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Paris-Bayeux Train Schedule - Track Work Appears Cancelled

Posted by (PA) on

There have been a couple topics here regarding the track work that interrupted the direct Paris-Bayeux trains from Mar 3 through April 17.

For all those who this was an issue, it seems that as of sometime this week the French have changed what they are doing here, the track-work schedule changed, and this train is back on full daily schedule, with tickets for these trains now on sale on SNCF, Prems tickets priced at 15 Euro. This must have just happened as this is not yet reflected on DB Bahn's schedules.

This is unfortunately too late to help us, as we went through some hoops, rescheduled our Overlord Tour to one day later (incredibly helpful staff), dropped the first day of our B and B in Bayeux (Le Petit Matin, no charge, just some communication issues), took a night in the Caen Ibis and last week purchased the much costlier train tickets through Le Mans and switch to local to Caen from there. Our big problem was we were already booked on Eurostar arriving at 13:50, and could no longer get to Bayeux that night in the manner we wanted unless we could make a 14:49 local combo. Any delays on the Eurostar and we were hosed, no other trains would get to Bayeux that day after that. FWIW, if we were booking that entire trip from London via SNCF, they were not not offering that combination (local to Bayeux, change Rouen, change Caen) with the just under 1 hour connection.

But that said, since there was a bunch of posting on this, perhaps this information will be of help to some others who have not committed to the work-around trains. (And I will admit to being guilty of double-posting and also put this in the France Forum.)

Posted by
786 posts

Thanks for the update. Sorry for your hassle. With my luck, they'll reschedule this work for June, when we're planning a similar trip.

Posted by
2739 posts

Stoutfella -I just tried a random day in mid-June on SNCF, the regular trains are scheduled. Like you said, a hassle. Monetarily it works out about equal. But we now have to do a one night stand in Caen before we move on to Bayeux, which we really did not want to do. OTOH, since we were going to go into Caen and back to go to the Memorial, it does save us a couple of train rides.

Now I guess I better keep my eye on the regular Bayeux-Paris train that we are taking out at the end of this, to connect to Ghent.Our luck, they'll start track work that day and drop that train, which we have booked, without notifying us.

Posted by
786 posts

And, of course ....

I just checked both the SNCF site and the DB Bahn site and they are showing Paris to Bayeux as a multi-stop, 4- to 6-hour trip, rather than a direct 2-hour trip, on June 13, the day we were planning our trip to Normandy.

I assume this means the trackwork has indeed been rescheduled for June, as every date I tried starting with June 2 gave similar results.

I'm way more than bummed by this development, as we had pretty well decided to commit to the long day in order to see the D-day sites, even on a short schedule. But without the direct train, this trip is totally unfeasible.

Does anyone have any more specific information on the track maintenance schedule?

Posted by
2739 posts

Stoutfella, I'll only offer that you may find that shortly after the tickets go on sale 90 days out, i.e. into March, that perhaps this will be changed again. If your plans can hold that long, check on it. Also would recommend you follow it on the French site and not DB Bahn, which still does not show the revisions for March-mid April.

Posted by
786 posts

Larry: I think that's the plan right now. We'll still figure on staying an extra day in France, to either see more in Paris or find another day trip, while keeping an eye on the train situation. If we can still end up making the Normandy trip, I'd love to do it. Otherwise, it'll have to wait for a future visit. I was hoping to do one of the half-day Overlord tours of the D-Day sites, but I can't commit to anything now. If it turns out in a couple of months that the train is back to normal, I'll just have to see if Overlord or one of the other tour operators still has availability. I'm sure we could manage to find space on someone's tour. Right now, I guess I'm relieved we didn't book tour tickets before knowing the train situation.

Cheers!

Posted by
2739 posts

As i said earlier, Overlord's people were great with this. They offered to reschedule us if we needed when they explained the trian issues for me, and e-mail communication was easy. Keep in mind that we did this well in advance, we completed the rescheduling just before New Year's, more than 3 1/2 months in advance, and I have no idea if mid-April is less booked.

Anyway, hope it all works out.

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