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Train connections - some advice

  • April 5, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 47 views
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TLDR: Allow plenty of time, at least 30 minutes, to change trains.

I’m coming to the end of a 5 week cross-Europe trip, it’s the first time I used the Eurail Pass. I booked all the seats and checked all the times of the trains through the Eurail website and I think that was a mistake.

Some of the journeys involved 2-3 changes, and the plan that was presented by the Eurail site at first seemed OK; a lot of changes were 10 minutes, and at the time I thought that would be fine, 10 minutes is plenty of time to get from one platform to another I thought, and we only have hand luggage.

Not so - quite a few of the trains arrived late, which involved a dash to the board to check the departing platform (although some trains display these as you arrive), then running up and down stairs and along corridors to the next platform. My wife fell at one and bruised her knee, and one train we got to as the doors were closing.

The algorithm used by Eurail doesn’t seem to take into account trains may be delayed.

The sitcky in this forum advises using the train company websites, and that is the best advice, and I would add to allow at least 30-45 minutes to change trains.

    BrendanDB
    Full steam ahead
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    • BrendanDB
    • Full steam ahead
    • April 5, 2025

    Agreed, it’s the interrail planner not the best . Always rely or double check with the local train planners of the companiesfound online. We advise this constantly on this forum.

    All timetables are theoretical, you can’t predict delays in advance of course. 10 min are perfectly fine if all runs smoothly, but sometimes it doesn’t.

    As a rule of thumb: there’s always a next train or another route.

    Rushing to your next connection when delayed isn’t worthwile if you have frequent trains at regular intervals (like every 15 minutes, half hour or hour). Just take it easy and go have a drink somewhere in or close to the station, and replan using the local train company apps or websites Then take the next train. Not worth the bruised knees.

    However, if you only have 10 min connection for a train that only runs once I day, that’s not a good idea and bad planning. Agreed that some planners need to calculate this in.

    Allow plenty of time for a delay buffer for trains you really don’t want to miss or where you bought mandatory reservations for. Like night trains, Eurostars from/to London, trains that run only once or a couple of times a day.

    The less frequent the train you’re aming to catch is, the more time for delay buffer you need. For night trains, we generally advise to arrive two hours before departure even.

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