Milan to Rome Train Tickets

It's not a big deal; it will just cost more than the advance purchase tickets. Highly unlikely that the 4:00 train will be sold out, but the trains run to Rome very frequently. Just buy a ticket for the first train leaving once you get to the station.

My question is should we purchase train tickets from Milan Central to Rome Termini in advance?

No, if a route routinely sold out railway companies would add more cars and trains. Check now on trenitalia.com and italotreno.it/en : how many high speed trains running in the next 8 hours from Milan to Rome are sold out? I've just made a search on trenitalia.com/tcom-en and there are only 3 sold out Frecciarossa, the trains that make no intermediate stops and that depart to Rome before 11 am: in short, the fastest ones used mostly by businessmen.

At 4 pm you have nothing to worry about, at the worst you'll have to take an Italotreno high speed train. Better than arriving at Milano Centrale at 2 pm and being forced to wait 2 hours for the train you have booked in advance.

tk,

Most of us on the forum do not recommend buying advance tickets to connect with an inbound flight. The train from Milan to Rome will be a high speed Freccia train, and the tickets for those are specific to train, date and departure time. If you miss the train you booked because your flight was late, it took more time to get through Passport control or whatever, you advance ticket is worthless and you'll have to buy another one anyway.

The easiest solution is simply to buy your tickets on the next train leaving for Rome when you arrive at MXP. You'll first take the Malpensa Express from the airport to Milano Centrale, and there's absolutely no reason to buy those in advance as the price is always the same and there are no reserved seats. One important point to mention. The ME is a Regionale train so you MUST validate your tickets prior to boarding the train, or risk hefty fines, which will be collected on the spot.

"The easiest solution is simply to buy your tickets on the next train leaving for Rome when you arrive at MXP."

Malpensa Aeroporto to Roma Termini. At Milano Centrale, which is all one one level, walk straight to the departure board using the train number to identify the correct platform.

Afternoon, there is a fast train operated by Trenitalia every 30 minutes, Italotreno less frequently. The Base fare for Trenitalia (walk-up price) is 95 EUR 2nd class. Super Economy fare (advance purchase nonrefundable) 30 days out is about 45 EUR. You decide if it is worth the risk to lose that 45 EUR if your flight is delayed, or if you want to hang around the station for a couple of hours to be on the safe side, or just spend the 95 and take the next available train.

Thank you for all the replies. Very helpful. One more question. There are 4 of us on the trip and, thanks to one of your replies, I didn't know that walk up prices were nearly double the advance purchase price. Someone said I could get a 45 Euro ticket from Milan to Rome but the walk up base price is 95. That's pretty significant when it's 4 of us. I might be better served to either buy advanced tickets for a late train, like 4 or 5PM, and just hang out in Milan for a couple hours. Or...should I look into a Eurail pass? On our trip we'll be going from Milan to Rome. Rome to Florence. Florence to a couple of towns in Tuscany. Florence to Vittorio Veneto, Vitttorio to Venice, then Vittorio back to Milan to fly home. With all of that train travel getting tickets at the last moment could add up. Should I buy a Eurail pass? Thanks for all the help.

Should you buy a Eurail pass? Probably not. With a Eurail pass you would still have to pay an extra reservation fee for any trip on a Freccia train. It's not as simple, anymore, as just hopping on the next available train with your pass. (Read about eurail passes on the Man in Seat 61 website)

And it's only your arrival day train trip that you need to be concerned about re: reserved tickets. You can reserve tickets in advance for any of your other train trips that will involve a Freccia train. And please note that regionale trains have only one price- there's no advantage to buying advance tickets and they don't have reserved seats.

Bottom line- YES, you likely will want to bite the bullet and pay the full fare for your arrival day trip ( unless you think possibly hanging around a train station for hours is worth the extra €180) , but you could still save money on your other high speed train trips by buying in advance.

tk,

The "walk up prices" are higher unless there happens to be a few Economy or Super Economy tickets left for a particular train. Tickets bought on day-of-travel are usually at Base Fare which is the highest price tier.

"Someone said I could get a 45 Euro ticket from Milan to Rome but the walk up base price is 95. That's pretty significant when it's 4 of us. I might be better served to either buy advanced tickets for a late train"

An advance purchase ticket will be less expensive, assuming you can get a discounted ticket. You could certainly buy a ticket for a later train and in all likelihood you'd be able to connect with that even if there are slight delays. However the disadvantage of that approach is that you'd have to wait around Milan in a jet-lagged state after a long international flight, knowing that you still have a wait of several hours until you get to your hotel in Rome. Jet lag affects everyone differently, but that's a scenario I try to avoid it at all possible.

"Or...should I look into a Eurail pass?"

That's not going to solve the problem either. Rail passes do not include the compulsory seat reservation fees on the high speed trains. The reservations must be purchased separately out-of-pocket. Even with a rail pass, if you miss the train that your reservation has listed on it, you'll be deemed to be travelling without a valid ticket and will probably be fined on the spot!

Regarding the other trips you'll be making, if you crunch the numbers you'll probably find that a rail pass will not be a cost effective choice. Several of the trips you'll be taking will be on high speed trains, and you'll need to buy seat reservations for each trip. The Rail Pass will work on the Regionale trains but you'll probably find that the per diem cost of the rail pass is higher than the Regionale tickets. The easiest and best method for travel on Regionale trains is to simply buy the tickets in Italy, either on the day of travel or on the previous day. You MUST be sure to validate them prior to boarding the train on the day of travel or you'll risk hefty fines which will be collected on the spot!

You could save some money with advance purchase tickets on the Rome to Florence trip, but you must be willing to commit to a specific train. You'll have to check the Trenitalia website on the other routes to determine what type of trains you'll be using.

The rail solutions to / from Vittorio Veneto appear to use a combination of Freccia and Regionale trains, with some of the trips being VERY long and involving multiple changes. One of the quickest and easiest trips from Firenze S.M. Novella to Vittorio Veneto is a departure at 10:30, arriving 13:57 (time 3H:27M, two changes at Venezia Mestre and Conegliano). The first segment of that trip is via Frecciarossa so again there will be compulsory seat reservations. You could buy that ticket in advance and save a few bucks. If you buy tickets for that trip onlline, the two Regionale tickets will be pre-validated.

One final point to note. Tickets for the express trains (Freccia, Intercity) will specify a Carrozza (Coach) No. and a Posti (seat) numbers and that's where you must sit on that particular train. It may also list Finestra (window) or Corridoio (aisle) seats.

Hope this helps.

Looking at the Italotreno schedule, they do have pretty frequent departures from Milano Centrale. Their walk up price is 86.90 EUR. Note that their Economy fare, about 45.90 EUR 30 days from now allows you to change the ticket up to 3 hours AFTER the original train departs. You have a 20% fee off what your original ticket cost, then you pay the price difference to the walk up fare. So even if you miss your train, the ticket retains 80% of its value for up to 3 hours.

I see that on week days, at least, there is a 3:15 pm non-stop that will get you to Rome in just over 3 hours, about 30 minutes quicker than trains that make a couple of stops along the way. If you land at noon, it will take almost 1 hour to get off the plane, go through immigration, get your luggage and walk to the train station, then almost 1 hour to get the train and arrive at Milano Centrale. So the next available Italo train is at 2:35 pm. The next one is one is the 3:15 pm, but because it is nonstop, it arrives at Rome Termini only 9 minutes after the earlier train. So that might be one worth looking at. If everything is close to schedule, you should make that one easily.

Many people prefer Italotreno over Trenitalia. Website: https://www.italotreno.it/en