Train from Frankfurt airport to Bacharach and back?

Can we purchase round trip tickets to return on Wed morning?

yes.

Do you need to specify what time you are returning?

yes

Are there direct trains to Bacharach or do we need to change trains at some point?

when you search the times towards purchasing your ticket
Frankfurt to Bacharach at
https://www.bahn.com/en/view/index.shtml
it will show you options

That's a much discussed topic on the RS forum. For comprensive info look up this thread

S-Bahns neither offer nor accept reservations.

I don't see why you would need to specify which train you want to travel on. It is not far enough to get an advance purchase Sparpreis ticket.

Frankfurt airport to Bacharach and back is a local transport ticket. Price is always the same, so no need for a round trip ticket, just buy when you want to travel. The local network is the RMV, acronym for Rhein Main Verkehrsverbund (if you care to know). Tickets can be bought out of vending machines. Cost is 11.95 EUR per person each way, 2nd class, which is fine.

There are direct trains every 2 hours. In between, requires a single connection, either at Ingolheim or Mainz.

Route planner at: https://www.rmv.de/en/

DAY 1

• Yes, use the Regionalbahnhof station at FRA.

• Buy one-way RMV tickets from the FRA ticket machines that Sam suggests on Day 1 (if you will travel only as far as Bacharach that day. If you are also going elsewhere, you need different or additional tickets.)

• Here's a photo of the ticket machines with the RMV logo.

• TRAINS: You can ride ANY of the regional trains between FRA and Bingen with this ticket - S-bahn, RB, RE, MRB. You do not reserve these - you just get on. There's no point in reserving anyway because you can't pinpoint a time after a flight.

DAY 3
- You should buy the RMV group day ticket from a Bacharach ticket machine for the round trip (€34.50.) Only a day ticket allows for round trip travel, no extra charge. It is valid for the two of you to FRA and for the FOUR of you back to Bacharach. Again, if traveling elsewhere the same day, you might need a different ticketing strategy.

Most trains between FRA and Bacharach involve a change of train in Mainz. There are frequent trains. If you want a DIRECT train, then use the RE trains from FRA at 7:21, 9:24, 11:23, 13:23, 15:24... (Before, after and in between there are multiple journeys from FRA where you have a connection.)

The RMV website ticketing and scheduling pages will confuse you, and you don't need it. Use the DB page to find your train schedules:

http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en

When you search, be sure to check the "only local transport" box to find trains that will accept your RMV tickets.

Frankfurt(M) Flughafen Regionalbahnhof is the name of the station to enter for FRA airport. Just Bacharach for your destination.

Russ, maybe Becca will come back with a clarification, but from her posting I inferred that the round trip ticket they were asking about would be from FRA to Bacharach on Monday and back to FRA on Wednesday, not round trip on Wednesday. If that is what she meant, one-way tickets each day would be what she needs. The station in Bacharach is unmanned but it does have a ticket automat. If she doesn't want to learn to use the automat, she could get one-way tickets for each direction at the ticket counter in the Regionalbahnhof at the airport before starting.

Becca: I had understood - perhaps misunderstood - that you were returning on Wed to FRA to fetch your friends, then returning with them to Bacharach - hence the round trip suggestion for Day 3. If it's just one way on Day 3, then yeah, just buy the same one-way RMV ticket again.