overnight train schedule not shown http://www.raileurope.com/?

thanks. I tried Bahn and it seems an un unfriendly site!

I am trying to search from Amsterdam to Brussels:

http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en?ld=212.119&seqnr=13&ident=33.03394119.1202328444&rt=1&application=CONNECTIONS&RemoveGlobalOptionGO_activeMapSlider&

I did not get any details - like price! Also how do I drill down more details on certain schedule like departing 7:56am?

I also tried https://www.thalys.com/ and it seems only allow me to look up round trip tickets?

is it correct that the night train runs slower?

I am searching from Paris to Gimmelwald:

http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en?ld=212.139&seqnr=4&ident=9h.029489139.1202329365&rt=1&rememberSortType=minDeparture&REQ0HafasScrollDir=1

Why day train only takes 7-8 hours while night train takes 12-13 hours?

There are trains to Lauterbrunnen in the evening from Paris but none are "sleepers". None are overnight. It's only a 6.5hr to 7.0hr. journey from Paris-Gare-de-Lyon to Lauterbrunnen via Basel or Bern. If your headed for Gimmelwald, you need to take a bus from the Lauterbrunnen train station to Stechelberg to pick up the gondola to Gimmelwald.

Also, I don't think that you would want to show up in Interlaken Ost train station or Lauterbrunnen in the middle of the night. It's certainly not dangerous. It's very quiet. Lauterbrunnen is even smaller and there is nothing open or anybody around late at night. Gimmelwald is the smallest yet. It's a village. You might wake up the cows arriving late at night.

Bahn.de is the website of DB German Rail. German rail has got no rights to sell tickets from the Netherlands to Belgium. Also the national rail companies of those countries don't send their fares and specials to DB just so they can upload them onto their servers. However, bahn.de still is one of the best web sources for European rail SCHEDULES. The national rail websites of the Netherlands and Belgium are responsible for showing you their various fares.

thanks all.
Larry - how can i tell if a train has sleeper?

can you take a look of the link and it seems there are some trains arriving around 7-8AM from Paris and it takes 12-13 hours!!

day train is 6-7 hours as you said. ??

where to find the cost info?
i found raileurope has the fair info. is it accurate?

I'll take a look. Note that RailEurope is a broker. It's a great site for finding runs and establishing a budget but they are more expensive. Back at you after I take a look.

I don't see any trains leaving Paris and arriving in Lauterbrunnen at 7am-8am. I do see a train leaving at 22:45 and taking 12hrs. 45min. You get to Lauterbrunnen at 10:55am. It's not that the trains are slow although you are on some regional trains that make every stop. The biggest issue is that you change trains 6 times. Plus, you have the bus ride to Stechelberg and the gondola ride up. The website warns that there are prolonged stops on this run. This doesn't mean the train stops. It means that you have long layover times until your next train. On this run, you do have a Paris-Karlsruhe night train for the first 6hrs and 20min. Not really worth it when you can take a day train and shave 50% of time off your train travel.

CLICK HERE to see the train schedules on the Swiss train site. www.sbb.ch. The first thing you see are all of the runs. Scroll down and you will see the itermediate stops for each run.

No, you're not missing anything--but RailEurope is. Their timetables are notoriously incomplete, particularly when there are several connections needed for a given route.

The best timetables for virtually all of Europe are at www.bahn.de. After you get summary timetables, click on "Details for all" to see the connecting points, if any.

For Paris-Lauterbrunnen, the night train leg is Paris-Karlsruhe.

What, specifically, do you find "unfriendly" about bahn.de? Go to the English version. Enter a departure point, an arrival point, a date within the next few few months, and a time of day. After you get summary timetables, click on "Details for all" to see the connecting points, if any. For even more detail, click on "Show intermediate stops" for any routes you wish.

After you click on "Details for all," the site will clearly indicate which leg, if any, of any route is a night train.

None of the legs on overnight routes for Paris-Gimmelwald is a night train.

To pick a different departure time after you've gotten summary timetables, click on "Earlier," "Later," or "Change."

RailEurope is the worst site for timetables. They are notoriously incomplete, particularly when a route includes several connections, and their fares are inflated.

(continued in next post)

You can book single (one-way) or return (roundtrip) tickets for Amsterdam-Brussels at www.thalys.com. However, taking an IC train is just as fast and a lot cheaper. Trains run every hour and no reservations are needed. See the Dutch railways site: www.ns.nl/pages/index.html. It's viewable in English.

No one can sleep with so many connections (even including WALK)! I thought the night train is to allow me to sleep on the train and ignore the connections (since it's be done automatically through dropping/adding train cars?)

What I searched was from Paris to Gimmelwald.

How about this train? Is it a sleeper? How can I tell if it's a sleeper?

Paris Est Sa, 10.05.08 dep 19:24 TGV 9219 TGV
Subject to compulsory reservation, Global price, Bar coach
Basel SNCF Sa, 10.05.08 arr 22:55

Basel SNCF Sa, 10.05.08 walk 10 min.

Basel SBB Sa, 10.05.08

Basel SBB Sa, 10.05.08 dep 23:05 8 IC 995 Intercity
Number of bicycles conveyed limited
Bern Sa, 10.05.08 arr 23:59 5

Bern Su, 11.05.08 dep 00:09 3 ICE 3395 Intercity-Express

Interlaken Ost Su, 11.05.08 arr 01:00 7

Interlaken Ost Su, 11.05.08 dep 06:00 R 135 Regionalzug
Number of bicycles conveyed limited

Tim - you pointed to me a few sites, is there a site that allows me to see all the schedules and cheapest rate?

I am also struggling with the sleeper train and couldn't tell if it's a night train. And why night train takes longer than day train.

None of the trains you listed on your detailed Paris-Interlaken route is a night train.

To see an example of a route with several connections, one leg of which is a night train, do a timetable search on the bahn.de site for Paris-Lauterbrunnen with a departure time of 21:00. CNL 261 and NZ 5595 are night trains. The sleeping accommodations are described in the Comments column.

A DIRECT night train will take longer than a DIRECT day train to go between two points if the day train is a high-speed train.

In theory, the RailEurope site will give you timetables and fares for multi-country routes, but I already told you how inadequate it is.

The bahn.de site will give you inter-country fares for direct routes that either begin or end in Germany and for multiple-leg routes so long as only one leg includes traveling outside of Germany.

(continued)

Otherwise, to get the best fare breakdown requires visitng the national rail sites of each country in which you'll be traveling and pricing each leg separately.

Or you can phone the bahn.de call center and talk to an agent who will give you a fare breakdown for travel outside as well as inside Germany.

There's no one site that will give you all routes and prices. National rail websites will not give prices (or possibly routes) unless the trip begins or ends in their territory. The route you've listed links together a fast French TGV train in the evening with several intercity, inter city expresses, and regional trains in Switzerland. It isn't a sleeper train; as Tim noted, there are no sleeper trains on this route. This run takes so long beacause of the hour....like taking public transit late at night. Sleeper trains are becoming more uncommon for these journeys, because people would rather spend less time on the newer fast trains that now criss-cross much of Europe. For this route, you will find prices and reservations available at the French national rail website (Paris-Interlaken) at http://www.voyages-sncf.com/daily/corporate/legalInformation/siteMap.htm(click on "Réservation billet train") or at the Swiss national railways at http://www.sbb.ch/en

First, on the 6.5hr - 7.0hr. train runs from Paris to Gimmelwald, there are no night trains. Please give up on the night train idea.

Second, on your schedule, you show an arrival in Interlaken Ost at 01:00am in the morning and a departure at 06:00am. So you're going to wait 5 hours in the train station to get the next train to Lauterbrunnen. Lauterbrunnen is under 15 miles away. You can walk there quicker. The reason that you are waiting 5 hours is that the train into Lauterbrunnen isn't running during those hours.

Third, why are you intent in arrving in Interlaken, Lauterbrunnen and Gimmelwald in the middle of the night? Unlike America, these towns and villages don't operate in the middle of the night.

Fourth, you can tell a night train by the bed icon in the comments section of the train schedule on the website

You might want to consider reshuffling your itinerary so that your stop before Lauterbrunnen is either (1) only a few hours or (2) an entire night train away. For instance, I think there is still a night train from Amsterdam. (I took it once.)

Paris doesn't satisfy that, but on the other hand makes a grand finale to any trip (or might fit into your itinerary in other ways).

You will certainly not find a night train to Lauterbrunnen. Trains to Lauterbrunnen originate only in other mountain towns or Interlaken Ost. The arrival "board for Interlaken Ost does not show any night train arriving there from midnight to noon. In fact, except for one ICE that originates in Frankfurt around 5:30 AM, the farthest any train travels to Interlaken in that time span is from Basel or Luzern, certainly not Amsterdam. So the best you could do is a night train from Paris to Basel, and I don't think they exist either. There is a night train to Karlsruhe (22:45-4:55), but then you have three more day trains to get to Lauterbrunnen.

Your itinerary:

Amsterdan -> Brussels -> Bruges -> Paris -> Gimmelwald -> Cinque Terre -> Rome -> Florence -> Venice -> Munich -> Bacharach (Rhine Riber Valley) -> Amsterdam

I would suggest

Paris -> Brussels -> Bruges -> Amsterdam

flying home from either Germany or Italy.

Or even this, if you can get a flight into Munich:

Munich -> Venice -> Florence -> Cinque Terre -> Rome-> Gimmelwald -> Bacharach (Rhine Riber Valley) -> Amsterdam -> Bruges -> Brussels -> Paris

You'll save a lot of time and probably some money if you don't zig-zag about so much.

If you purchase your Eurailpass from this site, RS's staff will help you with your plans. They found a night train for me from Paris to Rome that I couldn't find on any site.

I don't find the train sites particularly easy to understand, either.

Thanks a lot for all the help here while i am digging more through the train schedule. It's been really hectic while I am planning two separate trips to Africa (Feb/Mar) and Europe (May) all together.

I think my confusion comes from trying to mimic Rick's Best 22 day Europe. You can see his suggested routes here:
http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/destinations/europe/eur22.htm

Here are a few consideration we had:
1) Since we have 30 days, we wanted to add Bruges/Brussels. 2) The round trip ticket to Amsterdam is a better deal so we will also try to start/finish via Amsterdam. 3) we prefer to visit Paris in the beginning of the trip rather than the end

These result in the following routes I am planning now:

Amsterdan -> Brussels -> Bruges -> Paris -> Gimmelwald -> Cinque Terre -> Rome -> Florence -> Venice -> Munich -> Bacharach (Rhine Riber Valley) -> Amsterdam

Based on the itinerary, Rick suggested two night trains. The other was between Venice and Munich. I did a quick search (thanks all i now know how to read the schedule and train type better) and found it may be easier to find a night train here than the other Paris/Lauterbrunnen route.

I can't seem to find a good website that sells reasonable open-jaw air tickets. any suggestions?

I also posted my more detailed itinerary (best of europe 30 days) in "General Europe". I have learned so much from you folks here and hope you help me to take a look of my planned trip. Thanks a lot.