platform #12...

10:15 depart Kolding EC393
13:02 arrive Hamburg
13:24 depart Hamburg ICE 579
14:38 arrive Hannover
14:46 depart Hannover IC142
19:59 arrive Amsterdam Centraal

Any suggestions?

Posted by Russ

Paradise

06/01/25 04:45 AM

7412 posts

There is a routing to A'dam Centraal as follows using the first two trains (EC 391, ICE 611) that you had in mind...

EC 391: Lv kolding (8:15) > Hamburg (45 min. layover)

ICE 611: > Osnabrück (39 min. layover)

RB 61: > Hengelo (28 min. layover)

IC 1758: > Utrecht (7 min. layover)

IC 2758: > A'dam Centraal arrive 17:56

NO, the joy here is not in arriving 3 minutes earlier, heh.

No reservations are called for on any of the trains from Hamburg onward.
More changes of train, but layovers in Germany are ample and the short one in Utrecht is between NL trains, not German ones.

Posted by geovagriffith

06/02/25 11:06 AM

8923 posts

We used regional rail to visit Bavaria last Summer prior to our Danube river cruise. Every train we planned to take was late, some a few minutes, some half an hour. Also, we had two trains cancelled and we almost missed our pickup point for the river cruise.