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Snow Swiss Rail routes

  • 25 December 2022
  • 7 replies
  • 172 views

Hi all, I am about to purchase a global pass traveling from London, I would very much like to spend 3 days travelling the scenic snow covered routes in Switzerland during January 2023, does anyone have any recommended routes, many thanks in advance and A Merry Christmas To Everyone      

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Best answer by seewulf 25 December 2022, 21:15

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Userlevel 7
Badge +9

Here is some useful information from the experienced travellers in the Community regarding both planning, reservations and activation of pass and travel days. 

 Planning

The rail planner is normally not up to date, as it only is updated once a month, so to be sure of the time table you better check the timetable and availability on the websites of the national railways. The bigger national railways, like DB (Germany) SBB (Switzerland) and ÖBB (Austria) cover several countries. 

 Reservations 

The advice from the experienced travellers in the community is to use other ways to make reservations than the Interrail/Eurail website.  You can look at the guide in the link:

https://community.eurail.com/train-connections-reservations-47/how-to-get-reservations-105

If you, after having looked at the guide, have questions about how to make specific reservation, please give your travel details (departure date, time and route) preferably in a new topic, and you will get advice.

Please note that Interrail/Eurail charges an extra fee of 2 EUR per person and train in addition to the fee for the seat reservation.

 Activation of pass

During the activation process you choose the start day of the validity of the pass. Once the validity has started it can't be changed even if you haven't travelled. The advice is therefore to wait with activating the pass and starting the validity until the first day of your travel as you only can deactivate the pass no later than 23.59 CET on the day before the validity starts. If your travel plans change in the last moment you can't deactivate the pass and change the validity. 

It can be wise to make a test and activate the pass with a start date well in the future and then deactivate the pass immediately, just to see that everything works.

 Activation of travel day

The advice from the experienced travellers in the community is also never to activate a travel day, that is connect a journey to your pass and create the ticket (QR code), until just before boarding the train, otherwise you might loose a travel day if your travel plans change in a late stage  You can't delete a travel day in the past. A travel day can only be deleted until 23.59 CET the day before the travel day.

Userlevel 7
Badge +9

There is a limited number of pass holder seats on the Eurostar and on popular departures and during high season those sell out weeks, and sometimes months in advance.

The best place to see the availability of passholder seats and make reservations on the Eurostar is 

https://www.b-europe.com/EN/Booking/Pass#TravelWish

Press "later trains" and eventually you will find the next available connection. 

 

If you have a mobile pass you need to generate a Pass Cover Number in order to make the reservation at b-europe. You do that here in the PCN generator:

https://community.eurail.com/news-and-announcements-39/pass-cover-number-generator-is-live-5653

Many thanks for your response 

Mickey

Many thanks for your response, I will certainly take it on board

Mickey

Userlevel 7
Badge +5

Noe that this superwhite snow also can blind you -take very good sunglasses!

About any line going higher up will usually (climate change permitting) deliver it-like about the whole of narrow-gauge Rhaetische Bahn (red or green trains in the south-east, east/south of Chur)

Those 7 or so very much promoted touristy routes can all also be done on normal trains-in perhaps a, little less luxurious seats-and thus without the pesky need to RES and pay loads of extra CHF in what is already an extremely expensive country.

AND you have a pass-so you can also go out of Swiss and compare f.e. if FRance or AT=Austria can hold up to it!-like using the Arlberg line east to Innsbruck.

Userlevel 7
Badge +14

Berninaexpresss (Berninapass)
Glacier Express (Oberalppass Andermatt- Disentis)
Lucerne - Meiringen - Interlaken Ost
Spiez - Kandersteg - Brig

Badge +5

Don’t do anything unless you have obtained your reservations for Eurostar! You can check availability for passholders on the SNCB site. Once you confirm your journey from London to Paris or Brussels we can help!

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