[AMcWhirter]

This is something I have mentioned many times but today’s news is a clear example to which I refer.

Whereas UK rail’s booking system is open to all operators the same does not apply in mainland Europe.

For example here in the UK you will find LNER’s website taking bookings for low-cost rival Lumo.

Indeed if you were to check Lner.co.uk for London-Edinburgh you would see the blue logo “Lumo” displayed beside “LNER.”

The example below refers to European Sleeper but there are other examples including domestic services.

Little wonder neutral Trainline reports growing business from those travellers taking high-speed trains within Spain.

ALLRAIL have released a statement, reacting to German Railways (DB)'s refusal to sell tickets for a new night train.https://t.co/jFffJ9uScP pic.twitter.com/7hJNv9oEfC

— Global Railway Review (@GlobalRailway) April 4, 2024

[FormerBA]

While this is unwelcome and will no doubt be open to legal challenges it does not reflect European rail travel more generally.

I have used German Austrian Belgian French and Dutch booking systems and they are all different. Belgium offers discounts to over 60s no questions asked. Germany offers free travel to kids. Austria allows booking on German trains before Germany does.

There are many options, many variances but fundamentally all a million times better than the U.K. on every level.

I often need to travel Bracknell to London. It’s now close to £30 return for a 30 mile journey that take 1 hr and 10 mins!

Recently my sim travelled TGV Lyon to CDG for 16 Euro!

We are light years behind in the UK

1 user thanked author for this post.

AMcWhirter

[Chutzpahflyer]

But I recently tried to use Trainline to book London-Madrid, or simply Paris-Madrid (Eurostar booking system fine to use). I specified train, but Trainline kept defaulting to coach because it was the cheapest option. I couldn’t work out how to find trains only. FAQs useless, design of booking site useless.

[RCinBelper]

This is potentially a rabbit warren. In most European countries, bar the UK, the main player in each country is the publicly owned national rail operator. The same daft situation applies where track and train are separated. For example in the Netherlands NS runs most of the trains with some private companies running local services and various others running ‘open access’ services, e.g. Eurostar, European Sleeper – and operator access to the network is via the infratructure body Prorail (the Network Rail equivalent). So, who ‘owns’ the national timetable, the journey planning software and the booking system? It’s different country-by-country. On top of this, sometimes national and private operators cooperate (e.g. OBB Austrian Railways cooperate with a variety of others (NS, SNCB, DB, SNCF) to provide their international Nightjet sleeper services) and in other cases compete (e.g. Brussels to Germany services are pretty much hourly – one hour a German ICE, then the next hour a Eurostar (formerly Thalys), tickets not being interavailable, so if you miss your ICE, you’re not allowed on the service an hour later). Despite all this, patronage is booming. Imagine what it would be like if the offering was easy to understand and booking was easy. As a final aside, trainline et al are private sector and essentially every booking through them is money leaving the industry. The debate of whether the traffic they generate is worth the commission paid is for another day. RC

[AMcWhirter]

@Chutzpahflyer

Sorry to hear that.

No way that you could book Eurostar London-Madrid. Its site is very limited and when I tried just now I was greeted by “Please try something else.”

I tried Trainline for London-Madrid (please note this is a difficult route to take the train) for travel April 16 and I was provided with a list of both standard and first class fares … although they were not competitive with air. Blame Eurostar as the latter will not interline with most other operators and, as we know, its fares are priced in line with a prestige product (unless you can book months ahead and choose midweek travel).

As other readers have noted above mainland European rail is incredibly complicated and is only a couple of independent operators – see link bwlow- who are trying to make rail travel easier to understand and to book.

Previously I had reported that Trainline is perfect for booking Madrid-Barcelona where there are four high-speed operators in competition and the former compares every one of these.

We Tested the Legitimate Train Booking Platforms for France—Here’s What Works Best for Cheap Tickets

[Author]

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