European Rail Travel - European rail timetable changes December 2011

Some advance information can be found here (http://www.eurocheapo.com/blog/europe-rail-update-september-2011.html).

Interesting to read about the new service between Vienna and Salzburg:
Competition in Austria

Look for changes in Austria from December 11 when the new Westbahn services start linking Vienna with Salzburg. Westbahn is a new private rail venture backed by French operator SNCF. They debut on the Salzburg-Vienna route with hourly services linking the two Austrian cities in what will surely be some sharp competition for ÖBB who also have hourly trains on the same route.

Surprisingly, for a new venture starting up in less than 3 months, and needing to make a name for itself in the marketplace, the Westbahn website (http://www.westbahn.at/) is currently only in German. Clearly this is a large domestic market, but it's a very popular route for international visitors, too.

EDIT: the Westbahn URL now links to the English version.

I appear to be using it in English. Looks like it autodetects on IP.

But if you prefer: https://westbahn.at/en

Neil

I appear to be using it in English. Looks like it autodetects on IP.

But if you prefer: https://westbahn.at/en

Neil

Great, thanks for that. I've got a feeling this has just appeared. The English/German link in the top right was certainly not available before.

Now I automatically get the English page :p.

anyone knows when the winter timetable will be available at bahn.de?

The DB website (http://www.bahn.com/i/view/GBR/en/index.shtml) says bookings can be made from 18th October, so (at least the German) timetable will be available from then or maybe or a day or two before.

Advance bookings for the 2011/12 timetable (valid from 11th December 2011) will be available from 18th October 2011.

Other countries tend to be loaded later.

It seems the new Citynightline service Copenhagen-Berlin-Dresden-Prague (mentioned in the story Railways originally linked to) is now confirmed by DB here (http://www.bahn.de/citynightline/view/en/service/info/buchungsoeffnung_en.shtml).

More details on the new service, including departure/arrival times for Prague/Copenhagen, are available here (http://www.novinky.cz/ekonomika/246987-ceske-drahy-vyrazeji-na-sever-od-prosince-budou-jezdit-do-kodane.html), in Czech.

SNCF timetables from Dec 2011 are available here (http://horaires2012-sncf.com/). Apparently bookings open on Oct 13th.

Eurostar timetables from Dec 2011 are here (http://www.eurostar.com/pdf/timetables/UK_timetable%281%29.pdf). Hopefully, there will be better connections with DB ICE trains at Brussels.

It seems the new Citynightline service Copenhagen-Berlin-Dresden-Prague (mentioned in the story Railways originally linked to) is now confirmed by DB here (http://www.bahn.de/citynightline/view/en/service/info/buchungsoeffnung_en.shtml).

More details on the new service, including departure/arrival times for Prague/Copenhagen, are available here (http://www.novinky.cz/ekonomika/246987-ceske-drahy-vyrazeji-na-sever-od-prosince-budou-jezdit-do-kodane.html), in Czech.

"The combination will ensure a comfortable night in the category of trains EuroNight / CityNightLine in the section between Prague and Berlin will be included in the train EN Phoenix," he informed Stahlavsky.

The link will depart from Prague in the evening at 18.29 pm and arrives in Copenhagen the following morning at 10.07 am in the opposite direction from Copenhagen will usually leave at 18.10 pm and arrive in Prague at 9.26 pm "In addition to Copenhagen serve connections and other places in the north Germany and Denmark, such as Flensburg, Padborg, Kolding with connection to Aarhus and Odense, "said Stahlavsky.

Passengers will have a modern railway sleeping car, which has sections for one to three passengers, including luxury divisions with separate toilet and shower. Part in 'passenger is air conditioning or electrical outlet for powering small electronics. The air-conditioned sleeper car will be operated by DB AutoZug and offers traditional sections with four or six beds.

Price from € 49

"In addition to the standard offer tickets will be on this line are available as well-known special offers SparNight in price from 49 euros per sleeping car, from 69 euros in the sleeping car category Economy and sleeping car first class (deluxe), then from 99 euros, "said Stahlavsky.

Prague and Copenhagen have a direct train connection in the first half of the 90 years. Then provide him with the Danish railway cars on a daily express train Neptune.

The new 2012 (ie: post 11/12/2011) timetable is now online at bahn.de, and tickets are (generally) on sale up to the normal 92 day window.

Here are some of the changes / issues I’ve noted (mainly related to services in/to/from Germany), based on a quick skim:

Citynightline:
The new Copenhagen-Hamburg-Berlin-Dresden-Praha CNL is in.

The Paris-Berlin/Munich/Hamburg and vv CNLs are currently only on sale for Saturdays and Sundays. Due to timetabling uncertainties, they are not yet on sale for Monday-Friday. CNL cannot yet say when they the weekday services will be available for sale.

The Paris-Berlin CNL has lost its restaurant car. (Apparently this has already happened – although the restaurant car is still shown in the 2011 CNL brochure).

CNL say that the Warsaw-Amsterdam EN is also not yet on sale due to timetabling uncertainties (but it actually seems to be available for sale on bahn.de).

CNL updates, and the new CNL brochure are available here (http://www.citynightline.de/citynightline/view/en/service/info/buchungsoeffnung_en.shtml) (although the brochure appears to be provisional, and I suspect will be re-issued once all the timetable issues are finalised).

Other EN Services To/From Germany:
These seem to be generally the same as last year. Services are shown in the timetable, but do not seem to be available for online booking. Hopefully this is just a technical glitch, that will be resolved soon. (The same thing happened last year, with the EN services not available for online booking for the first few weeks after the new timetable was launched).

The ‘Lisinski’ sleeper train between Munich and Zagreb has become a EN (rather than the D it was previously). I had heard that as it is now an EN, it should also become available for online booking (as the other EN services out of Germany are) but I don’t know if (or when) this will actually happen.

Central/Eastern Europe:
Perhaps unsurprisingly, not all services in central/eastern Europe are yet loaded into bahn.de

In addition to the Lisinski sleeper, there used to be two daily direct day-time trains between Munich and Zagreb. It seems that these both now require a change (in Villach or Spittal-Millstättersee). (I wonder if this might just be a computer glitch, and in fact there are still through-cars, which just aren’t properly shown in the online timetable yet...?)

Eurostar / ICE Connections Between London And Köln
See update posted in this (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/european-rail-travel/779086-make-most-out-your-rail-travel-germany-14.html#post17296028) thread.


Other Rail Operators
SBB, ÖBB and CD do not yet have their 2011-2012 timetables available online...

Has anyone seen anything from NTV in Italy? Are they starting in December?

The €49 DB London-Spezial fares seem to be getting scarcer.

Managed to book one a week before Christmas from Munich - London, but had to settle for a €69 fare the other way.

A quick update, following my earlier post.

ÖBB
Austrian Railways now have their 2012 timetable available for booking online (although some further amendments may still happen).
An overview of key changes is available here (http://www.oebb.at/de/Neu_fuer_Sie/Der_Fahrplan_2012_ist_da/index.jsp) (in German), with a map available here (http://www.oebb.at/__downloads/de/Fahrplanwechsel/Uebersicht_Oesterreich_-_Fernverkehr.pdf).

Sadly, it does seem the through trains from Munich to Zagreb have been discontinued (in order to avoid delays waiting for the through carriages from Belgrade?)

Euronights (EN) To/From Germany
Most of the EN trains to/from Germany (eg: Munich-Budapest, Hamburg-Wien, Köln-Wien, Berlin-Budapest) are now available for booking online at bahn.de.

However, there is as yet no sign of the Munich-Zagreb ‘Lisinski’ EN being available for booking online. There also seems to be a problem with the Berlin-Wien EN, as bahn.de doesn’t recognise that there are through carriages, and instead indicates a change at Breclav. Hopefully this is just a temporary computer glitch, as in the opposite direction, the Wien-Berlin EN shows up correctly.

Deutsche Bahn
This news article (http://www.die-news.de/include.php?path=content/articles.php&contentid=141331) has an overview of the changes to the DB timetable.

Key issues are:

A direct TGV from Frankfurt to Marseille, starting at end of March 2012.
Various additional direct connections within Germany
A new DB Express Bus service between Munich and Prague* (although this doesn’t appear in the bahn.de timetable yet...)


SBB
Swiss Railways now have their 2012 timetable available online (but don’t seem to have a news article giving details of key changes).

* Trains Munich/Nürnberg - Prague
There have been various questions about this in other threads, so just to clarify: there are trains between Munich or Nürnberg and Prague (not only the DB Express Buses). However, they are operated by CD and ALX (not DB), and don’t always show up easily in the bahn.de timetable.

The 2012 timetable seems to be as follows:
Munich – Prague:
ALX355/EX355 Dep 09:01, arr 14:51
ALX351/EX351 Dep 17:02, arr 22:51

Prague – Munich:
EX352/ALX352 Dep 09:57, arr 15:03
EX356/ALX356 Dep 17:07, arr 23:05

Nürnberg – Prague:
ALX357/EX357 Dep 06:01, arr 10:51
ALX353/EX353 Dep 14:05, arr 18:51

Prague – Nürnberg:
EX350/ALX350 Dep 05:07, arr 09:56
EX354/ALX354 Dep 13:07, arr 17:56

It is not necessary (nor, AFAIK possible) to make advance reservations on these trains.

For travel from Germany to Czech, for any of these trains leaving after 9am (or any time on weekends), a Bayern-Bohmen ticket (http://www.bahn.de/regional/view/mdb/regio_oberbayern/2011_relaunch/MDB87054-bayern_boehmen_ticket_2011.pdf) costs €34 for up to 5 people, to travel from Munich or Prague, as far as Plzen in Czech. From Plzen to Prague is 147Kc per person (~€6). It should be possible to buy this ticket on the train, once it has entered Czech (and although it’d be better to pay in Kc, they’ll probably accept euro. If you buy the ticket from the conductor before the train reaches Plzen, you can't be accused of travelling without a valid ticket). For two or more people travelling together, this is likely to work out cheaper than the DB Express Bus (and doesn’t need to be booked in advance).

By changing in Schwandorf, it is possible to use the Prague-Munich service to reach Nürnberg (or vice versa). However, note the Bayern-Bohmen ticket is only valid on ‘local’ trains – not ICEs (nor the Express Bus).

And details of Czech Railways' timetable changes for 2012 are available here (http://www.cd.cz/infoservis/aktuality/-11904/) (in Czech).

The direct overnight train between Budapest and Venice is being withdrawn after nearly 20 years. MAV (Hungarian Railways) is blaming it on failure to agree terms with its railway partners (especially Trenitalia -- no surprise there), rather than on lack of demand.

On the positive side, there will be a new daily Railjet service between Budapest and Zurich. On the return journey, the Railjet to Budapest leaves Zurich at 10:40am and the corresponding overnight sleeper leaves at 10:40pm. :cool: