Originally Posted by
RICKYLO
You must write in the date of your ticket prior to ticket inspection by the conductors. Only once have I seen a conductor make a big deal about forgetting to do so. usually they will write it in for you if you forget. Please be aware that there are a limited amount of seats on any train that are sold to eurail pass holders. There are usually seats available for full fare tickets. Some train lines, such as the night trains from Paris to cities in Italy or from Rome to Paris, may be sold out for pass holders 2 to 3 months in advance. On a recent trip through France and Italy I had to pay full fare on two occasions because the tickets alotted for pass holders were sold out. I had a 6 day pass but was able to use it only 4 times. While the savings with the pass are good you cannot always count on getting the train you want. This is not good if you are on a tight or fixed schedule.
In the 60's (when I first used a EP) things were so "simple", you bought a 1 month, 2 month or 3 month pass (there were no youth passes then either), all reservations were included and except for TEE's no reservations were required^. Now with over 50 types of passes and reservation only trains, as you noted, you can't easily go from point A to point B (if you are a pass holder).
But, if one is flexible
and you have lots of time, there are ways around the restrictions, use local trains. Unfortunately, there are exceptions, Paris to Brussels seems to require the Thalys--I'm sure they are busily creating routes to prevent my method.
[PS: There were lots of
first class couches on the night trains, and hoards of pax would make use of this feature--go from point A, overnight, to B and save on hotels.