Train travel may be changing

Perhaps a little. HOTNAT … Hop On The Next Available Train sounds like a simple, easy solution when a rail connection gets prevented, but, “The approval of HOTNAT is subject to the available capacity on board each train. Seats are not guaranteed.” So “hop on” should be “maybe we’ll let you get on, if you’re lucky.” And if several other people missed the same train connection, it could be a free-for-all scramble, with just the fastest, most agile passengers winning.

Relatively cheap, inter-European flights (despite the multitude of disagreeable aspects they entail) remain something to consider, besides trains.

Probably. The EU has started telling the train operators that it is a problem that needs to be solved.

The long-standing CIV tickets (Convention Internationale pour le transport des Voyageurs) already do this to an extent but this falls down for more than one connection. So if train 1 is late you ought to get a later replacement for train 2 but a later train 3 isn't covered. Didn't used to be such a problem when nearly all trains were non reserved.

In the past you just bought a ticket from eg. Amsterdam to Alicante and you could just take any trains on that route. The ticket would say something like : Via Roosendaal Grens - Quevy o Jemont - Portbou - Cerbere.

Railways would just forward price and km tables to each other every year, and a ticket seller would just adds up all the segments and calculate a price. As a kid we even would still get hand written tickets occasionally.

This has recently become a lot more complicated with trains with compulsory reservations, yield management, train based prices etc.
As a result many railways stopped selling tickets for destinations beyond their immediate neighbors. As a result if you now want a ticket from Amsterdam to Alicante the ticket office at Amsterdam central will no longer be able to sell you one. Which means that if you want to do this trip by train you will end up traveling on multiple tickets.

And this is a problem.

The EU is of the opinion that multiple tickets that are purchased with the intention that they form one trip should be treated as one single trip. So that all connections should be protected, and that the full gamut of passenger rights applies.
The railways see this differently, but they are really eager to have this tested in court. I have had a few occasions where I indicated to railway staff that I a) knew the law and b) was quite willing to ask the opinion of a judge if needed. Strangely whenever I did that I always got what I wanted :-)

Which is one reason why I advise people to be a bit more assertive when dealing with the railways.

But it is not as big a problem as you may think. There are actually not that many places in Europe where you will be changing between different companies. Eurostar (and former Thalys) to other trains could be a problem, but rarely was in practice. In most other cases you are always transferring between trains of the same company, as there are almost no non-Swiss trains in Switzerland non-German trains in Germany and non-French trains in France. There are few exceptions, like the OBB run night trains, the OBB Run EC trains to Italy, and the Trenitalia services in France.

So in practice almost all connections are already protected. But the few edge cases are now taken care of finally.