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To stamp, or not to stamp, that is my question.

Hello, The two of us have Eurail passes valid in France and Switzerland. After a few days in Paris, we will take a TGV Lyria train from Paris to Basel, Switzerland. We've bought reservations for the trip from Rail Europe, in the form of paper tickets. My question is, do we need to validate (stamp) the reservation tickets before we board the train, using the yellow validation machines? Thanks very much,
Gary

Posted by
977 posts

When we travelled through France in 2010, our Reservation passes/cards had a a black validation strip on the rear. These had to be validated at the yellow machines at the entrance to the platform

Posted by
23267 posts

Nope, if a ticket/reservation is time and train specific, then it is no good after that time so there is no reason to validate the ticket.

Posted by
3049 posts

You will need to activate your Eurail pass at a customer service center at a train station. But the print out reservations will not need to be stamped at the machine.

Posted by
7209 posts

If in doubt ask the train personnel.