Help with Austria Itinerary & train schedule

Posted by Fred (Cleveland, Ohio) on 04/26/09 12:21 AM

We can use help & advice.

We've booked flights to/from Zurich 16-29 July. The inspiration is our son who will be in the AIMS festival (American Institute of Musical Studies). We'd appreciate a sanity check on our tentative plans.

On the OBB train schedule when I ask for routing in July, I get the schedule for today. What is the difference between Euro Railways and OBB? We are thinking of an Austria-Switzerland 1st Class Saver Pass.

*** Fri 17 -- arrive ZRH 08:50 on a "redeye" flight
dep 09:20 Zürich Flughafen S S2 (S-Bahn) ==> Zürich HB

dep 09:40 Zürich HB OEC 163 ==> Innsbruck Hbf
Apparently this follows the Arlberg Route
(If we miss the 9.20, the next I see is 1 hour later with 3 changes. The Euro Railways schedule shows a 13:40 train from Zurich Hb with no connections)

17 - 18 Youth Hostel Nikolaus Glockenhaus, Innsbruck
(We considered places in Hall or in small towns nearby but chickened out since we'll be arriving very tired.)

*** 19th EC train Innsbruck Hbf 9.30 ==> Wein Westbf 14.24
19-20 Hostel Ruthensteiner, Vienna

21st EC train Wein Sudbahnhof ==> Graz Hbf
21-25 considering Privatpension Stampfl this is 7 km (30 min via 2-busses) from city center.

We could use suggestions for side trips from Graz. Our son will likely have a day or two off after a 23 July concert. Should we use a train pass for a day trip.

*** 26th -- EC 316 dep 11.38 ==> Hallstatt arr 14.32 via Stainach-Irdning

Sun-Mon 26-27 Hallstat -- stay at Helga Lenz Zimmer

Tue 28 Jul Hallstatt ==> Zurich
OBB shows a 9 hour trip with 2 or 3 changes and warnings of delays. (8.27 and 10.32 departures show 7 changes!)

Tue 28 considering Olympia Hotel Zurich or Ibis Zurich Messe-Airport

Wed 29 Leave for home via 10:35 flight

Posted by Alex

Boulder, CO

04/26/09 02:55 PM

30 posts

Have you looked at the Deutsche Bahn website? They show multiple schedules, including connections with buses, and you can search via departure time or arrival time.

With respect to your last day, with such a long trip to Zurich, make sure that your hotel will allow a late check-in. Always plan for delays when trying to make a specific time like for a flight. Once on an ICE from Frankfurt to Berlin I had a four hour delay due to problems with the track, and German trains are notoriously reliable. I'm not saying that delays are going to happen, just make sure you leave yourself some wiggle room - it's the only way to counteract Murphy's Law.

I don't have experience with trains within Switzerland, but the Austrian rail system is quite reliable. Use a day pass from Graz if it's economical (divide the price of your pass by the number of days to get the "daily rate," then research the local ticket prices and see which one is higher).

As to the difference between Euro Railways and OBB, I'm not entirely sure what you mean? Railpasses are good on trains down to the S-Bahn (i.e. not good for buses, metro/U-Bahn, trams). Each country has its own operator, and if it is a Eurail country, the operator honors your pass. The OBB is fine with a railpass. In general only special trains (such as tourist trains or sightseeing trains) will not honor a Eurailpass, and some trains will require a reservation (Deutche Bahn will tell you if a train has a compulsory seat reservation) most notably night trains, which will give you a discount with a Eurailpass but still require a reservation fee depending on the type of seat you want.

Also Deutsche Bahn will let you look at train schedules in the future, so you can see what it looks like on the exact day of your journey. As some trains do not run daily, this is extremely useful. (www.bahn.de, at the top of the page you can change the language to english)