Train travel in Europe: a practical guide

Where we can search

Our search covers rail in fourteen European countries: the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Portugal, Czechia, Poland, Sweden and Ireland — plus five in Asia.

The high-speed lines linking the big western European cities are the ones most people use, and they are genuinely excellent. Coverage thins as you go east and north, where conventional intercity trains do more of the work.

Booking European trains: the rules that differ by country

Europe does not have one rail ticketing system, it has a dozen. The single thing most likely to trip you up is whether a seat reservation is compulsory or optional, because it changes whether a ticket lets you catch a different train.

Book early, but how early depends

Most European operators release cheap advance fares in limited quantities and raise prices as trains fill. French domestic tickets typically open around four months ahead; German saver fares and Italian and Spanish advance fares follow the same shape. The pattern is consistent even where the details differ: the earliest buyers get the low fares, and those fares do not come back.

Where there is competition, compare operators

Several countries now have more than one company running the same high-speed line — Italo against Trenitalia in Italy, and Ouigo and Iryo against Renfe in Spain. Where that has happened, fares have fallen noticeably. All of them use dynamic pricing, so no operator is reliably the cheapest; the cheapest is whichever one has availability left on your date.

Low-cost rail is a real category now

OUIGO in France, Ouigo and Avlo in Spain, and Italo’s cheaper fare classes all work on the airline model: a low headline price, one class, and restrictions on luggage and changes. They are genuinely cheaper for a traveller with hand luggage and a fixed plan. Read the baggage rules before assuming the saving is real for you.

Crossing borders

International services are usually run jointly by the railways of both countries, and they generally follow the stricter of the two countries’ rules — so a train from Germany into France will normally require a reservation even though a domestic German one would not.

Cross-border tickets also tend to go on sale later than domestic ones, and sell out earlier. If a trip involves an international leg, book that leg first and build the rest around it.

The station-name traps

Large European cities frequently have several main stations, and a fare that looks cheap may be arriving somewhere inconvenient.

• Paris — terminals are organised by direction. The Gare de Lyon serves the south-east; it is not in Lyon.
• Rome — Termini is central; Tiburtina is not.
• Milan — Centrale is the main one; Rogoredo and Porta Garibaldi are further out.
• Barcelona — Sants is the main station, and is a metro ride from the old centre.
• Brussels — Midi/Zuid handles international trains; Central is the one by the Grand Place.

Luggage

Conventional European trains have no baggage allowance in the airline sense: you bring what you can carry and put it on the racks. The exception is the low-cost operators, which impose airline-style limits and charge for anything larger. That charge is where a strikingly cheap fare often gets its money back, so read the rules before assuming you are saving.

Is a rail pass worth it?

Sometimes, but less often than the marketing suggests. An Interrail or Eurail pass makes sense for a genuinely multi-country trip with many travel days and flexible plans. It works poorly for a small number of point-to-point journeys booked in advance, because those are exactly the journeys where cheap advance fares are available.

The other catch is reservations. On reserved high-speed trains — most of France, Spain and Italy — a pass does not get you on board by itself; you still pay a reservation fee per train, and those add up.