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Introducing int.bahn.de
The Deutsche Bahn (German Railways) website int.bahn.de is one of the best railway websites in Europe and well worth getting to know.
Search timetables all over Europe
I usually look up European train times using int.bahn.de, even for trains within France or Spain, because it's faster, more configurable and gives more detailed timetable information than using the French or Spanish railways' own websites. The same goes for most other countries!
You can use it to look up train times across most of Europe, it covers almost all the main European train operators and some private ones, where operators put timetable data into MERITS, the official European international timetable database.
It doesn't show times for some smaller operators who don't use MERITS, for example some Spanish suburban networks, the Circumvesuviana (Naples-Pompeii-Salerno) or privately-run Italo trains in Italy.
Buy tickets to, from, in or across Germany
int.bahn.de sells tickets for trains within Germany, with seat selection from a seat map on DB's IC & ICE trains. You can add dogs or bikes to your booking.
It also sells tickets between Germany and neighbouring countries, for example Berlin to Paris, Budapest to Frankfurt, Munich to Amsterdam or Copenhagen to Cologne.
It also sells cross-Germany tickets, for example Amsterdam to Prague, Copenhagen to Zurich, Budapest to Brussels, Warsaw to Luxembourg.
You'll normally get a through ticket with cast-iron CIV passenger rights, for an inclusive end-to-end price.
Exception 1: It can't sell cross-Germany tickets involving France, at least not at affordable prices (an expensive Flexpreis may be shown). For journeys between Paris and Warsaw, Prague, Copenhagen, Vienna, Budapest and so on you should buy two tickets, splitting the booking somewhere in Germany.
Exception 2: It can't sell journeys involving Eurostar (formerly Thalys) trains on the Cologne-Brussels-Paris route, but it can sell journeys to/from Brussels & Paris using trains run by DB or by DB & SNCF in co-operation.
How far in advance?
Timetable data for Germany and many other railways (including Austrian, Czech, Swiss) is loaded for the whole timetable year from the 2nd Saturday in December to the second Saturday in December the following year. So you can check train times for any date until mid-December, but not beyond that. Timetable data for the following timetable year is normally loaded around mid-October.
Timetable data for some railways including French, Spanish, Italian, Swedish is only loaded for the next few months. So you will see no trains (or confusingly, only partially-loaded data) if you look too far ahead, even within the current timetable year.
Tickets for Germany and most international routes to/from Germany now go on sale up to 12 months ahead, or more accurately, until the end of the timetable year in mid-December. But the further ahead you book, the greater the chance of getting a Dear John email. More about when European train bookings open.
Exception: Trains to/from Poland require a seat reservation which Polish Railways only load 60 days ahead.
On the enquiry page
If you don't know the specific station to use, use a plain city name, for example BERLIN. This is the equivalent of Berlin (Any airport) on an airline website.
Transfer time: The system knows the minimum connection time at each station and will not suggest impossible connections. But it will suggest tight connections which are likely to be missed if there's the slightest delay.
My advice? If you're connecting into a regional train with another regional train half an hour later, leave Transfer time as normal. But if you're travelling from Munich to Paris with a change in Stuttgart and would face a 3 hour wait (and would lose your seat reservations) if you missed your Stuttgart-Paris train, I'd change Transfer time to 45 minutes. When connecting with a sleeper with no Plan B, I'd use the Stopovers feature to build in an even longer buffer, over an hour.
Stopovers: You can use the Stopovers feature to specify a route or to incorporate stopovers. To specify a route, enter one or two stations leaving length of stay zero, this forces it to find journeys which call at those stations. To add stopovers, enter one or two stations and desired length of stay. The system can sell tickets with up to 2 stopovers built in, within the 2-day ticket validity.
Mode of transport: If you have a Deutschland Ticket only valid on regional trains, you can use the Mode of Transport feature to restrict the search to regional trains. Or you can tell it you only want to see journeys involving high-speed trains, and so on. Although sadly, un-ticking buses doesn't always eliminate buses!
Book seat only: Use this if you want a seat reservation on its own, to go with an existing ticket or a railpass. If you have a Eurail or Interrail pass you can use this to make seat reservations within Germany, but when making international reservations you should first consult my Eurail/Interrail reservations page.
In the search results
The fewer connections the better: You can see at a glance which journeys are direct, which involve 1 change and which involve multiple changes. Engage brain: I'd rather have a slower journey with one robust 40-minute connection than a faster journey with several risky 10-minute connections!
Journey details: If you click Details then click on the train number, you'll see an end-to-end timetable for that train, with platform numbers where known. Very handy!
If a price is shown, for example €75.99, this is for a through ticket with cast-iron CIV passenger rights at an inclusive end-to-end price. This is what you want!
If it says Determine price, part of the journey is on a train which DB cannot sell using its own ticketing system. If you click Continue it will see if it can source a ticket or cobble together a series of tickets using its connection to other operators' systems. 9 times out of 10 you don't want this, here's why:
If the journey is outside Germany, you probably shouldn't be booking with DB in the first place. For example, for Paris to Bordeaux you should be booking direct with French Railways SNCF, not booking by proxy through DB!
If the journey involves Germany, you should ideally find another departure with a price shown, so you get a through ticket and maybe a cheaper fare. For example, from Brussels to Hamburg you'll see EST+ICE journeys marked Determine price because DB can't sell Eurostar (EST) trains using its own system. If you book this you'll get TWO tickets either side of Cologne with few or no passenger rights and it may cost more. It's better to choose an ICE+ICE departure and get a through ticket.
If the journey involves a Nightjet sleeper train or ÖBB partner sleeper train, you'd be better off booking the sleeper train direct at ÖBB's own website.
If it says Route section price, the price shown only covers part of the journey, the other part is on a train which DB cannot sell at all. For example ICE+FLX from Brussels to Hamburg, where FLX is Flixtrain, one of DB's competitors. The price shown is only for DB's Brussels-Cologne ICE, the part DB can sell. I've known people ignore the warnings and book this, thinking they were buying a ticket from Brussels to Hamburg. You should generally avoid anything marked Route section price, there are often better all-DB options for which DB can sell a through ticket.
If prices are shown but the booking fails, it may be because seat reservations are not loaded. This can happen on trains from Berlin to Warsaw or Krakow, where the Germans have loaded fares 60 days out but the Polish Railways are late loading seat reservations, only loading them 59 or 58 days ahead - wait and try again!
After you've booked
Only one passenger name is needed to support a ticket, even if the ticket covers several people.
Erwachsene is German for adult, so if a ticket says 2 Erwachsene it's good for two people.
Your car & seat number is shown on your ticket as (for example) Wg. 11 Pl. 61 = Wagen 11, Platz 61 = car 11, seat 61.
In your reservation details: Tisch = with fixed table between face to face seats. Abteil = seat in compartment. Großraum = open-plan seating. Fenster = window seat. Handy = mobile phone friendly not a quiet zone. Ruhe = quiet zone.
Instant cancellation within 180 minutes: If you realise you've made a mistake, you can cancel bookings made at int.bahn.de within 3 hours of booking and get a full refund, regardless of the normal terms & conditions of the ticket you've bought, see int.bahn.de/en/booking-information/exchanges-refunds (please let me know if that link changes). Does not apply if you booked through a Determine price link.
Specified trains (Zugbindung): In principle, a Sparpreis or Super Sparpreis ticket is only valid on the specific trains you've booked. But there's some flexibility when it comes to regional/local/suburban trains and sometimes mainline trains outside Germany, which is worth understanding. Here's how Zugbindung works:
Your ticket can only be used on the trains listed by train number in the Zugbindung section on your ticket, over the part of your route covered by those trains.
You should also check the wording at the top of the ticket, this occasionally shows an additional Zugbindung restriction. For example on tickets to/from Switzerland it says Gilt in der Schweiz nur in gebuchten Zügen gemäß Reiseverbindung which means that in Switzerland it's only valid on the specific trains shown on your ticket.
You are free to use any train you like on parts of the journey for which no specific train is listed in the Zugbindung section, and where no other restriction is shown at the top of the ticket. For the avoidance of doubt, any train you like means trains of the same type and operator.
The Zugbindung section normally only lists the long-distance trains (IC, EC, RJ, RJX, TGV or ICE) covered by your ticket. It won't list Regional or S-Bahn trains (RE, RB or S) or (for example) connecting Dutch or Belgian domestic trains, even Intercity (IC) ones.
So if you have a Sparpreis ticket from Munich Airport to Zurich for example, you can use any S-Bahn train you like from Munich Airport to Munich Hbf, you don't have to wait for the specific departure shown on your ticket on this part of the route. Indeed, as these S-Bahn trains run every 10 minutes, you'd be crazy to do that.
Similarly, if you have a ticket from Schiedam Centrum to Berlin using a Dutch Intercity train to Amsterdam then a DB Intercity train to Berlin, only the Amsterdam-Berlin train will be listed in the Zugbindung section. You can use any Dutch train from Schiedam Centrum to Amsterdam that day, so feel free to take an earlier one. Alles klar? Gut!
Unfortunately, there's no way to check exactly what the Zugbindung panel will say before buying the ticket. Austrian Sparschiene fares and Czech First Minute fares work in a similar way.
If you get a Dear John email
You can now book up to 12 months ahead, but the infrastructure people still only plan trackwork 2-3 months ahead. If you insist on booking umpteen months ahead, you may well get a Dear John email from DB telling you something has changed. It usually starts with the panic-inducing words "Your journey is no longer possible..."
Don't panic, you don't need to contact anyone and you don't need to buy another ticket.
Before you do anything else, go to int.bahn.de and run an enquiry to see what has actually changed.
Sometimes your train is still running but it's timings have changed by a few minutes. No big deal!
Sometimes your train is diverted to another station, for example Amsterdam-Berlin or Berlin-Warsaw trains are sometimes diverted to start/finish at Berlin Gesundbrunnen instead of Berlin Hbf due to trackwork. Annoying, but not the end of the world. Tip: This is a good example of where using plain BERLIN to run the enquiry is a good idea, rather than the specific Berlin Hbf.
Sometimes your train is starting or terminating short of your planned origin or destination, for example your Berlin-Warsaw train is starting from Frankfurt (Oder) or your Munich to Paris TGV is starting from Stuttgart. In this case, your existing ticket entitles you to take any suitable alternative train over the affected section. int.bahn.de will give you train times. Tip: In the Munich to Paris example I'd change Transfer time to 40 minutes rather than risk any tight 10-minute connection in Stuttgart.
Incidentally, if your train still exists with the same train number, any seat reservations you have on it will also still exist. Although you won't have seat reservations on any connecting train you now need to use, if you call DB telesales they'll do these for you for free.
Occasionally your train is completely cancelled or its timings radically changed. In these circumstances the Dear John email will usually say that you can now take any train or trains that day, you are no longer tied to a specific train. In which case, find a journey that suits you by the same or similar route using int.bahn.de. Obviously, you can only use DB trains and those of its partner railways, you can't use competitors' trains such as Flixtrain or Eurostar.