Buying a Cross-Border Rail Ticket? Welcome to the Jungle!
If you are new to international rail travel, the title of this post may surprise you. After all, if you live in Czechia you probably happily buy your ticket to Brno or Ostrava on the web, and assume it will be just as easy to buy a ticket to Vienna. Well it is just as easy to buy it - but buying it for the best price is quite another matter.
In this post, I’m going to show you round the jungle, and discuss why it is such a jungle. However, I’m not going to rely on my own experience and knowledge because there are people out there on the web whom you need to meet, who have much more of both.
There is literally nobody in the world who can better steer you safely through this jungle, to buy the best ticket for the best price, than The Man in Seat 61. He is Mark Smith, a British ex railway manager, a legend within both the rail business and among regular rail travellers. His fans, including me, will often choose to reserve seat no. 61 in his honour. (On his website he’ll explain what’s so special about “seat 61”)
Follow this advice (you can thank me later):
If you are planning an international rail journey, anywhere, and are not completely familiar with the best route, and the best way to buy a ticket, consult his website first. Don’t be put off by the old-skool, content-heavy appearance. It is very easy to navigate. And he always turns out to be right, on every little detail; which is important because in rail travel there are lots of details which can trip up the unsuspecting traveller.
Just to give you a recent example: In April this year, Deutsche Bahn in April introduced their new version of the all-Germany ticket that caught the world’s attention when it was introduced in 2022 at the ridiculous price of €9 for a month of unlimited travel. Not surprisingly this year it was priced at €49, and was offered on a subscription basis. You have to set up a monthly recurring payment - but you are allowed to cancel it after just one month. I decided to do a trip from Prague to Stuttgart to test it out, soon after it launched. So naturally I went to www.bahn.de, as I had done many times before, and where I have an account. But it just wasn’t accepting my payment for this ticket. I could not understand what was wrong; only then did it occur to me to check with The Man in Seat 61. Of course he’d already identified both the problem and the solution
And that is why I have the local transport app of that fine city Free Hansastadt Bremen on my phone. And outside Germany, who on earth could have given you this tip within a week of the ticket’s launch?
But that is one small example of why you need The Man in Seat 61. The more fundamental problem he helps you with is this: although many express trains travel across European borders, as they have done for over 100 years, we still do not have a single European website which you can trust to sell you the best ticket for the best price, or even to give you all the possible train schedules for the journey you want to make.
The Man in Seat 61 has a section which explains the situation fully, and it is well worth reading. But I’ll summarise the most relevant points for this blogpost:
Each country has its own national operator with its own website
Private operators (such as Regiojet or Leo Express), have their own sites
Europe has over 50 different rail operator websites selling train tickets for their own trains
He then uses our own Czech “corridor” to explain more precisely what you should do to get the best price:
For international journeys, your starting assumption is to book them at the national rail operator website for the country where the journey starts. But if a train can be e-ticketed, you can also book using the destination country's national train operator website.
For example, Berlin-Prague trains are run jointly by German & Czech national railways, and can be booked at either German Railways int.bahn.de or Czech Railways www.cd.cz with print-your-own tickets.
Now it gets interesting, as this is one of the routes where each partner operator manages advance-purchase price levels independently. So the price at bahn.de might be €39 (with cheaper €19 & €29 tickets sold out), whilst €19 tickets remain available for the same train at cd.cz. It pays to check both!
Note his final point there: it’s exactly what happened to me when booking my ticket to Graz, although it was also a rare case of the home country website (cd.cz) being more expensive - a lot more expensive - than ÖBB. It’s rare - in most cases in the last two years I got the best deal from cd.cz - but it was not an isolated case. I’ve managed to reproduce and screenshot the situation, for the same journey to Graz, first class, on the 10.45 Railjet from Praha hl.n.
You can see that for a seat on the same train on the same day, in the same class, in the same seat, it is 238% more expensive to buy on the ČD site. It is even more absurd that this train at 10.45 is a ČD Railjet; the “Blue Train”, as a friendly ÖBB customer service guy called it - more from him in a moment.
However if you just decide you can take the later train, at 12.45, booking with ČD is actually 21% cheaper than ÖBB for the same train (that’s more typical).
OK. Now, before I even try to explain this, or ask anyone else do so, I’d like to say this very clearly:
This is bad. It is absurd. It needs to be fixed.
Stop and consider that 90% or more of the people on that train will have never heard of The Man in Seat 61. They do not imagine it’s necessary to wade through a content-heavy website in order to ensure they are not being ripped off when buying a train ticket. They just want to get a train that will take them comfortably where they need to go, when they need to go; and they would like to pay the cheapest price, like anyone does when buying anything. They will definitely be displeased if they learn that just because they used the website of their own national rail company, they paid 238% more than if they’d used the website of the national rail operator of another country. If the booking was made for a business traveller, the company has wasted a bit of money, but sadly, most companies will not really care. However a Czech private citizen, curious to see how much it would cost to upgrade to First, is probably not going to buy it at all at 4,100 CZK. In which case everyone loses.
Alright. It’s a jungle. But why has it sprung up?
First we should note that Prague is right at the halfway point of a rail “corridor”, which runs from Berlin to Vienna and Bratislava and Budapest, with some trains running on further north in Germany and south in Austria. The Czech lines are the real heart of the corridor. From Dečin to Breclav, five national rail companies combine to run express trains between their capital cities. The timetable is harmonised; that means that during the day there is a train every hour between Prague and Breclav going to and from either Vienna or Budapest. They all keep to the same timetable too (although the Railjets to Vienna are far better at keeping to it than the Budapest trains, often hauled by a vintage Slovak locomotive that cannot do more than 140km/h.). As for the Railjets, before lunch leaving Prague they will usually be the blue ČD Railjets, while in the afternoon they will be the red ÖBB Railjets. At the borders the train conductors change; the drivers, possibly not - they have been trained and certified to drive their trains on the tracks of the neighbouring countries; and the staff in the restaurant car remain the same, Czech or Austrian depending on whether it’s a blue or red Railjet. They usually speak three languages quite well (important note: Draught Pilsner Urquell is only available on a blue Railjet😉). You might think this is all an excellent example of European co-operation.
Yes. All very 🇪🇺. So why can’t they offer the same prices for the same seat?
Enter the friendly ÖBB customer service guy. I had actually called the ÖBB customer line to ask why I could not reserve a specific seat in first class when I could in Standard. He didn’t have a good answer. It’s just how they do it; a rare absurdity from the normally excellent ÖBB. So then I ventured to ask him about the huge price difference. At first he didn’t quite believe me, but then he checked it, and said “ah the Blue Train…”. Then he blamed “different algorithms” used for ticket sales on the sites of the three countries’ operators (Germany being the 3rd, as some Railjets run the entire Berlin-Vienna corridor). As I understood him, each algorithm tries to predict how quickly the seats will sell out at different price levels (the “dynamic pricing” thing); but each one has been coded mainly to be relevant to the national journeys of that country’s passengers. In the case of my Graz train, the ČD algorithm will be influenced by bookings it is seeing for the Prague-Brno segment. The ÖBB algorithm is more concerned with the Vienna -Graz segment.
That’s how I understood him, anyway. If you have more knowledge on this, I would be very happy if you shared it here.
Overall this is part of a wider problem for international trains. Back when I did Inter-Rail, international trains were the top dogs. The Trans Europe Expresses were still around, although I never saw one. But once the French TGVs and German ICEs were developed, the emphasis shifted to national journeys. National expresses are apparently more profitable; and if they are late, the fault lies only within the national system - that is important in these days when governments set punctuality targets.
And yet demand for international rail travel is increasing, and a German government - led initiative at EU level calls for a high -speed European network, even reviving the Trans Europe Express name; in part this is all driven by a desire to fly less, partly for climate reasons, and partly because flying is becoming a more and more unpleasant travel experience. But (as the German initiative acknowledges) the current ticket jungle is a major barrier to “modal shift” to rail.
So now you know the Man in Seat 61, who can help lead you through the jungle. Understandably his website focuses on how to help people travel by train. It’s not a place for political campaigning or rhetoric (although on Twitter he does not hide his contempt for Brexit). Now let me introduce you to the man who wants to cut down the jungle
Jon Worth is a British national residing in Berlin and a passionate advocate for railways. He is a member of the German Green Party and standing as a candidate for the upcoming MEP elections, but he's also leading the charge on the ambitious Cross-Border Rail project. This initiative aims to assess and address the often deplorable state of European rail lines that traverse internal EU borders. Additionally, Jon is a staunch advocate for the revival of night trains, highlighting the commercial and political challenges inherent in improving cross-border rail connections.
Thanks to Jon, I've gained valuable insights into the prevailing bias of most countries' railway systems toward national journeys over international ones. This prioritisation is especially evident in larger nations like France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. While Czechia stands out as a more cooperative country due to its smaller size and strategic location, Jon has reservations about France's approach in particular. He emphasises that international trains aren't just expresses with romantic-sounding names like Vindobona ; they also encompass local routes that have the potential to expand employment opportunities for border-area residents.
Jon's core argument revolves around the necessity of efficient cross-border railways within the European Union. He asserts that if the freedom of movement within the EU is to truly benefit all European citizens in their daily lives, efficient cross-border rail connections are imperative. Although the European Commission has discussed this issue extensively, tangible actions have been lacking. After speaking with him, I realised that the current European Transport Commissioner (from Romania, and only her country’s second choice nomination) is, well, not very good. Jon delves into the challenges of meeting the resurgent demand for night trains, particularly the scarcity of modern sleeping cars available for purchase or lease. Building new sleeping cars is both costly and time-consuming. After Germany made the lamentable decision to discontinue its night trains (including those serving Prague) in 2015, ÖBB stepped in to expand its international NightJet services. However, Jon argues that expecting this small country to shoulder the burden for all of Central Europe is unreasonable. His solution? Advocate for the EU to invest in a fleet of new sleeping cars, which can then be leased by individual national operators. This approach offers substantial cost savings in manufacturing and aligns with the goal of revitalizing night train services.
Returning to the topic of ticketing complexities, Jon emphasizes that national rail operators may not proactively harmonise their international ticketing systems unless directed by their political leaders. Most politicians assume that the majority of voters do not regularly embark on international rail journey. Consequently, cutting through this ticketing jungle becomes a political issue that requires resolution at the European level.
Jon also stresses the need for a central European rail booking website, which in turn necessitates a comprehensive digital database of all timetables—neither currently exist. While websites like www.bahn.de cover the majority of journeys across multiple countries, not all are included. An agreement to synchronise timetables in June and December exists, but Italy in particular often lags behind in providing updates. This situation underscores the need for European-level agreements and interventions.
Ultimately, Jon envisages that a change in the role of the Transport Commissioner might be necessary to drive these transformative changes. He hopes to secure a mandate in the European elections to better influence this crucial decision-making process.
Isn’t there a Czech rail expert like Mark or Jon?
Yes, actually there is. Michal Berg is the joint-leader of Strana Zelení ( the Czech Green party), and a keen advocate of rail travel both domestically and across Europe. His blog is not as comprehensive as he might wish, due to time constraints, but it is in Czech and approaches the ticketing issue from a Czech perspective. Recommended!
Get me out of this jungle!
(aka The Rail Advocate’s tips)
As with airlines and hotels, book as early as possible for the best prices. The cheapest fares are often non-refundable, so read the conditions carefully
Listen to what the Man said; on the Berlin-Vienna corridor check the websites of ÖBB ) if travelling from Prague to Austria), or DB (if travelling from Prague to Germany) to see if they might be cheaper than České drahy (or Regiojet). AND..
if you are making a return trip, check the outward and return legs separately. On my recent trip to Graz, my outward ticket was from ÖBB, the return from ČD; which is counter-intuitive, right?
Reserve your seat! Don’t be like the poor tourists who were told it’s not necessary to reserve in 1st class, and ended up standing in a corridor.
As far as I am aware, the jungle is not so thick when travelling to Slovakia. You can safely trust ČD or Regiojet websites to give you the best price.
As for travel to Poland and Hungary, I have no experience. Please share tips if you do have such experience
Going further? Read the Man’s pages for each country you plan to visit, and his “how to buy cheap European tickets” page.