Prepurchase or buy at the station?

More expensive? In what universe? Perhaps SOME tix are dearer because they are for special trains (like night trains to popular destinations). Those might cost a premium if bought the day of travel (if not already sold out). In almost every instance, tix from stations are cheaper bcuz they dont include RailEurope's fee.

When I planned my trip I went to www.bahn.de and looked at the price for point to point tickets. Any trips I knew for sure I was going to take, if they had the huge discounts for buying on line in advance, I bought. So some tickets that would have been 50E, I got for 19E. The most I paid at a rail station was 40E and that was for a 3hr trip. I only ended up having 6 travel days within 3 Countries so a select 6 day in 2 months rail pass would have cost me just over 55E ($92) a day. For me, a railpass would have been a waste of money. I came out much cheaper by buying 2 point to point tickets in advance from the bahn site, and buying the rest at the stations.

So what I would say is, plan out your trip. Use the websites to check out the prices. Think about flexability, you have more with either buying the day you travel or with the rail pass, because if you buy the ticket on bahn.com you have to get on the train you pay for. If you are taking long distance trains or expensive trips, then maybe the railpass if for you. If you ask someone who is selling the railpass they are going to want you to buy thier product. It is really not cut and dry.

By buying ahead, there is the possibility of discounted tickets, but as another poster mentioned, you lock yourself into a train, and there is somewhat of a hassle (though getting easier) of doing everything ahead of time. I guess figure out if the cost saving is worth the effort.
As for RailEurope, they sell popular premium tickets, you can probably do better just by buying a ticket on a slightly slower regional train or going second class.

Paul, although Eurail passes are only first class for adults (non-Eurai, one/two country passes are avail from RE for 2nd cl), RailEurope does sell 2nd class P2P tickets.

However, here is an example:
1 Adult, Bacharach to Munich, in 2nd cl, leaving before noon. RE only offers two connections, one at 6:55 (4h36m) and one at 7:31 (5h). The price from RE is $208.

German Rail offers those connections at $133 (€90), plus two more connections (4h46m) at 8:31 and 10:31. Tickets for the later trains are $112 (€76) for an adult.

But, it gets even better. For a family (2 adults, 2 children under 15) the only RailEurope tickets are for those two connections before 8 AM and would be $648. German Rail would charge, at the station, $266 (€180). For the 8:31 and 10:31 trains, German Rail would charge $225 (€152).

The German Rail prices I quoted are for full fare, fully flexible (exch and refundable) tickets purchased on the day of travel. RE says several of the legs are non-exchangeable, non-refundable.

I suspect that buying from an agent will always cost more because he must charge a handling charge (or he doesnt make a profit).

When I was traveling by train in Switzerland several years ago I sat beside a resident of Zurich. He asked what I paid for my railpass in the US. When I told him, he said I could have bought it cheaper in Switzerland.

I have operated on that advice ever since and buy only point2point tickets at the window where I can get a computer print of my itinerary showing train numbers, stations where I change trains, route names and departure times. That has always been a great help for me.

I wouldn't call RailEurope an agent. They are primarily owned by French Rail and Swiss Rail. They should just be a ticket outlet, but they insist on making more money off Americans than they do off Europeans.

French Rail (SNCF) makes it as difficult as possible to Americans to buy directly from where the French do. They ask you where you are, and if you tell them you are in the U.S., they divert you to the RailEurope website.

The more I read about this subject the more confused I get.
I am looking at a P2P one way Madrid/Barcellona and half the answers I get (from blogs, this site, friends etc) point to buying online from RENFE (Spanish RR site 105-124 Euros Tourist class)the other half say "absolutely not.. buy at train station...much cheaper".
HELP ?