Luggage storage at Train Stations

It depends. The larger the station the more likely there is to be luggage storage. At the central station in large cities, almost certainly. At some whistle-stop in the country, almost certainly not.

If you post which towns/stations you plan to use I'm sure someone can supply the specifics.

Sometimes there is a left-luggage counter instead.

You other solution is to leave your luggage at the hotel if it is convenient to the rail station. Every hotel we have ever used has a luggage storage area just for that reason. Generally the areas are not well secured -- just a closet or in a corner. But we have never had any problems with theft. We have left luggage dozens of times over the years with no problems.

Usually there is.

I have some maps of German stations with lockers and left-luggage counters noted. Can you give me the specific stations where you want to leave it?

If one of those stations is Munich, they have whole rooms full of lockers and also a check room.

I agree with Lee - the Munich station is wonderful. I've left bags there for over a month with no problems.

Never ever had a problem with the hotel holding bags either though, really. =) - Just bases my decision (train or hotel) on which was more convenient.

Stations in Germany that I know from personal experience have luggage lockers:

Köln
Ulm
Karlsruhe
Munich
Fuessen
Donauwörth
Nürnberg
Bamberg
Bad Mergentheim
Passau
Prien a Chiemsee

Those I know of that don't:

Schongau
Harburg
Dinkelsbühl
Weikersheim.

It is actually relatively easy to find out for pretty much all German train stations even though DB's bahnhof.de website is only in German:

1) go to this page: click
2) enter the name of the station in the search field labeled "Bahnhofsname" and click "starten"
3) click the appropriate link under "Ergebnisse" (if your input was unambiguous there should be only one link)
4) look in the table at the "Gepäckaufbewahrung" row, the icon is a suitcase with a key: "Ja" means "yes" and "Nein" means "no".

I might add that to use the link Mark provided, you must provide the correct spelling (i.e., umlauts) of the station name, like München, not Munich, Munchen, or even Muenchen. Same with Nürnberg, Würzburg, Düsseldorf, Göttingen, Füssen, etc.

Unfortunately, that webpage only says if there is a Gepäckaufbewahrung, but I think they mean someplace to put you luggage, not necessarily a check room (?). For instance, they show a Gepäckaufbewahrung at the station at Füssen; I'm not aware of one, but there is a bank of lockers (Schließfächer). Also, there are no station layouts on that page to show you where the check room or lockers are.

Another source, for Bavaria, is on the website of BEG (Bayerischen Eisenbahngesellschaft), www.bayern-takt.de This page has links to every Bahn station in Bavaria. Use the pull-down list. This site will give you a diagram of the station, a list of services, several pictures of the station building and platforms, and a Google map of the location. Unfortunately, although the list says if there are lockers, a check room is not on the list. You have to physically look for Gepäckaufbewahrung on the layout.

Lastly, I have layouts of a few stations on my website, here.

These layouts are a few years old. They came on the schedule CD from the Bahn. I have over 100. I'll try to add more in the future (anyone have suggestions?).