This June we'll be traveling via train from Paris to Interlaken. This is an international, multi-segment trip and I'm wondering what our risk would be should an earlier segment be delayed, causing us to miss a connecting train segment (e.g. the paris train departs 45 minutes late, causing us to miss the connection in Basel)? I know a eurail pass offers some protection in this scenario, but buying individual tickets would be much more cost effective for us. However, I do need to know what my risk would be if I booked the tickets individually and a connection was missed? And would the risk be affected based on whether I booked the entire trip through the french system (tgv-europe), the Swiss system (sbb) or a combination of the two (e.g. the Paris-Basel piece through the French rail website (tgv-europe) and the Basel-Interlaken piece through the Swiss rail website (sbb))? I realize I could always intentionally create a longer buffer between segments; thus reducing the risk of missing a connection. However, the trip is already very long and I'd like to avoid making it longer, if at all possible. I contacted the people at sbb, but they were not overly helpful; saying nothing of what sbb would do if I missed a connection in Switzerland. Instead, they just told me to contact the French. I'm contacting the Graffiti Wall instead. Please help!
Posted by
Northamptonshire, England
33513 posts
Don't worry. Swiss trains are not reserved. If you miss one get the next. They are frequent. Going back I would leave enough time for your connection at Basel. The TGV is less frequent and although you should be able to get on the next if it was the railway which delayed you (highly unlikely in Switzerland) that's a problem you would do well to avoid.
Posted by
Northamptonshire, England
33513 posts
I've just seen that this was a duplicate posting. &^%! Well I answered it anyway... and I won't delete the answer. Once you have read it you can delete this duplicate though to prevent other stray answers.