I made reservations for two on the Deutsche Bahn EC train from Munich to Verona; numbered seats and the car were selected for me with the parameters I provided; first class, window, facing. I noted then to have a one time option of selecting other seats, if I so desire, although no seating charts were shown. Given this I purchased the tickets thinking that I'll check the seating and could select others. Well I cannot find seating charts for the EC type trains that travel this route.on the DB site. The website www.seat61 does not show examples for this route and a train related Czech website suggested is blocked as dangerous by my security. I've looked other places as well. Any suggestions from the DB traveling community?
Posted by
Green Bay
21153 posts
Sometimes, DB does not have complete control over the train make up. The EC trains are joint ventures with the neighboring country's railway.
The EC trains from Munich to Verona are actually operated by Trenord crews in Italy, and Trenord may be providing the rolling stock. I know this because friends tried to take it from Bolzano to Verona a couple years ago and were late, because Trenord went on strike that day and they had to take a series of local Trenitalia trains to get to Verona to meet us. I know they weren't lying, because later we drove to Malpensa to turn in the rental car. We wanted to take the Malpensa Express train (also operated by Trenord) back to Milan, but had to take the bus instead.
Another time, got on an EC train from Karlsruhe to Cologne that originated at Interlaken Ost and it had SBB livery. I was very thirsty, and the train was listed as having a restaurant car. But I walked up and down the train and could not find it. Finally a conductor (DB crew) asked if he could help me. "Yes, where is the bar car?" He replied, "They left it off. Typical Swiss." Germans never pass up a chance to get a dig in on the Swiss.
The moral is, the train probably will not be full and if you want to change seats, that shouldn't be a problem.
Posted by
OP
Centennial, Colorado, USA
112 posts
Sam ... Thanks for the great response. We'll just show up and see what happens since we have some form of reserved seats. Now I understand the issues and can roll with it. Doesn't seem like a big deal.