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From The New York Times Sunday 19 May
Railway.Coms Within Europe
By SUSAN STELLIN
NE of the most nail-biting travel experiences I have had was flying by myself to Italy as a junior in college, embarking on a semester abroad. I was on a different flight than the rest of my classmates, which meant I had to get myself from the Milan airport to an address in Florence with little information about the trains in between.
I knew there was a bus from the airport to the train station, but I had no idea how often the trains ran, how long the trip would take, how seats were assigned or how I would get my bulky luggage aboard. (None of the Italian men dashing past me helped with this last hurdle, but a tiny older woman ultimately insisted on dragging one of my bags the length of the platform.)
Though I cannot vouch for the helpfulness of Italian men, things have improved on the information front. When I recently searched online for an Italian train schedule to plan a similar itinerary (Milan to Rome), I was surprised to find a complete timetable not only for the Italian railroad but also virtually every rail line in Europe. Though each line’s Web site has quirks that might baffle someone not familiar with the local train system, all the sites I tried offered an English-language version, and most were easy to navigate.
I started my quest at the search engine Google (www.google.com); when I typed in "Italy" and "train schedule" the first result listed was the Web site of the Italian national railroad, Ferrovie dello Stato (www.fs-on-line.com. This strategy worked for about half the European countries I tried, but I also happened upon a useful page that links to nearly 40 European national railways and timetables: mercurio.iet.unipi.it/misc/timetabl.html.
At the Italian site, also accessible at www.trenitalia.com, I was able to enter my departure and arrival stations, the date and approximate time of my trip and get a page listing all the trains departing at or after the time I indicated.
Getting Your Ticket
Like airline Web sites, those of the Italian railway and most other railroads give more detail once you select a train: length of trip, any intermediate stops, fares for different classes of travel (generally quoted in euros or the local currency). Many sites include symbols representing amenities on board, though keys to these symbols are not always readily found.
Although the Italian railway allows online ticket purchasing, for delivery via registered letter or pickup at a self-service machine, the site does not indicate whether customers outside Italy can have tickets delivered. At this point the site seems best merely for checking timetables.
For comparison’s sake, I tried looking up schedules at other European rail sites and found my experience with the Italian one representative. I was generally able to find the information I needed, but trans-Atlantic sites tend to be slower than those in the United States. And online purchasing seems to be an option primarily for local residents, though at least one site, run by Swiss Federal Railways, allows foreigners to make reservations online for home delivery.
I was most impressed by the Web site of Spain’s national railway, Renfe (www.renfe.es), which has a link to an English-language version at the top of the home page. (Sometimes you have to hunt for the translated version; a British flag is a common indicator for English.)
Besides a clear, easy-to-search timetable, the Spanish site provides lots of additional information, such as the services available at most stations, a key to the icons used (e.g., the mysterious diagonal shape indicates a reclining seat), and helpful information for travelers planning a trip from Spain to major cities in nearby countries.
One of my challenges was trying to find schedules for trips between destinations in different countries. Though some national rail sites include information for trains to major cities in nearby countries, searching for a route that crosses borders often results in an error message. For those trips, a good source is Rail Europe, (888) 382-7245, or at www.raileurope.com, which sells tickets and rail passes for European trains to customers in North America. (To get to the timetable, look for a link that says Fares and Schedules.)
Although a Rail Europe spokeswoman, Chris Lazarus, acknowledged that its Web site did not include schedules for every train in the region, she said participating railways load timetables for the routes most requested by customers.
France Made Easy
The English-language version of the French national railway, Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français or S.N.C.F. (www.sncf.com/indexe….), offers a combined timetable and booking service for trains throughout France (click on Information Schedule and Booking.) The timetable is easy to use. It indicates, for example, which trains require reservations and which travel at peak or off-peak times — but it does not offer as much detailed additional information as Renfe’s. One bonus: from the English index page, visitors can obtain schedules for trains in and around Paris and to its airports by choosing the Around Paris link.
Though Italy, Spain and France each has a national railway system, trains in Britain are privately owned, which no doubt explains why there is no comprehensive online site for train schedules in Britain. UK Railways on the Net (www.rail.co.uk) is one option; it offers a searchable timetable but does not list ticket prices. Two other sites that provide timetables are www.thetrainline.com and www.qjump.co.uk. Another, eurostar.com, offers a timetable and fares for the high-speed train linking London, Paris and Brussels, but sends visitors to a local distributor to purchase a ticket.
BritRail.com links to another site for timetable information but does sell rail passes to foreigners for travel within Britain, as well as tickets for point-to-point trains. (Customers who fill in an online form will be contacted by a BritRail agent; tickets are mailed for a charge of $10 to $15.)
The Swiss Federal Railways site, www.sbb.ch, has an easy-to-use timetable and is one of the few train sites that include information about online ticket purchases by customers outside the country. United States residents can buy and receive tickets for some trains via Express Mail (one- to three-day delivery) for a surcharge of about $25. One frustration: the link to the English-language version of the site is subtle. Click on the text in the upper-right corner that says Swiss Federal Railways.
My least successful attempt to find train schedules online was Deutsche Bahn, the German railway, www.bahn.de. The English-language version is hard to find from the home page, but can be retrieved at www.reiseauskunft.ba…. With the query I tried, the schedule from Frankfurt to Munich, I kept getting a series of chastising error messages (e.g., "It is not possible to select any means of transport before the input is complete and correct."
The site is probably useful for someone familiar with German transportation, but I gave up in frustration.
SUSAN STELLIN writes frequently for The Times.