MrLapLap is travelling midweek rom Ravensburg to Schaffhausen which involves a transfer at Friedrichshafen.

It’s only a 4 minute connection time and seems to involve getting from platform 2 to platform 4 (probably involving stairs/elevators)
Specifically it’s the RB87571 that leaves 12:19 and arrives at 12:41 to the IC3056 which leaves Friedrichshafen at 12:45

I saw there is a train that gets to Schaffhausen earlier (12:12 – 12:25 from Ravensburg) and arrives at platform 3 (shared with platform 4, so just a few steps). He will have 23kg of luggage/tools.

He already has a ticket (bought with Trip.com, his eventual destination is ZRH) so the question is if he can use a rail journey ticket on this earlier train or whether to get a 5-6Euro ticket for this portion of the journey.
Also, if it’s necessary to get the extra ticket, should he put both tickets through the gate at Ravensburg (I wonder if by not “starting’ his ticket it might invalidate it)

Given the *punctuality*of German trains, I would never make a correspondance between trains under 20-25mn. No, really.

The question is what kind of ticket your friend bought. DB is like many airline companies in this regard, there are the lowest priced tickets where you are bound to your train and no changes are permitted, some where you can modify against a fee, and some that are full flex.

There is no 'gate' at German rail stations. You board the train freely and may get checked inside the train. The tickets you purchased are often bound to the specifc IC/ICE train number, but AFAIR the RE trains are not, so he can take the earlier RE train without issues.

Tell him to take the earlier train to Friedrichshafen. The ticket is valid on any "RE" train, it's only IC/EC/ICE trains where it is only valid for a specific train.

RE = Regionalbahn, so any RB train is OK.

Thanks everyone, I really appreciate your timeu and experience.

We looked through and the ticket was very restrictive and the earlier train much faster and impossible to book as part of the itinerary (which spooked MrLapLap) and even with it being faster didn’t really leave much of a margin.

Given the advice, he preferred to play it safe so he’s instead leaving Ravensburg an hour earlier and enjoying a lunch time break at Lindau-Reutin. Has a small bakery and a pulled meat stand by the station with, importantly, German pricing so he can have a hearty meal before crossing into Switzerland.

I cancelled the other ticket, no penalty fee.

RE and RB trains in Germany and all trains in Switzerland are not restricted, so a through ticket Ravensburg-Zurich via Schaffhausen would allow you to travel on any train. And then Friedrichshafen to Lindau-Reutin is in the opposite direction as Friedrichshafen to Schaffhausen. It would be possible to travel Ravensburg-Friedrichshafen-Lindau to Zurich with a connection in Friedrichshafen to a local train and in Lindau-Reutin to the (restricted, as it's an international connection on an upper-class train) Munich-Zurich Eurocity train. Which do you have? The earlier train you mentioned (12:12 from Ravensburg) is an RE to Lindau-Reutin and thus avoid the transfer at Friedrichshafen.

He had a ticket which was Ravensburg - Friedrichshafen (4 min) - Schaffhausen (17 min) - ZRH
Ticket details specified train numbers to be used. That ticket now cancelled (too stressy).

His new ticket is Ravensburg - Lindau-Reutin (57 min inc. lunch break) - ZRH
—-
The advice given about RE & RB trains is still very valuable as he will be coming to Germany from ZRH with a rail ticket that includes the Romanshorn to Friedrichshafen Ferry. Again, thank you.

The only reason you couldn't book the earlier train with the longer connection was that the system found the faster connection and didn't show the other one. You need to change connection time in the settings to more than whatever the short connection is. In your case, specifying a minimum 15 min connection would show the earlier train.

Thanks, I tried the “modify details” option and looked at the “transfer time” part, changing it from “normal” to 15 minutes and, you’re right. There, just as you said, was the 12:12 departure with the longer 20 min transfer at Friedrichshafen. This was on bahn.de and doesn’t appear to be an option on trip.com.
MrLap is content with the lunch time transfer at Lindau-Reutin (and that it is just one change) but this is good information to know for the next time. He’s also feeling much more relaxed about the consequences of not making the designated train TO Ravensburg after the ferry trip. This has been an illuminating thread.

Just a quick report back.

The trip to Germany from ZRH using the ferry went beautifully. We’re glad MrLapLap had the chance to travel via Romanshorn to Friedrichshafen in the Switzerland to Germany direction but would not feel so confident with the return on this route.


Today’s weather has been glorious and there was plenty to do at Lindau-Reutin (as well as the food van and bakery there is a multi-storey shopping centre with sweeping views of the mountains from the top)

Lindau-Reutin Station

He’s now on the train to Zurich Airport.
The Trip.com live tracker has been excellent.

DATA POINT - the system says sit in “any available” 2nd class seat but not the case, he and a lot of other people were made to vacate them, they were reserved. He said the train is crammed with people with luggage, suitcases everywhere (he has the one, work tools). Turns out there are reserved and non-reserved seats with the majority being reserved.

Thanks for the update; good to hear things went well.
Reserved seats are not really "available" -- the advice, while technically correct, could have been worded more clearly to say unreserved and unoccupied, or something similar.