Pompeii Train Station Clarification

Yes, the Pompei map is accurate. It's a fair hike between stations, or take a bus or taxi depending on your luggage. You are not visiting the ruins? You might check the distance between Circumvesuviana and FS stations in Pompei. You could also go Sorrento-Naples and train to Paestum from there, or Sorrento-Salerno by bus or boat, then Salerno-Paestum. Depends on when you go.

Yes, the Pompei map is accurate. It's a fair hike between stations, or take a bus or taxi depending on your luggage. You are not visiting the ruins? You might check the distance between Circumvesuviana and FS stations in Pompei. You could also go Sorrento-Naples and train to Paestum from there, or Sorrento-Salerno by bus or boat, then Salerno-Paestum, by bus or train. Depends on when you go.

Thanks for your help. On the advice of this forum, we are visiting the Pompeii ruins on a different day, which gives us plenty of time at each site. We are planning on getting to the platform early for the 7:38 Circumvesuviana, arriving in Pompeii at 8:08, and then connecting to the 9:01 train to Paestum, which arrives at 9:57. That gives us almost an hour to make the connection. Sorrento-Naples-Paestum seems like unnecessary backtracking to save a 30 minute walk or a 5 minute cab ride (it is about 2km between stations)? I did look into that and would still consider it, but it didn't seem llke it would be faster, even with the train station transfer. My understanding of the Salerno route is that we would have to take a bus to Amalfi, then another bus to Salerno, and then a train (or a bus?) to Paestum. In reverse, I have read that the SITA buses can sometimes be full, and that just seems like a lot of transfers. Regarding the ferry, I am aware that it exists in theory, but I was unable to find actual documentation of the schedules/transfers I needed. As this is our first trip to Europe, I am somewhat comforted by a definite train schedule and a single transfer. We are mostly concerned because our train to Paestum is the last one before 1:00 PM, so we would be out of luck if we missed it. :-/

Your map is correct. The Trenitalia station is about a mile or so from the Pompei Scavi stop. You are also correct that there is only one train to Paestum before the early afternoon. I tried fooling the system and getting you to Salerno where there might be more morning trains to Paestum but no luck. Trains to Salerno from Pompei are twice an hour but once there, it's either 9:23am or 13:23 out of Salerno for Paestum. After the 13:23 departure, there I see six other train runs to Paestum. For the return, there are 10 train runs from Pasestum to Salerno. Here's a link to show you what the typical return schedule looks like. http://gyazo.com/43a899a693547581988d9736822482ee

It does appear that there is a bus from Salerno to Paestum, so that might be a good back up plan. I can't remember where I read it (possibly here), but it sounds like the Paestum station is not much of a station and that you can't count on buying a return ticket there. We are going to buy our return ticket ahead of time for the 15:42 train, which I think will give us plenty of time to see the ruins, museum, eat lunch, etc.