Trenitalia says Frecce trains Milan to Verona “sold out” Sunday 24 September!

It may be too early for schedules to be posted yet.
Give it a couple more weeks and try again.

No, that is not the problem. The the schedules are posted for this date, and the Frecce trains are listed. These particular trains are on the schedule, but one cannot buy tickets for them. I could have bought for one of them a week ago, but not now. And tickets for trains after this date are available even in Economy.

The website says they are “sold out” but I am sure that is not the case. Something else is going on.

FR 9723 or 9731

Both trains go from Milan to Venice via Desenzano and Verona.

Therefore the answer should be the same you have already got about the EC 311 train that goes from Zurich to Venice via Milan, Desenzano and Verona: works on the line. Not exactly a scheduling problem, but it doesn't matter.

Edit: now train #9723 and #9731 do not seem to be sold out on the 24th.

Check again, Trenord and Italo together run one tenth of the trains run by Trenitalia. They may be faster in reopening the sales when a problem has been solved.

Right now, 21:00 Pacific time (6/am in Italy) Trenitalia is showing 9723 as available for purchase on Saturday the 23rd, but not the 24th which is the date we need. And the other two trains (EC 311 and FR 9731) are not available for purchase on either day that weekend.

If there is a problem on the tracks, where is it? How can I find that out?

And why are the other two train companies ( Trenord and Italo) selling tickets for their trains that run that day on the same route?

We have reservations for our family group in the Dolomites (Alpe di Siusi) that cannot be changed beginning 25 September, so we need to get as far as Verona on the 24th, and this train issue is causing me a lot of stress.

The problem is that you are dealing with two system. There is the timetable, and there is the seat inventory. It is possible for trains to be on the timetable, but for seat inventory not being loaded yet.

For trains that have compulsory booking (like the Frecce) you cannot buy a ticket if the system can't find a seat for you. And the system is unable to distinguish between "I cannot find a seat because all seats are already taken", and "I cannot find a seat because seats have not been loaded yet". That mostly because the people that program and test these systems are Europeans. And Europeans do not buy train tickets for September travel in July.

This also explains why regional Trenord tickets can be booked. For trains without seat reservation all that is needed to be able to sell you a ticket is to know the price between origin and destination, and that comes out of a different system. Those tickets are also not train specific, so he railways do not worry to much that the schedule might change, as you are expected to find out yourself that your train is now a few minutes later or earlier, or partly replaced by a bus. Anyway, regional tickets do not need to be bought in advance.

I will repeat my advise I gave in the other thread. Just wait till August. Then try again.

where is it?

It's somewhere on the Milan-Venice line via Desenzano and Verona.

How can I find that out?

I guess you could learn Italian and search all Trenitalia's alert pages about the planned works by Region and type of service. Quite a dull reading, I am afraid. Dull and pointless: once you have find out where these planned works are, what difference does it make to you?

why are the other two train companies

WengenK perfectly explained why Trenord can sell those tickets, there are no reserved seats on their trains.

Italotreno's trains may follow a different route or they may call at different stations on the way to Venice. Maybe Italotreno' staff decided they can run the risk of re-assigning the few seats booked in early June on a train running in late September. In the end, as I wrote above, the main reason is that Italotreno runs less trains and must manage less passengers than Trenitalia.

this train issue is causing me a lot of stress.

There is no "issue", the train is not sold out (Trenitalia does not say it is) and it will run. Nobody else can get those tickets and nobody else wants those tickets months in advance. Once you know it, being stressed or not is all on you.

OK, the stress may be “all on me” but I think Europeans like you and Wengenk have a completely different perspective on vacations from North Americans. You may be comfortable just booking a last minute trip, but we pay a lot just to get to Italy, and then more for lodging etc., and we hope that it all works out. Or we can try to plan and reserve in advance, and book train tickets 2=months in advance

We are not naive when it comes to train travel in Europe. We have been there almost every year for the last 30 years, apart from the recent lockdown time. We are comfortable traveling as a group of 8 or 9 in Switzerland, where the trains and connections are very reliable. We know we do not need reservations there and they are not even available in most cases.

But train travel in Italy is different from Switzerland.. The 2 of us (my husband and myself) often visit there on own own, but the last 2 trips in 2022 and earlier this year have proved challenging, due to cancellations and strikes, etc. The current trip this September is a family celebration of my 75th birthday, rescheduled from 2020: when it was not possible. We may not be able to do such a trip again, so I want to make it a good one.

And I thought I planned it well, until I found I could not book the trains that would get us from Luzern in Switzerland to Verona on the days we need to travel.

Maybe the stress is “all on me”, but have not had this difficulty before. How can I not feel stressed when we have invested over $15K in airfare for our family, and that much again in non-refundable reservations in Switzerland and the Dolomites? If we cannot get to Bolzano on the day we need to, we will forfeit a significant amount of money. But more important is the disappointment of the children and others iif we cannot get there.

It seems easy for you to say “just wait” and it will all work out, but from what I have seen on the train websites (SBB.ch and Trenitalia) there is a problem with the IC, EC, and Frecce trains somewhere between Milan and Verona on the weekend of 9/23-24. And not just there—-Even the IC and EC trains through Switzerland are affected, as the booking site on SBB has an unusual message to the effect that the schedule is unreliable:

No liability will be accepted for the details or connections provided or for adherence to timetables. Please >check for possible timetable changes shortly before departure.

And this regarding boarding not guaranteed on an EC train:

Very high occupancy, boarding is not guaranteed. Please choose another connection

How long do I wait? How do you know the problem, whatever it is, will be resolved? If it is track work on the weekend, will they offer a bus replacement, and how well will that work for a family of 8 people?

Lola,

Let me bring a slightly different perspective to this. I have not travelled extensively by train in Italy, and even then it is quite a while ago. So I do not know the ins and outs of what is happening here.
However I can see that our resident Italians are doing their level best to help you here, and constant gnawing away at it is NOT going to resolve the matter or assist your blood pressure.
But we have exactly the same problem in the UK, where visiting Americans often have unrealistic expectations of rail booking deadlines and panic when they see no inventory released.
Which would you prefer- issuing inventory like the airlines a year ahead, then constantly chopping and changing you around; or issuing inventory when times are known?
Nor are European railroads Amtrak. They are there primarily to serve their domestic markets, not of visitors.

You absolutely need to relax on this. I 100% do not believe that no trains will run into Milan and that no alternative road replacement provision will be made. That totally beggers belief.

What I do in this kind of a situation is to forget about computerised journey planners but to sit down with proper paper maps and think laterally what will I do if my route is blocked (either now or due to a derailment or fire or whatever on the day of travel).

Doing that I have 2 thoughts here-
1. If the issue is between Milan and Verona then take the local train via Mantova (I may be wrong but I think you change at Mantova). I would even say to myself that it is POSSIBLE (a long way round) to route via Bologna, although clearly very sub optimal. That would be a last resort route.
2. If there is an irresolvable problem at Milan (unthinkable, but...) take a train from Luzern to Zurich, then Zurich to Innsbruck, and then Innsbruck to Bolzano.

In fact, even if there are trains bookable and I have done so, I will always have alternative what if style plans lodged in the back of my mind, if not on paper, for this type of journey, to avoid panicking on the spot if something catastrophic happens on the day.

I just checked Trenitalia and found plenty of options for tickets for these routes and days:

Luzern-->Locarno on Saturday, 23 September -- only regional trains and/or intercity trains are listed.

Locarno--> Verona on Sunday, 24 September -- this was the real problem day with not one Frecciarossa being available at the moment. There were also issues with the EC (EuroCity) trains. However you could choose other slower options.

Verona-->Bolzano on Monday, 25 September -- mostly regional trains with a few EC trains and very few Frecciarossas listed. The fact that you could buy tickets for the Frecciarossas (and the ECs) makes me think there's something very strange about their normal routes on Sunday.

Some of the cities have multiple train stations, so you may need to check which ones you want to depart from and arrive to. My test may have used the wrong ones. I may have misunderstood your planned itinerary as well. 🥴

I hope everything works out okay for your group.

How do you know the problem, whatever it is, will be resolved?

What problem? Planned works are not "a problem". Anyway, I know it will be resolved because the train is displayed on trenitalia.com and because italotreno is selling tickets on that route.

They cleared the big landslide in Varenna and rebuilt all the railway infrastructures in less than 2 weeks, that was a problem out of the blue that needed to be resolved.

How can I not feel stressed when we have invested over $15K in airfare for our family, and that much again in non-refundable reservations in Switzerland and the Dolomites?

Because even if we were all wrong and you are right, there are other options to go to Verona on that day.

There are Flixbus buses from Lugano to Verona.

Then there are 12 daily regional trains from Milan to Verona run by Trenord that can't sell out and that can be booked at the last second. In short, you are not over-stressed because you could actually not get to Verona on the 24th, waste your money, make the kids cry etc. etc. You are overstressed because 81 days in advance you still don't know the route or the type of train you'll have to take.

Sorry, but you are giving so much importance to an eventual train transfer in Milan to a local train that can't sell out; an easy level transfer that, in the end, could not be necessary. This seems a personal decision to me.

But Italy is different from Switzerland..

Thank God.

"You are overstressed because 81 days in advance you still don't know the route or the type of train you'll have to take."

The reason why we tell you to relax is because it is the only option you have really. So just relax. I am pretty sure that a couple of weeks before your travel date the times will be firmed and the seat inventory loaded and you will be able to book a ticket.

You will be able to travel. Of course, it always possible that something goes terribly wrong. There might be a natural disaster that halts all public life in Northern Italy. There may be a strike. Things sometimes do go wrong. But when planning just assume things will be right.

"In the end, as I wrote above, the main reason is that Italotreno runs less trains and must manage less passengers than Trenitalia."

I think the main reason is that Italo is no a legacy carrier. So they probably have a much simpler booking system. And they do not have to deal with interfaces to all the other booking systems in Europe. Trenitalia needs to deal with situations where for example someone might want to buy a ticket+reservation for a train from Milano to Roma at a station in Hungary, and get a paper reservation that is not linked to any passenger record whatsoever. So if the schedule of the train changes there is no way to inform the passenger. (Hence bookings come with the warning that you need to check the actual schedule yourself closer to departure).

In such a situation the thing railways do when they are not sure yet wether a train will run, to what schedule, and what rolling stock is to not offer reservations yet.

Hi lola, I’ve learned to trust the locals when it comes to the trains. They know what they’re talking about.

I had some train trouble for my May trip in the UK due to the strikes and the locals talked me through it. For one of my trains, I could not book until a few days before I left for the trip. I did not like that, but thanks to what the locals were telling me, I was pretty confident I would get a ticket and I did. Everything worked out just like the locals said it would.

I’m like you, and like to have everything planned and booked well in advance. But sometimes, unfortunately, that is just not possible. From what I’m reading here, it sounds like you will be able to book this particular train trip at a later date. If it was me, I would try not to panic until maybe a few weeks before your trip. Even then, you will still have plenty of time to plan an alternative.

Good luck!!

I am currently running with a UK case on this forum where a family are travelling from the Lake District to London tomorrow, and still no seat reservations are available, indeed the train is showing as sold out.
A trifle worrying for visitors.
As I am local they have had best advice that the system has to be wrong, and where to stand on the station for the unreserved car or cars.
That will be updated tomorrow for them when the actual stock for the train is allocated 20 minutes before the train in question leaves its depot, so we know then how many unreserved cars the train has.
I have even rearranged my day to watch that train to try to ensure that all runs smoothly.

Thanks everyone. I do appreciate your input and reassurances. I just needed to vent about why I feel so stressed about this.

Lo correctly summarized the issue I am seeing: no problem with travel between Luzern and Locarno on Saturday the 23rd; no Frecce or EC trains selling tickets on the route from Locarno to Verona on Sunday the 24th; tickets are available on EC trains between Verona and Bolzano on the 25th.

Yesterday I decided the best way for me to deal with the stress was to change our trip a bit so we don’t travel on the 24th at all. This meant canceling the one night in Locarno on the 23rd and and the one in Verona on the 24th. We will travel on the 23rd to Desenzano and spend two nights there at the Park Hotel, which we really liked when we were heading to the Dolomites last September. Then on Monday the 25th we can take either regional trains or regional + EC train from Desenzano to Verona to Bolzano.

I actually like this plan better, with a 2-night stay on Lago di Garda instead of the two one-night stays. And the kids (as well as their parents) will enjoy the ferry ride over to Sirmione and seeing the Grottoes of Catullus.

Excellent. I am so glad you have eliminated the 24th as a problem by revising your plan. Now you can leave that stress behind !

I’m glad you were able to figure something out that you are comfortable with. I keep trying to remind myself that trip planning should not be stressful, but it so often is. Transportation is always my biggest worry.

I did a day trip to Desenzano in March and loved it. Two nights there sounds wonderful and the park hotel looks fabulous. Now you have me wanting to go back and stay there. 😊

Happy belated B-day on the big 75. 😊