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Outbound and inbound UK rail travel to and from Europe

  • 6 September 2022
  • 8 replies
  • 237 views

Hi there,

Travelling to Europe via Eurostar so need to get to St Pancras from the west country in England. This invoves two train journeys to get to London and the same in the other direction on my return. Are these covered by my interail global pass? 

I need clarification asap so many thanks in advance!

 

 

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Best answer by AnnaB 6 September 2022, 17:03

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Userlevel 7
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As long as you board the Eurostar and the other 2 trains between 00.00 and 23.59 CE(S)T on the same day they count as the same travel day for you outbound and inbound journey/travel day.

Userlevel 7
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Taking a day train (or any number of connections needed to complete the journey) from Cornwall to London and Eurostar the same day will be covered by one day of a pass.

Taking the sleeper than a Eurostar the following day will use 2 days, you can do this but it will use your 2 home country days (Inbound/outbound) and you will no longer be able to use your pass for any travel in Britain (including a Eurostar to London) so think carefully about your plan.

Wow AnnaB, thanks for your interest and responses, very interesting! Have you used this logic yourself becuase when I look at the webisite it says that only one journey in your home country both outbound and inbound is covered by the global pass.

My journey time to and from London is approx 2 hrs plus transit to St Pancras so the 24hrs is not an issue, its just the number of actual journeys.

Thanks again,

Johnnie

 

Userlevel 7
Badge +3

Wow AnnaB, thanks for your interest and responses, very interesting! Have you used this logic yourself becuase when I look at the webisite it says that only one journey in your home country both outbound and inbound is covered by the global pass.

My journey time to and from London is approx 2 hrs plus transit to St Pancras so the 24hrs is not an issue, its just the number of actual journeys.

Thanks again,

Johnnie

 


A journey can be made up of multiple single train rides.

 

There is also no rule stating that you must make a direct route, for instance if you wanted to leave your home first thing in the morning and visit somewhere else in England before resuming your journey to London for an evening Eurostar to Paris. that would be also perfectly acceptable.

 

The rule for overnight trains is standard and well understood, a pass day is any train taken between 00.01 and 23.59 (with mobile passes this is automatically calculated to CET) and includes any through train that is scheduled to depart your boarding station before midnight for it’s entire duration. Once you leave a train after midnight, any further connection would require use of the next day on your pass.

In your scenario, you could follow up the local travel and Eurostar with a night train (for example) from Paris to Vienna and all on 1 day of your pass.

Userlevel 7
Badge +9

Wow AnnaB, thanks for your interest and responses, very interesting! Have you used this logic yourself becuase when I look at the webisite it says that only one journey in your home country both outbound and inbound is covered by the global pass.

My journey time to and from London is approx 2 hrs plus transit to St Pancras so the 24hrs is not an issue, its just the number of actual journeys.

You can use any number of trains on the inbound/outbound journeys, see the conditions of use. It is not limited to the trains you can squeeze into one single journey in the rail planner app.

I thought I had read that you could only take one train in and one train out of your country of origin?

Userlevel 7
Badge +3

I thought I had read that you could only take one train in and one train out of your country of origin?


As explained above, you can take as many trains as you wish on any 2 days of your choosing within the validity of your pass.

Userlevel 7
Badge +10

I thought I had read that you could only take one train in and one train out of your country of origin?

I find the easiest way to manage the In/Out rule is “On up to 2 travel days your home country is included in your Global pass.”.

(These do not have to include any train journey across the border, although they can. So for example you could use it to get to an airport or ferry terminal and then connect to a train at your destination.)

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