Train Travel To/From Frankfurt through the Rhine Valley

With apologies to all, and especially Lee, I'm reposting part of his answer to a similar question from 3/10/09. None of my links are working properly, or at all...Hopefully, Lee himself will take time from his European vacation and do a much better job for you ;-) Remember, these are prices (and info) from 3 years ago: "As for tickets, it's pretty easy to buy a ticket from Frankfurt to Bacharach from an automat at the airport Regionalbahnhof. You can do it all with the S-Bahn to Mainz and a regional train to Bacharach. A ticket from RMV, the local transit district in Frankfurt, costs €10 pP; if there are just two of you, that's about the best you can do. You can get a ticket from St. Goar back to Bacharach (10 min) at the ticket automat in St. Goar for €3,10 pP. " Apologies, again. Darren, depending on your final destination on the Rhein, you're crossing länder boundaries; you'd have to purchase two 'passes' and that wouldn't be cost effective. I assume you want to cruise the Rhein for the day? Or something else?

On Weekends you can buy a Happy Weekend ticket for 40 euro that lets both of you ride all day long on the Regional trains. On Weekdays, you can buy a Quer Durch Deutschland ticket for 48 euro, and again, ride all the Regional trains that you like. You do need to wait until 09:00 to use this ticket. These tickets cover both of you all day long.

As Jo said, your best deals might be the regional passes for all of Germany, the €40 Schoenes-Wochenende-Ticket on weekend days or the Quer-durchs-Land-Ticket on workdays for €48 (€42 for the first person, €6 ea for extra person up to 5 people total). That really depends on from where in the RMV district you start. The equivalent of the Bayern-Ticket is the Rheinland-Pfalz-Ticket, which cost €25 for 2 people (21+4). Mainz is in RLP, but Frankfurt is not. For two people, RT from Frankfurt Hbf to Mainz, would be €25,70 for a Gruppentageskarte. That would give you unlimited travel on that route all day.

Thank you all for the info. I didn't realize that I would be crossing boundaries. My itinerary is not set so this information will be very helpful in planning. Thanks!

quoting Lee above: 'As Jo said, your best deals might be the regional passes for all of Germany, the €40 Schoenes-Wochenende-Ticket on weekend days or the Quer-durchs-Land-Ticket on workdays for €48 (€42 for the first person, €6 ea for extra person up to 5 people total)." I know about the regional tickets for one person at €21 each, but are there all-Germany passes? For example, if I want to travel in both Hesse and Rhineland-P in the same day, is there a day pass that allows that? Is there a webpage that explains all of the regional passes? Or national passes? As I plan my itinerary now, I'm worrying about transiting from one state to another in a single day and incurring penalties. Help with a URL so I can research my answer appreciated!

The Deutsche Bahn website offers all of the information you are looking for. www.bahn.de As I wrote, and you also quoted, those Happy Weekend tickets and Quer Durch Deutschland tickets are for ALL of Germany and are not land (laender/state, such as Hessen, Bavaria, etc.) specific. For your trip on the Rhine from Frankfurt, one of these will be your best and cheapest option. Just stay on the Regional trains. http://www.bahn.de/i/view/GBR/en/prices/germany/quer-durchs-land-ticket.shtml The only time these would NOT be a good bargain, is if you were traveling just in Hessen in an area covered by the Hessen ticket or if you were just traveling in an area covered by the local train system in Frankfurt. www.rmv.de The Search function on this Helpline works pretty good too, so if you do a Search for any of this information, you will come upon dozens of posts.

Thank you for the clarification, as I had found the phrase "the regional passes for all of Germany" quite confusing, not knowing whether it referred to individual regions or a country-wide pass. Now, if I understand correctly, "Regional" above refers to the type of train service (ie, not express), not to the geographic boundaries, which would be called lands or states. Thank you.

Hi - I notice you recommend the weekend passes as great for groups or multiple parties but what about an individual traveling these same routes? Which ticket is best?
Thanks

"Hi - I notice you recommend the weekend passes as great for groups or multiple parties but what about an individual traveling these same routes? Which ticket is best?" The 40-€ Happy Weekend ticket can be used by one person throughout Germany. By "these same routes", if you mean a daytrip to the Middle Rhine Valley, then it would be cheaper to get a "Rheinland-Pfalz ticket" (21€) which gets you from Mainz north and back PLUS a VRM Tagesticket for the Frankfurt - Mainz part (14.25 € for one from Frankfurt, 8€ from Frankfurt airport) which the R-P ticket does not cover. Buy both from a ticket machine at either the Frankfurt or FRA station.

We stayed in Mainz last September and four of us traveled with the Rheinland-Pfalz ticket for a day along the Rhine. We made stops in 4 towns. We found that the ticket agents at the train stations were very helpful and often there was someone helping at the ticket machines. Be sure to visit the Marksburg Castle.