My wife & I are on a train now travelling between Como, Italy & Basel, Switzerland. We bought reservations because they were required for this train, or so we thought. The aisle in our car is packed with people standing up. There is no way to get up to go to the WC, etc. I was under the impression that you had to get a reservation even to get on the train. Since one of my future reservations for train travel never arrived in the mail, I figured I would not be able to get on the high-speed train and would have to book a slower train that would delay my arrival for 4 hours. Now that I see that these people are allowed to stand up for duration of the trip without reservations, I was thinking of doing the same for my trip between Narbonne, France & Barcelona Spain, since the reservation I bought never arrived. Finally, my question ... . Are passengers with tickets and no reservations generally allowed to stand in the aisles for the duration of their trip even though reservations are required?
It depends on the country etc.
From Como to Basel the reservation was actually a waste of money. Officially you need one from Como to Chiasso. But it is highly unlikely that during the 5-6 minutes ride a conductor will come and check it.
From Chiasso on no reservation is needed (domestic trip) and that’s why the train can get very full.
If you would travel from Milano and they check the reservations but you have none, you would have to pay the reservation fee + an extra fee. Once I had this problem as I couldn’t make a reservation and just boarded (Milano-Verona) and I had to pay 18 euro instead of 10 euro…
If train is too crowded, then people without reservation (on reservation-free lines) might be thrown off the train. For the Gotthard-base tunnel the maximum occupancy of a train is e.g. 140% due to safety reasons. So if it is more than 140% then the people without reservation would need to be thrown off the train (or people without a seat, as reservations in Switzerland are very uncommon).
Martin,
Do you know which section of the trip from Narbonne, France to Barcelona, Spain requires a reservation? Is it just the section that crosses the border from France to Spain?
Our train goes from Narbonne to Perpigan to Figueres Vilafant (Spain) to Girona to Barcelona. Is says High Speed train.
Yes you need a reservation, and only some seats are available for pass users. Book asap.
Eurail.com will send the reservation via postal mail. You can also buy it in Europe at counter of SNCF, RENFE, Deutsche Bahn and SBB CFF FFS. You get an e-reservation via e-mail calling SNCF Call Center. The reservation cost abou 30-35€ in 2nnd class.
Here is some useful information from the experienced travellers in the Community reservations.
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.
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