1. A rail day is midnight to midnight. You can take as many trains as you like during that 24 hour period. Thus it’s really good for things like taking a morning train from Vienna, spending the day in Salzburg and then taking an evening train to Munich. The “7:00 PM rule” allows you to take an overnight train using only one day (arrival day) of the pass if you leave one city before midnight and arrive in the other after midnight.

2. The Eurail pass does not cover what most people think of as “local transportation.” It covers local trains, including suburban and commuter rail, but not the subways, trams and buses you’ll end up using in most cities. In Paris, it does not cover the metro (subway) or buses. It does cover parts of the RER (suburban light rail which runs below the metro) but not the parts in the center of the city. Same is true for German cities. It covers the S-bahn (suburban light rail) but not the U-bahn (traditional subway).

3, Obviously, you would not waste an expensive day of your railpass to cover a few euros of local transportation. It may be cheaper to buy point to point tickets for your day trips and other short treks.

Great! Thanks for answering those. I have one other question. If I am taking an overnight train that has a layover (say I leave at 8pm, layover, next train leaves at 1am), will that use up two days, or will I get a single ticket initially that will cover all that? I really don’t want to screw up and waste a day of travel when I can buy what would probably be a $20 train ticket.

Thanks!!!

The overnight train counts as arrival day on your pass, so you need to make sure you don’t end up taking a train, other than the overnight train that leaves after 7:00 PM, on departure day. If your overnight train has a connection before midnight, that counts as taking a train that day — so you’d have to mark both departure day and arrival day on your railpass (unless you bought a ticket as you suggest). The more correct statement of the rule would be “If you take an overnight train that leaves after 7:00 PM, with no connections before midnight, you count only one day, arrival day, on your railpass.” If you used your railpass for an unrelated trip on departure day, the rule wouldn’t help as you would have already used departure day and you’d still have to mark arrival day for the overnight train.