First, my bad, there's a link in the website that allows one to send a question like this directly to someone for a response, which I've done, but to cover all bases, i thought I'd post it here as well. I went to the SNCF website today to research a train trip fom Lyon to Paris on a Saturday afternoon in May. To start the search, you're presented with a map of the world to enter your country of residence. So when I clicked on the map of the US, it showed redirected me to Raileurope's website, which showed 3 TER trips, roughly 5 hours. When I clicked on the map of France, it showed additional TGV's, roughly 2 hours. Does anyone know what accounts for the discrepency? Are Americans prohibited from booking TGV passage on the SNCF website? Will I go to jail, get fined or tossed off the train if I buy the ticket after clicking on the map of France?
Posted by
Minneapolis, MN, USA
8700 posts
SNCF is the major owner of Rail Europe. It makes money by redirecting unsuspecting people from the US to the Rail Europe site. There are two ways you can book on the voyages-sncf.com site: 1. Book in French. 2. Use Google Translate to switch from French to English. No jail time and no hard landing on the tracks. Or you can book in English on tgv-europe.com which is a multi-language SNCF site. First, choose Great Britain as your country of residence. Second, don't let yourself be redirected to raileurope.co.uk. Instead, choose to stick with tgv.europe.com. Third, choose Great Britain as your ticket retrieval country. Don't worry. Even though you chose Great Britain, you'll be able to either print your own ticket or pick it up at any SNCF station or boutique in France.
Posted by
victoria, Canada
11507 posts
Barry I book everything( train tickets in France as well as Eurostar to London) by clicking on UK or France, since I do not want to be redirected to RailEurope.. one notable issue with RailEurope is they don't show all the times on the schedules. I have never had a problem at all with my tickets, even when I collect them at the station and am obviously not french or brit.