Will I catch all my connections?

I looked at the schedule and this is an 11 hour slog. You leave at 6:43 am and arrive at 5:51 pm. You could fly on KLM with a connection in Amsterdam in about 6 hours for not too much.

I have done the Prague to Nuremberg part. The train was 45 minutes late arriving in Cheb, but they held the connecting train until everyone made the change. We did, of course, arrive 45 minutes late in Nuremberg. If we were continuing on to Frankfurt, they would have put us on the next ICE to Frankfurt. There is an ICE to Frankfurt at least ever hour and every 30 minutes morning and late afternoon. From Frankfurt to Luxembourg is about every hour as well, but you may have a bus connection involved. All in all, you will get there, but it might be late.

PS, never had any problem communicating in English with DB people at the station travel desks.

In October, travelling from Prague to Nuremberg, I had a 12 minute transfer in Cheb and easily made it, despite the departure from Prague being delayed ….. because …. the train waited in Cheb.

The station in Cheb is small, but not tiny. There are stairs to navigate down from your arrival platform and back up to your departure platform. You can get a good idea of the station from this picture:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheb_railway_station#/media/File:Train_Station_Cheb_2009-10-08.jpg

In the absence of a delay, 12 minutes was plenty of time, as long as I knew which platform to go to for my onward journey. I recall that the signage in the passageway between platforms was not great. The departure board, as I vaguely recall, was back towards the station. I latched on to an in-the-know traveler heading towards my same train and followed them to the departure platform.

More importantly, note the train in the foreground of the picture. Can you see how it is sitting significantly forward of the central boarding area, with the blue cover? That is EXACTLY how my onward connecting train was sitting when I arrived, forward of where you would expect to board. Had it not been for the other passengers from my train heading towards the same connection, I might not have seen that pulled-forward-train, or wandered confused long enough to have missed the connection.

Thanks for this. I am travelling by train because I like trains and it is better for the environment. But yes, it is a long day. and it does look as though I might as well count on not arriving when I told my nephew I might. The information about where to catch the train at Cheb is also really useful. It is little things like that, which make the trip easier.
Keep the info coming, please!

If you look on the DB website, it will show the arrival and departure tracks at the German stations, Nuremberg, Frankfurt, and Koblenz. Then you can get pdf's of the station plans to show you how far apart these are.

The date I am looking at show changing from track 16 to track 6 at Nuremberg, track 4 to track 18 at Frankfurt, and track 3 to track 8 at Koblenz. At least at Nuremberg and Frankfurt, these are pretty far apart, so you will have to hustle.

https://www.bahnhof.de/resource/blob/1022742/e5bd45c3bd9654dbd099a407e20b1c13/Nuernberg-Hbf_locationPdf-data.pdf
The note in German says that tracks 6-23 just continue in the same manner as tracks 1 to 5 shown on the plan.

https://www.bahnhof.de/resource/blob/1038882/60baa6e8ee9692d4abd7a742c0d3b129/Frankfurt-Main-Hbf_locationPdf-data.pdf

https://www.bahnhof.de/resource/blob/1032624/3a1de0ca5613c70b1725585842d816ff/Koblenz-Hbf_locationPdf-data.pdf

That's a long trip. Indeed, taking DB's IC bus from Prague should help.

My suggestion... I hope it's not imperative that you spend that final night you have planned for Prague in Prague. If you leave Prague in the afternoon the day prior to arrival in Luxembourg, you can be there around noon if you like. See sample plan that follows.

Day 1:

Lv Prague 13:35, Ar Nuremberg 17:10 (DB's IC bus.) Lv Nuremberg 18:00, Ar Frankfurt 20:04 OR...

Lv Prague 15:35, Ar Nuremberg 19:10 (DB's IC Bus.) Lv Nuremberg 20:00, Ar Frankfurt 22:04

Either way, you have only one stopover of 50 minutes this day. That ought to cover a delay.

There are numerous hotels in all price ranges near Frankfurt Hbf station, and they're easy to walk to.

Day 2:

Lv Frankfurt 7:42, Ar Luxembourg 12:24 (only one layover in Koblenz of 55 minutes - plenty for the connection.)

I've just priced out the DB saver fare ticket for this route using March 10 13:35 departure from Prague. It's priced at €37.90. The fare covers all travel for both days.

To get the fare I entered a stopover of :30 minutes in Nuremberg and a second stopover of 11:00 hours in Frankfurt.

You can play around with the same strategies using your specific travel dates and travel times. Send me a PM or repost if you need additional help.

If you find it difficult to come up with a fare, try TRIER as your end destination (regional trains from Trier to Luxembourg can be ticketed cheaply and are abundant.)

Single ticket och multiple tickets? On a single ticket there is nothing to worry about as you would be able to take a later train if you miss a connection.

Cheb and Koblenz are not big stations. But 8 minutes in Frankfurt is a bit tight (but still doable) if its Hbf, if it's Süd or Flughafen I wouldn't worry.

Thanks to all who have replied so far. I am not in Prague for very long so am reluctant to leave a day earlier but I do think I can do it with one ticket, so if I do miss a connection, I guess I just get in later.. Taking the bus for part of the journey does save me from possibly missing a connection but does seem to take longer if I am going to Nurnberg where I would just miss the train to Frankfurt. I only have the evening in Luxembourg to see my nephew so I want as much of it as possible.
And I don't see any other place where the bus would help me unless I took it the whole way and I don't like buses very much at all.
May I also say how much I like the DB site? I can explore all sorts of options very easily including choosing longer transfer times.

The Czech site offers me Praha to Dresden to Mainz to Koblenz then I can get a train from Koblenz to Luxembourg & the only tight connection there is at Mainz where I would be switching from Platform 2a to 3a but I would only have 5 minutes to do so or again, get in much later than I would like to. But I have a long time for my other connections and it appears that 2a & 3a are on the same platform.

Obviously, with such tight connections, you'll need very portable and light luggage. Have luggage in hand and be standing by the door when the train pulls into the station. Know what track# you are arriving on. Know what track# from which your departure train leaves.
It usually all works! Good luck and safe travels!

You can look at the route via Dresden at www.bahn.com by specifying Dresden as a stopover. That shows a 12 hr and 58 min itinerary with the 5 minute connection at Mainz. If you then specify a minimum 15 minute connection time, you can see that instead of waiting 1 hr and 27 min in Dresden for the direct Dresden-Mainz ICE, you can take an earlier IC train to Leipzig, then an ICE to Frankfurt, then a regional train to Mainz that will allow a 31 minute connection time in Mainz. Every connection on this route is 24 minutes or longer.

Sam, I am not pulling up that trip at all. Do you remember where you said you wanted to go to? I put in Prague to Luxembourg with a change in Dresden but it then doesn't go through Mainz at all.