Hello - I have two questions about train travel.
1). If I purchase the Bayern Ticket, am I risking not being able to find a seat on a particular train? Do they “fill up?”
2) Is it safe to store luggage in the train lockers at the train stations?
Thank you for your suggestions and feedback.
I'm no expert but the one trip I did in the past few years to the area we had no problems using the Bayern Ticket. I would think it would depend on exactly which route and time of day, time of year etc.
We left our luggage in lockers at a couple of stations in Germany and felt very safe doing so.
The ticket specifically requires you to wait until after 9 AM, to avoid commuter traffic in the morning. I have used that and similar tickets in other states, and never ran into problems on regional trains. Some Intercity trains can fill up at popular times (after a day at Oktoberfest) or the evening commuter crowd. But overall, it is a good deal, and it is the same trains as if you bought a ticket, so seat availability would be an issue either way.
The Bayern Ticket is the most visible day pass in Bavaria but not necessarily the best choice. A lot depends on your travel intentions.
The map of Bavaria just above shows certain sub-regions within Bavaria where the a day pass may cost less and the travel rules are different from the Bayern Ticket. The "Regio-Ticket Werdenfels" (red lines) for example permits travel prior to 9 am on weekdays, so for a Garmisch - Munich journey, it might be a better choice for early risers.
Local transit authorites (like the VGN in the Nuremberg region) sell day passes with different rules too. The VGN's "Tagesticket Plus" has no hours restrictions and actually becomes a 2-day pass on weekends. It's cheap too - and is a better choice for a Nuremberg > Rothenburg journey, for example.
Some journeys require no ticket at all - if you are staying in the right town or the right establishment. Local tourist offices often give you a free transit pass just because you stayed in their town.
So it's a good idea to share the details of your intended journeys here on this forum. There's often someone who knows a thing or two and can give you some tips.
Lockers: Not all stations have them.
Regional trains in Germany do not have reservations, so any time you buy a ticket, full fare or a Länder-Ticket, you do stand a chance of the train filling up, but in my 20 years of experience traveling by train in Germany, that is a very rare occasion.
Regional tickets and Länder-Tickets are open tickets, so if a particular train is full, you can catch the next one.
The one most notable instance I can remember of a train being full was an evening rush hour train coming out of Hanover. It was SRO coming out of Hanover, but as we got farther out of town, people got off, and there were seats available.
On another occasion, a train from Salzburg into Munich in 2012, when Bayern-Muenchen was playing in Munich for the European championship, I got on in Rosenheim and almost all of the seats were taken. I don't know if the train filled up or not. As we got closer to Munich, passengers had an S-Bahn option.
As Russ says, train station lockers are about a save as you can get, but not all stations have lockers any more.
Way back in 2014, I had to stand on the regional train from Munich to Salzburg due to a festival in a town somewhere half-way between the two cities. Once the crowds disembarked, there were plenty of seats. I didn’t find it to be a problem, but I was a young fellow with no mobility issues.
If you don't find an empty seat, you stand. No one is counting the number of passengers getting on regional trains so there is no such thing as a train filling up.
1.) It depends a lot on the direction and the time you are traveling. The morning rush hour is no concern because it is only valid after 9:00.
In the evening i would evade the trains that leave the bigger towns ( departures between 5:30 and 7:00 pm)
So if you stay for example in Munich and use it for a day trip you have nothing to fear.
2.) Used them often and have no bad experiences but please don't lose your key.
The regional trains (RB and RE) can be very full, depends on the routes, the time of day, and so on. Not only commuters take the train but also tons of school kids. If the train is packed, then you do what everyone is doing...you stand or sit on the stairs or sit on the floor, where the bikes are stored.
I always use train station lockers in Germany, be sure to have exact change, don't count on a change machine being available. The big cities may have one...not sure. Still possible.
