Problem with setting the time on Trenitalia website

Buy them on thetrainline.com if you can't get the Trentalia website to cooperate.

You will pay a euro or two for the convenience, but the transaction will be smooth.
The second level people normally have issues with is trying to pay for the ticket
with a US credit card, which you won't have with trainline.

Finally, can't you just fake out the website given the issue you've described and
input a departure time 7 hours before you really want to leave? Or, temporarily,
change your time zone setting on your computer to CET?

Yes, I’ve seen that too.
I’ve been to Italy twice since the pandemic, and saw it both times on Trenitalia.
It didn’t do it pre-pandemic.
I just went to the day before and worked forward.
I bought tickets with no problem.
I can’t remember, but I don’t think the Italo website does it.

I ran into the same problem last year. Do as Periscope suggests, enter the date as the day before you want to travel. When I made a reservation while in Europe I did not have this problem.

Haven’t tried this but you may be able to change the time zone on your phone to make a reservation using their app.

Having the same issue, Lola! Thought it was me!
I'm using an Apple Macbook, BTW, not a phone or the app, and not needing to buy myself right now, just checking schedules for poster inquiries.

Hi Lola, I was checking some options for traveling in southern Italy for next year but putting in current dates to write down the amount of time. Yes, I also am getting the same results that you’re experiencing. And I have used Trenitalia a lot in the past. I would just enter your requested day as the day before, so you can see the morning options for your actual day of travel.

I don’t use their app, but I’m wondering if that is also showing the same issue.

Same issue for Spanish trains. You have to experiment with different times until you get the time (and day) you actually want.

I’m wondering if www.Italotreno.it is the same for Italo trains?

The app seems to be working as it should.

So odd, but it looks like a few search functions have changed ever so slightly on the site, so the time frame must be translating time zones. Nice heads up. It does appear that adjusting to day before will give the correct choices. I would be sure that the correct date/time show on a choice before purchasing though. Will make it a bit of a challenge from this side of the pond!

Thanks for your comments, everyone. It is interesting that some have seen this happen before now. We have been to Italy twice in the past year (September 2022 and March 2023), and I had no trouble with the date/time when buying those tickets. So this is new to me, as of 2 days ago.

I did succeed just now in buying tickets for an afternoon train (15:14 departure from Bellinzona) that we wanted—I entered the actual date I want, but put the time as 06:00 (6 am). As I expected, Trenitalia showed trains starting from 15:00 ( 9 hours later than what I asked).

I have noticed several posts from people complaining that they could not see morning trains on the Trenitalia website. I am going to start a new thread to explain what I think is their issue, with a link to this thread.

That's because your laptop or smart phone is set to your US local time; the Trenitalia website automatically convert to the corresponding Italian local time (which is 9 hours ahead of Pacific Time).

Right next to the Date box (where you set the date you want) there is a 'Time' box (default 13:00) which you can change to search for train schedule that starts at the time you set to. Since 13:00 (default) is the US local time it corresponds to 10 PM (22:00) Italian time; so it will display all available train schedules after 10 PM and the following day.

I usually just set it to 00:00 and it displays trains after 9 AM (West Coast here). For train earlier than 9 AM you will have to set the date one day earlier.

Edit:
Another way to deal with this time zone difference is to temporary set your laptop or phone to Italy time (e.g. Rome, Italy); set the time on Trenitalia website to the hour you want then click search. Just have to remember to set it back after you purchase your ticket :)

Edit 2:
@Sempre Italia is right; the Trenitalia mobile app actually automatically adjusted for the time zone difference; i.e. if you set the date and time you want it will display all train schedules of the time you pick (exactly the way it should have been)... no need to offset the time zone difference or temporary set your local time zone to Italy time zone. Another incentive to use the mobile app to book ticket.

This is also something to keep in mind if you use Google Maps to get an idea of public transit or train options in Europe. If you keep the default of "Leave now", you may get whatever transit is available at 2:00 AM.

This is also an issue on the SNCF website. I ran into this when I was booking trains for my June trip, and ended up always dialing my time back by 6 hours (as I am on the US East Coast), so searching for an "08:00" train when I really wanted a 14:00 train.

(Frankly, I think this is bad design and bad UX. Sure, it's one thing to return local time if you search for "now" -- of course in that case it's only reasonable to return options now, even if that's in the middle of the night.

But if you have an explicit date and time chooser for a future date, i.e. not just "2 hours from now" but "trains on 1 August at 13:00" please consider that I do actually want to book a train at that date and time locally. It's in fact less intuitive for me to always have to adjust based on my local time zone. I don't do the rest of my itinerary planning with a 6-hour offset as well!)

Mindfulness—-Thank you for your comment (and your PM), but that is not the problem.

I am aware of the “default setting” issue, and I always change the date/time in the little box for my search request to what I actually want as our departure time in Italy, usually 9 am or maybe 10 am. And then Trenitalia adds 9 hours, and shows me trains starting in the afternoon, at 17:00:or 18:00.

This morning I decided to see if I could book an afternoon train that I want for our group on a particular day. I set the time to 6 AM on the date I want, hoping to see trains departing at 15:00 or later. And the first train on the list was the 15:14 EC 329 train to Milano Centrale that I wanted (I had picked it out weeks ago, in my initial trip planning).

I have been booking trains in Italy and other countries for 20 years this way, and have never seen this issue with Trenitalia until last Sunday.

I do recall a time a few years back when the Swiss train site SBB.ch was doing something similar with the date, but not the time. If I was conducting a schedule search in the afternoon, so after midnight in Switzerland, SBB would show me train options at the requested time. . . but a day later. I saw some discussion of that in the forum and on TripAdvisor as well. The issue did not persist for long.

@Lola,
Sorry for posting something you already know :) Next time I need to read the OP question more carefully.
Have a great trip this September!

@jessicaf227:
I just double checked on my iPhone; unlike their website the Trenitalia mobile app was working properly.
I wonder if it might have to do with the type of phone; do you have Android phone? Another possibility is the phone settings.

I don't think you need to worry about booking the train ticket because of this time zone issue; just make sure it's the right date, departure time and train number. You can always use 'Google Maps' directions search (for train) to double check it. Personally I would make sure to book the fast train; some trains have more stops or require change of train.

Thanx for posting this Lola. I have been trying to plan next summer’s trip to Italy and researching train routes and times. I could not understand why no matter what date I chose, on Trenitalia there were no morning trains shown. So now I know why and what to do.

I am just posting to move this to the top as several people have been trying to find morning trains without success. More people need to see this. It sure helped me!

The problem doesn’t exist if you use the Trenitalia app

Encountered same issue in terms of not being able to access early train times using my laptop and trenitalia.com. Installed the Trenitalia app on my iPhone 12. Problem solved.

I know that this is a little later, but I'm using the Trenitalia app on my iPhone, and I have this problem as well. Because of it, I just accidentally bought tickets for one day later than I had expected. (Not refundable, so I'm out $80). A good lesson to double-and-triple check dates.

I can not even get the ternitalia website to work at all! I had it working on Chrome and Safari very briefly but now I get the same message :
You don't have permission to access "http://www.trenitalia.com/en.html" on this server.
Any ideas?