Quality time with your kids...

Kids love trains, and a train journey is part of the holiday.  A major advantage of trains over flights or long drives is that it means quality time with your family, sitting together around a table, talking or playing, away from doorbells, phone calls and other distractions.  And kids really really love sleeper trains, it doesn't get any better than bunk beds on a train!  I'm convinced that taking your kids by train teaches them a degree of independence, too, rather than passively being ferried around by car.  Quick link:  Child age limits on European trains, listed by country.

	Baby-changing room on Eurostar, cars 1 & 18. Most modern trains now have these, usually a drop-down table in one or more toilets.
	Changing Nathaniel's nappy in a 2-berth Gran Clase sleeper on the Paris-Madrid trainhotel, on our way from London to Andalusia for a week's holiday.  Time on the trains can be quality time with your family, without the distraction of phone calls, doorbells or the TV...
	Play areas...  You occasionally find trains with a small play area, for example French 'Téoz' trains and some Swiss & Finnish InterCity trains.  Here, Nathaniel is playing on a 125 mph French Téoz train from Paris to Clermont Ferrand.  Bring your own toy cars!

Infants go free, children at reduced fare...

• Infants go free, a major advantage over air travel.  The age limit for an infant varies by country from under 4 to under 6, see the list of child age limits below.  If your child qualifies as an infant, you don't need to buy a ticket for them or make any reservation, just buy tickets for yourself and bring your child along with you free of charge.  However, they don't get their own seat or berth, so they'll sit on your lap or squeezed next to you unless the seat next to you happens to be free.  If you want your child to have their own seat or sleeping berth, you'll need to pay the child fare.  Tip:  TGV-Lyria sell an inexpensive 'baby pass' for their Paris-Switzerland trains, giving your wriggly 2 or 3 year old their own seat.  A brilliant idea, but so far they seem to be the only ones!

• Children travel at a reduced fare...  Again, the age limit for children varies by country from under 12 to under 16 (and in one case, under 17), so see the list of child age limits below.

• ...although the child rate isn't always 50% off the adult fare.  Many high-speed trains in western Europe now have airline-style variable pricing, and you'll often find a fare structure like this:  €120 full-fare adult, €65 full-fare child, cheap fares for anyone of any age €70, €50, €40, €30.  In other words, if you booked in advance and found the €30 rate available, 2 adults and 2 children would pay 4 x €30, a nice cheap deal but in effect there's no child discount at all.  On the other hand, if you needed to travel at short notice you'd pay 2 x €130 plus 2 x €65, so now the child discount becomes useful.  Just so you know!  Which leads on to the next very important point...

• Adult fare cheaper than the child fare?  Watch out!  In cases like those mentioned above, where the child fare is (say) €65 but there's an advance-purchase fare available for €30 for anyone of any age (but technically designated 'adult'), some online booking systems will correctly offer the €30 fare for a child if that's the cheapest option, but others (notably tgv-europe.com) will unhelpfully offer the unnecessarily expensive €65 child rate.  So keep your wits about you, and if the system appears to charge more for your kids than for you, re-run the enquiry with all of you entered as adults.  Naturally, a child is perfectly entitled to travel on an adult ticket, just not the other way around!

• Is your booking website applying the right age limits?  The German Railways website asks the age of each passenger and applies the correct age limits to your journey.  However, French Railways sites such as Rail Europe, TGV-Europe.com & Voyages-sncf.com always blindly apply the French Railways child age limits, even when booking (say) a German sleeper train from Paris to Munich on which the more generous German child age limits apply.  So I strongly recommend using the German website rather than French for trains to, from, or within Germany, and be careful when using Rail Europe to book trains outside France.  I wonder how many French people have been mis-sold a child ticket for their 5 year old on the sleeper train to Germany?

Tips & advice for train travel with babies & children...

• Unaccompanied children:  On Eurostar, all children under 12 must travel accompanied by an adult, and unaccompanied children from 12 to 16 require a consent form signed by their parent or guardian.  See www.eurostar.com for details.

• Baby-changing facilities:  Most modern trains now have good baby changing facilities.  Eurostar has baby-changing facilities in 2nd class cars 1 & 18, at each end of the 18-car Eurostar train.  This makes them a long walk from the 1st class in the centre of the train!  The baby changing rooms have sink, soap, changing table and disposable changing table covers.  In a sleeper, you can easily change nappies on the bottom berth (see picture!).  Make sure you invest in a good changing bag with shoulder or back straps.

• Family-friendly coaches:  If you're travelling 2nd class on Eurostar or on French TGV trains, book seats in the family-friendly coach (cars 1 or 18 on Eurostar, see the Eurostar seating plan).  This has bays of 4 seats around tables at one end of the train, away from other passengers walking through to and from the bar, so it's better for children to play.  It's also close to the baby changing room.  A handful of trains (notably French Téoz trains and some Swiss & Finnish InterCity trains) even have a small children's play area, see the photo opposite.

• Papooses:  Carrying a baby in a front-carry sling (under 6 months) or in a papoose on your back (over 6 months) is much easier than struggling with a baby buggy through the London Underground or Paris metro (with all the steps!), and on and off trains.  However, if you really want to use a buggy, there's space to stow it with other large items of luggage at the end of the Eurostar coach.  The classic choice of front-carry sling is the excellent Baby Bjorn.  Once they're over 6 months, I highly recommend a MacPac papoose (Possum or Vamoose), see www.macpac.co.nz.

• Portable bed for infants:  For travelling overnight with a 0-18 month old, invest in the lightweight portable Samsonite travel bubble.  This fits on the floor in most European sleeper or couchette compartments, it even fits on the limited floor space in the Caledonian Sleepers from London to Scotland.  It can then be used in your hotel room at your destination, much lighter than a so-called travel cot.

• Portable bed for toddlers:  For older toddlers from 18 months to 3 or 4 years, use an inflatable bed.  This is lightweight, infinitely more so than most so-called 'travel cots'.  It fits on the floor in ferry cabins and hotel rooms.  Buy a girls 'Kitty' bed at Amazon.co.uk.  Buy a boys 'Cars' bed at Amazon.co.uk.

• Take a 'Trunki':  Give kids their own luggage to pull along or ride on, as seen on television in Dragon's Den.  Trunki website.

• What baggage does the Man in Seat 61 take when travelling as a family?  You'll find your own way of travelling light and staying mobile even with kids, I'm sure.  But here's what we do for longer stays away, which works for us.  I take a backpack-sized Eagle Creek roll-along for my clothes and a matching Eagle Creek daypack for my reading books, travel documents, camera, phone, and so on.  My wife also takes an Eagle Creek roll-along for her clothes and a daypack for her own camera, reading book and so on.  We then take two small holdalls, one for each of our two kids, a pink one for madam and a blue one for sir.  These holdalls can either sit on top of the Eagle Creeks and be pulled along or can be slung over our shoulders whilst the Eagle Creek is pulled.  The daypacks are worn on our backs.  We don't generally bother with a buggy, the children walk.  If I need to carry one of the children, Nicolette can pull both Eagle Creek roll-alongs - however we've generally found that the kids manage to stay awake (and excited) even for relatively late train arrivals, even the 21:45 arrival in Milan of the TGV from Paris.  As the Eagle Creek roll-alongs are only backpack-sized, all our bags fit on the overhead racks above our seats on any given train, so we can keep an eye on them and access them quickly when we need to.  Oh yes, and each of the kids now wears their own very small backpack with toys, colouring books, a Nintendo and other amusements!  The only other tip is that splurging on taxis - both across Paris between stations and between destination station and hotel - makes a big difference when you've luggage and kids, compared to taking the metro or a long walk.

Child age limits on European trains

On board Eurostar:  This train travel thing is child's play...  Photo courtesy of Nathaniel

Within the UK, children under 5 go free, children from 5 to 15 (inclusive) travel at half the adult fare.

On Eurostar, children under 4 go free, and a special child fare (currently £25 single, £50 return to Paris or Brussels in standard class) applies to children from 4 to 11 inclusive.  Children 12 & over travel at the youth fare (for ages 12-26).  All children under 12 must travel accompanied by an adult, and unaccompanied children from 12 to 16 require a consent form signed by their parent or guardian.  See www.eurostar.com for details.

On other European trains, age limits for children vary from country to country, so here's a summary.  Just make sure you tell your booking agency how old your children are, and they will do the rest.  Online booking systems will ask you the ages and will work out the fares for you.  The child fare is normally 50% of the adult fare, although on international trains where special 'global fares' are charged, a special child fare applies.

* Alleo is the consortium of French/German national railways running the Paris-Frankfurt/Stuttgart/Munich high-speed daytime trains.  The French show child age limits as 4-12, the Germans apply their own 6-14 age limits, so even the operators can't agree which child limits apply!  I suggest you book with the Germans if you have children aged 5, 13 or 14!