Train Help-What am I missing?

Probably, but without being able to check your math cannot say for sure. Twenty years or more a rail pass was a no-brainer good deal but it is marginal at best simply because of the advance purchase, deep discount tickets that are often available. You can make a train pass work if taking several long distance train rides. A quick double check is to divide the cost of the rail pass by the number of days you intend to use it. Say, a thousand dollar pass for ten days is a hundred dollars a day. Then use the local rail sites (not Rail Europe) to check each day of travel. If your daily cost is under a hundred then the pass doesn't work. And remember, in France the number of seats available for a pass is very limited and you may have to pay full price for ticket because no seats are available. In Italy all trains except Regionale require a seat reservation at a cost up to 10E per leg.

The discounted tickets come with a big disadvantage in that they are non-changable or refundable so your are locked into a fixed schedule. For the most part the rail pass provides a lot of convenience and some people are willing to pay for that convenience.

Good luck

Rick's prices are in dollars, not in euro. The euro has fallen drastically (almost 25%) in the past few month. If the "stick" numbers you are using are based on an older, "higher" exchange rate, that would explain the difference. Even though RailEurope might show lower prices than Rick, since if they have adjusted their prices for the fall in the euro, they are still more expensive than getting you tickets from the country rail lines themselves.

For Italy to Germany, German, and Austria, use the German Rail and the Austrian Rail websites for prices and convert euro to dollars using oanda.com.

Although it's a handy rule of thumb, in my experience, Rick's prices are not very accurate. They tend to be the maximum possible cost because the are only full fare and do no take into account advance purchase discount fares or regional passes, nor do they account for changes in the exchange rate.

For instance, the fare shown by Rick for Munich to Salzburg is $40 in 2nd class. From the Bahn, the highest fare would be for the high speed RailJet, about $39 today (36€); RailEurope sells an equivalent ticket for $56. That trip takes 1h29m. But you could pay full fare on a Meridian regional train for $33-34 (31,10€) and do the trip in 1h46m; RailEurope charges $36 for the same ticket. With advance purchase, the RailJet would cost a little over $20 (19€) for one, $31 (29€) for two. You could ride the Meridian with a Bayern-Ticket, under $25 (23€) for one, just over $31 (28€) for two. The Bayern-Ticket would cover round trip or any other travel in Bavaria that day.

OK People - STOP using RailEurope to buy tickets, check prices, check connections. They are a 3rd party seller - a middleman - higher prices, they don't display all of the connections.

Use the national rail lines like www.trenitala.com, www.sbb.ch, www.bahn.de

What are you missing? Nothing. You're coming to the same conclusion as most other travelers.

If your estimate of train prices is not approaching the cost of a "comprehensive" rail pass, then forget that. Depending on the amount of travel in a single country, a smaller pass could still fit, especially a BritRail Pass, if you have 3 or more days of train travel to connect Scotland and England. The BritRail pass is one of those that allows lots of hop-on flexibility, with seat reservations being both optional and free to make up to a day ahead in stations. BritRail passes offer senior discounts in 1st class, but Standard class is still cheaper.

Germany is another region where a pass is easy to use, if you have 3 or more significant train travel days there, but France and Italy less so. No significant senior discounts in these countries, except for slower trains in France, but advance-purchase discounts can be significant. Since Rail Europe sells some of these advance discounts, the prices you saw for booking 2 months out would reflect those, and require locking in travel dates and times; full fare is not displayed without clicking some other options. Our maps do reflect full fare on the fastest trains (except in Britain, where we used Off-Peak fare, but not Advance rates).

" Since Rail Europe sells some of these advance discounts, ..."

Yes, but, in the case of Munich to Salzburg, they want $36 ($20 less than they want for full fare), vs less than $21 (19€) from the Bahn for sufficient advance purchase. And for cancellation, the penaly for cancellation is better from the Bahn than from RailEurope.

It doesn't look like the discounted RailEurope fares goes up as the date approaches, but the Bahn Savings Fares do go up as the lower priced tickets sell out, so for last minute purchases, RailEurope might be less expensive.

To all of you a big thanks.
I am weeding my way to a great trip to Europe for my wife and I.
I will have more questions as I go...
Thanks again.
Chris