In the US, when we travel on the airplane, we regard the boarding pass as disposable. Lost it? It can be reprinted.
This is NOT the case with the boarding pass for a train. We purchased a cabin for the night train from Split to Zagreb. I ran quickly to send an email at a nearby cafe, and somehow dropped the pass at 10 PM. We were forced to re-purchase our cabin. Of course, as my wife noted, only an idiot would drop the pass. Nonetheless, it is a warning for others.
Paul's reminder is correct. A train ticket or a seat/sleeper reservation is not equivalent to a airplane boarding pass. Especially when printed in the traditional manner on special ticket stock, that ticket is like cash, holding all its value in one piece of paper, and is not replaceable if lost or stolen. Most train tickets can be used by anyone who has them in hand.
The only type of ticket that can be re-printed is an e-ticket that you print at home on plain paper, from a PDF document; these are more common for online ticket purchase in western European countries, but are not standard across Europe. To reduce duplication fraud, some of these require passenger ID to match the original purchaser.
Great reminder...I can can see this being a source for huge arguments between passengers and train conductors. In this digital age we've taken anything on print for granted, save for maybe our passports.
Well, we did discuss the matter. But it was clear that we had no case. DON'T LOSE YOUR TICKET.
To reduce duplication fraud, some of these require passenger ID to match the original purchaser.
Laura, this was true for the tickets I bought on bahn.com for Germany. For validation, I had to show the exact credit card I used to book them when the tickets were checked.
Yes, I ran into this last year on a work trip. My manager wanted to ride the train while in Europe. Unfortunately, he missed his flight to Europe and had both paper tickets for the train ride. Even though I had an itinerary receipt, etc. the Bahn office told me that tickets are like money and couldn't be reprinted.
The German trains are checking for exact credit card for e-tickets, but Austrian trains didn't ask for any ID, etc. this year.
