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Booking trains

  • December 4, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 24 views

Hello. I have bought my pass and am now trying to book train and seats but struggling. We are travelling from Cardiff in July 2026 to London and then around France. When I add my route in the planner no trains appear so I don't understand how I get to see the trains or book seat reservations. Do I need to activate my journey in the pass section. Thank you for any advice. 

2 replies

Schelte
Full steam ahead
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  • Full steam ahead
  • December 4, 2025

You are a bit too early for most trains, including domestic UK trains. You could book a Eurostar reservation as those should be available for July and risk selling out. Don't plan it too tight in London, but be aware you'll also need an in-/outbound day for the Eurostar journey. 


BrendanDB
Full steam ahead
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  • Full steam ahead
  • December 4, 2025

Indeed very early! But no worries, trains will run.

Railways usually don’t open bookings further than 1-3 months in advance, depending on the country.

If you want to start planning and booking accomodations, and see travel times, amount of changes. There’s a simple trick. You best use a random date somewhere in the next few weeks. You can choose a similar day on which you want to travel. Then you see what to expect itinerary wise.

I’lld suggest to pick a date after after 14 December, but also not too far ahead. 14th December day the schedules change all over Europe, but usually it doesn’t change that much. There’s a smaller timetable change half June as well. Checking schedules and booking train tickets too far ahead will never give results because of these timetable change dates.

Recheck the itinerary than one or two months before travelling to check on engineering works and/or altered and make potential reservation, and triple check schedules again a (few) day(s) before travelling.