first and second class rail passes

"for Eurail"? Eurail is not a railroad. Eurail is a company set up to sell rail passes outside of Europe.

Eurail only sells multi-country passes in 2nd class to those under 26, but there are many single country passes, such as German Rail, available for anyone in 2nd class.

Eurail does not sell tickets so I don't really understand the question. The various national rail companies sell tickets to anyone, either online or at the counter, in both 1st and 2nd class. So, you don't have to buy 1st class tickets.

For conventional Eurail multi-country passes, you have to buy first class if you're over 26. But there are many other options depending on which countries you want to visit. Click on the "Railpasses" tab above for a good introduction and what you can buy through ETBD.

For more depth, go to the Man in Seat 61: www.seat61.com. He has exhaustive information on European rail.

Most importantly, determine if you need railpasses at all. For most tours, simply buying point-to-point second class tickets at the station is a cheaper option. So it's worth doing the research before committing more money than necessary to railpasses.

thanks for the information. I will do more research (thought I did lots already on eurail, rick steve railpasses and the bahn site). I did find that I could look for single destination tickets on the eurail site. We are travelling from Prague (have to get a ticket to the Austrian border) to Austria, then Switzerland, Germany, France, Belgium and Netherlands. So thought a 5 country select pass would be the way to go. If you have to pay first class it definately is, but if second class is available it might be cheaper to buy singles. I also saw that they sometimes make passholders pay more for reservations etc. Thanks again.

When you say "Eurail site" did you mean the RailEurope site? While there is a Eurail site, point-to-point tickets are sold on the RailEurope site. However, they are more expensive than booking on national rail sites or at a station ticket window.

If a train requires a reservation, passholders MUST buy one. If more than one leg of a route requires a reservation, passholders must buy a one for each leg. Passholders must pay a supplement on night trains, the cost of which depends upon what kind of sleeping accommodations one chooses. Some trains (Thalys, for example) have a special passholder fare which is more costly than a simple reservation. While simple reservations usually cost 3-4 euro, fast EuroStar Italia trains in Italy charge passholders a 15 euro reservation fee.

Summary: point-to-point tickets are often cheaper than a railpass--unless you buy them from RailEurope.

Jacqui, just to clarify one of your questions: 2nd class is available on every single train and tickets for it are sold to anybody. Most trains (not all local ones though) also offer 1st class carriages and even the under-26 years old could buy those. "Eurail" is not at all known to Europeans. As mentioned by an above poster it's just a virtual name.

so its probably better just to wait and buy the 2nd class tickets at each station, rather than trying to buy online? Yes it is the Rail Europe website.
thanks again to all who responded.

For long distances in Germany, you can get better deals, such as the Dauer-Spezial or SparPreis fares, by buying in advance online at http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en. Same might be true from French Rail, SNCF. In Italy, if you buy no later than the night before you can save 20% with the Amica fare.