Railpasses

Ah, the continuing dirty little secrets of rail passes! The trains aren't sold out (they never "sell out" in Germany), but the limited number a seats allotted to rail pass holders probably are. He should have no problems buying a ticket directly, although the longer he waits, the more he'll pay.

What's this about a Eurail passholder? Is he using a Eurail pass for extensive travel in Europe and just wants to use it for this particular trip to Mannheim. Has he tried different, longer roundabout routes, maybe via Basel? He might also try finding legs that still accept the pass and using regional trains for the rest. Looks like using his pass is not possible. The work around is point-point tickets. On the Bahn website, I see a TGV/ICE connection from Paris Est at 11:24 to Mannheim via Karlsruhe on Saturday, and they still have Europa-Spezial tickets available for €69. Of course, he would still have to get to Paris Est before 11:24. I didn't bother to look further because I don't know the days he wants to travel. I hope it's at least a flexi pass (not global) so if he has to buy P-P tickets he'll be saving the pass days for another time.

Did he find out it was "sold out" on the Rail Europe website? Ignore that website and never use it again! I have tried to get reservations on that site repeatedly only to be told they are "sold out" for Eurail passholders. Then I've gone directly to the ticket agents - in Germany and France - and been able to get reservations on the exact same trains that were supposedly "sold out" for my Eurail-passholding ass. I have no idea why that site sucks so much, but there it is. Just tell him to go to the train station at Limoges and ask for a seat reservation on the TGV and he should have no problem.