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Train cancellation-Paris to Munich via Stuttgart

I believe I purchased this train ticket on Trainline and got an email saying this option was no longer possible. Apparently there is a lot of work near Stuttgart. Anyways, do I just look for another way/route to get to Munich and use the same ticket? Should I go to a train station to sort this out? The ticket is for May 16. Please help train experts!

Posted by
4221 posts

What is your departure time? Can you tell us what you originally booked? What did Trainline instruct you to do?

Note that the German Railways send out this notices from the moment that the schedule changes by as much as a minute. They are wonderful exercises in the German art of confusing people through bureaucracy.

So it is very well possible that you will still travel on the same trains as you booked, but just at a slightly different schedule. So tell us what you have bought.

Added: I had a look myself: It looks like all the trains to Stuttgart are only going as far as Karlsruhe. So your trip would become Paris- Karlsruhe - Munich. The Karlsruhe - Munich ICE services normally have a stop in Suttgart, but are skipping it altogether this time.

So look up times on www.bahn.de probably you can just leave on the same train, and then change in Karlsruhe.

Posted by
4221 posts

because they won't simply leave you to work something else out

That is actually exactly what DB does. Trains are not like airlines. When you buy a ticket you actually agree to check the schedule yourself close to departure to see if the train still run as originally scheduled, and adjust your plans accordingly. There is no guarantee that you will be informed of changes. DB does not have passenger manifests, so actually cannot know for sure in advance who will be affected by a change.

Posted by
13182 posts

Tammy, as Wengen said, you can just do this online and check the ticket. It sounds like, from what you're saying, that all they've done is eliminate Stuttgart, which should not affect your ability to get to Munich. So your ticket should work just fine. Just check it out at https://int.bahn.de/en

But if you want someone here to look at it in detail, just give us all the information on the ticket, like the time and the trains and so on, and we can double check for you. Also, was the email from Trainline or from Deutsche Bahn? I'm assuming it was from DB, but you didn't say really.

me.crewe, unfortunately, DB doesn't give great instructions telling you what to do. It's kind of vague and sometimes unclear.

Posted by
4004 posts

Thank you for the helpful responses. The email just said this journey is no longer possible, but we have worked out that instead of changing trains in Stuttgart we now go to Karlsruhe instead, we believe everything else stays the same.

Posted by
12061 posts

Glad you got it figured out, Tammy. We had a similar experience last summer from SNCF, receiving an email at 7 pm that our 9am train was cancelled, the first of three on the itinerary to Milan the next day. Lack of equipment. There were no instructions of how to handle this. Panic inducing. Ultimately, we figured out that we'd have to take a 6 am train and wait for four hours for the original connecting train and continue the original itinerary.
Switching to the earlier TGV was complicated. I don't consider myself a novice with SNCF since I've been using them for fifty years, but this wasn't easy, and we lost money.

This is a travel skill that doesn't come up on the videos. Consequently, I hope others don't get thrown when this happens, but I'm afraid that with the increase in rail traffic, this will become more common. We also had a train cancelled on our return from Milan. No rerouting, no suggestions.

FYI: last week we had hourslong delays going to and returning from Strasbourg, human caused, not rail company caused.