Rail Travel- Advanced Reservations

I believe you can make the reservations in advance - I am sure someone can advise, but, unless you are going on a sleeper, you can just do it as you go. Plans do change and you may find you want an earlier or later train. In the unlikely event that a train is late, you may be forced to change your plans.

Erin, I'll defer to our rail experts, but I don't believe it will be possible to make reservations from "munich-whatever" from Paris, nor a Rome-Paris reservation from Paris. Note that there are about SIX rail stations in Paris, and not all of them offer full service ticket facilities. One of the largest is Gare du Nord, so that would be a good bet if you're close to that. For train trips departing France, you could also stop by one of the SNCF Boutiques, which are located throughout Paris (SNCF is the rail system in France). As your Thread concerns "reservations", I'm assuming you're travelling with a Railpass??? Happy travels!

Check out www.seat61.com. You will be able to tell from that site how to get the cheapest, best, most hassle-free tickets all across Europe. We use them extensively for how-to advice on all of our rail tickets and ferry boat tickets across Europe, and Asia too. Too, buying rail tickets in advance will get you the cheapest tickets, sometimes first class tickets are actually cheaper than regular fares[INVALID]if you book in advance, usually 90 days, 120 days in advance for the Eurostar.

Erin, if your plans are pretty firm, you can save A LOT of money by buying them in advance...(as in €53 vs €159). IF you're looking at night trains, then the earlier the better - they do sell out. You'd want to buy your tickets from the originating-country's train company website. To answer another of your questions, I've purchased International Tickets for Other Countries from major stations in the past...I can't promise that you can do the same. The sands do alot of shifting...

I am getting a Eurail pass, but i know the overnight trains need reservations, and i didn't know if i could get them in advance or not[INVALID] or in other countries.

We have travelled with the pass and had no problem getting reservations on the trains we needed a day or so before we travelled.

If you go into a station in Germany with a Bahn ticket terminal, you should be able to get reservations from anywhere (not just that station) to anywhere (Euraide has such a terminal in their Munich office. That's how they print reservations to send over here - for $50 extra). I don't know why stations in other countries would be limited. And RailEurope issues reservations all over Europe. . . . . ¶ I tend to agree with Iain. I don't often ride long distance trains, but only once, on a national holiday, was the train I was on SRO. Although every seat was occupied, less than half were reserved. We could have made a reservation when I bought the tickets (less than an hour before I got on the train) and had reserved seats. . . . . ¶ Bahn Fernverkehr ticket automats (the red/white/blue ones with touch screens) allow you to get a ticket from anywhere (in Germany, at least. I've never tried outside Germany). I'm sure you can get a reservation, too, w/ or w/o a ticket.