Travelling by train from Cologne airport to Boppard

This is a duplicate posting, you have also put one on the Transportation. Splitting your answers is rarely helpful, either to you or to observers. Both can easily be confused. Please consider removing either this post or the other before you start to get answers. Both Transportation and West are decent places for the question - probably West is better as your question is about Germany. Then we can answer. Thanks for posting.

Assuming (I know - never assume) that you remove the duplicate on Transportation, let me have a pop. Lee, our resident German rail expert and knower of all things German (ask him) but nothing about anything even an inch outside Germany will blow through soon I expect with the fully comprehensive answer. If I disagree with him, believe him. The reason ICE/IC trains are more expensive is that they are express trains which go very fast and make few stops. You can go slower and cheaper on regional trains, but if you want fast you have to pay. Even if the ICE is on slow tracks and goes as slowly as regional trains in places you still pay for using the ICE. As far as knowing which trains to use, go to the FAQs at the top of the Helpline menu, click on Planning your trip then click through to the Bahn. You will get all your answers there and we can help with specifics. Lee can also show you how to get much cheaper prices than you have. Don't use RailEurope or other third parties for checking train details. They often only paint a small part of the picture and don't always give as good a price as the national railway companies. The Bahn can give you the best picture of all trains throughout all Europe, not just Germany.

Thank you Nigel.
Looking at the time tables on the Bahn website - our flight is due in at Cologne airport at 9.25am, so realistically, the first train we'd be able to get will be around half 11. It will be our aim to get to Boppard as quickly as possible. There are three trains leaving between 11:25 and 11:50am. The first uses S/IC/MRB, the second uses ICE/IC/MRB. If I was to book an online standard fare ticket on either of those but was then to miss it because of delays, the following option is RE/MRB only - so would I be able to board that train with my ticket? Similarly, on the return trip we have a 3.30pm flight so will need to arrive at Cologne airport around 1.30pm. The two train options that depart within the right time frame are again MRB/RE only - if I were to book an online standard fare return ticket on one of those but were to miss that for whatever reason, the following option (the latest we could get to comfortably get to our flight on time) is MRB/IC/RE - so would I be able to board that train with my ticket? Hope that makes sense?! Many thanks

You can spend all those Euros if you want to, but it's so much cheaper to ride the regional trains, if a tad slower. 4 people would pay 30 Euros total for the ride from Bonn to Boppard on a "Rheinland-Pfalz" ticket. For Cologne to Bonn, a one-way fare is 6.80 each; buy tickets from a VRS ticket machine at the airport. No booking, no advance purchase, just get them when you're ready to leave CGN. http://www.vrminfo.de/en/tickets-and-fares/ticket-offers/rheinland-pfalz-ticket/ And if you should travel on Sat or Sun, purchase a "Schönes Wochenende" ticket for 39 Euros, good for the entire route and all of Germany on the same trains: http://www.bahn.com/i/view/DEU/en/prices/germany/happy_weekend_ticket.shtml

Thanks for your help Russ. We will be arriving on a Monday and leaving on a Saturday, so that's good to know.

Understand that if you use the Rheinland-Pfalz-Ticket, it is only valid on regional trains - S, RB, RE, and IRE - not on express trains - ICE, IC, EC. (MRB are actually RB, just run by a private operator, but Bahn tickets are still valid. RB is the slowest, milk-run train.) To find trains for which the RL-P-Ticket is valid, find the radio button for "local transport only" on the Bahn query page. Looks like the only local options from Köln/Bonn Flughafen to Köln are S-Bahn at 11:24 and 11:44. With a RL-P-Ticket, you could not use the ICE at 11:28. The departure at 11:51 is an RE direct to Koblenz (no change in Köln), but it gets to Koblenz too late for the 12:53 MRB to Boppard.

It might be a good idea to know which Monday we're talking about, because it looks like the schedules for 6/13 are different from the other Mondays in June. Monday, June 13 is a public holiday in Germany, Ascension Day. Maybe that is why the schedule is different. That VRS Preisstufe 4 (RegioTicket) is valid not only from the Köln Hbf to Bonn, but also from the airport to the Köln Hbf by S-Bahn or regional train, then to Bonn by regional train. It's also valid for the RE from the airport to Bonn, so if you buy the RegioTicket you can use it to Bonn, either on the direct RE or through Köln Hbf. The adult RegioTicket is €6,80, but for four people, you can get a 5 person Preisstufe 4 TagesTicket (day ticket) for €21,80.

Incidentally, I noticed you used "half 11" to mean 11:30. That's British. When the German say half 11 ( halb Elf), they mean 10:30 (half way to 11). (Just in case you are getting schedule information from a German, keep that in mind.)

Haha, thanks for the tip Lee - yes, just an English phrase! My mother is coming on the trip with us and her mother was German, so we should hopefully be ok on that count! We are flying to Cologne on Monday 20th June (arriving 9.25am) and departing on Saturday 25th June (3.35pm). Thank you for your advice. It seems that regional/local trains and buying the tickets at the station machines (rather than in advance online) is the best bet in terms of both price and flexibility. Essentially on that first day we want to get from A to B as quickly/easily as possible, and don't want to arrive in Boppard too late in the afternoon - but then I guess if we paid for the ICE/IC service there would still be no guarantee that we'd make the train in time if, for example, our flight experienced a delay!

I haven't bought a ticket at a counter in years. I find the automats easy to use. And, except for advance purchased non-refundable tickets, there is no price advantage. If you want to use the VRS Tagesticket and the RL-P-Ticket and have them when you arrive, to save time, there are online ticket stores for both VRS and the Bahn. That way you could just jump on the first regional train or S-Bahn that comes through. If you need help finding or using the ticket stores (they are in German) PM me. Another thing, most Bahnhofs on the Rhein are unmanned. When I was there in 2004, the Boppard station had a manned Reisezentrum, in the kiosk below the tracks, on Herrstrasse, but it wasn't open all day. I don't even know if it is still there. Bahn.de says it is there but doesn't give any hours for it. I'm sure you can buy the RL-P-Ticket from the automat (trackside) at the station in Boppard, but I'm not so sure about the VRS Tagesticket. You might want to get one for your return date when you get the outbound one. Otherwise you might have to get off in Bonn to buy it and catch the next train.