www.thetrainline.com for European train tickets

• www.thetrainline.com allows you to buy tickets for multiple train operators in multiple European countries, together in one place, in plain English, in a choice of currencies, overseas credit cards no problem and tickets either e-tickets or ticketless.  Anyone from any country can use www.thetrainline.com, it doesn't matter where you live.

  For example, Paris to Florence involves a French high-speed train from Paris to Turin then a Trenitalia high-speed train from Turin to Florence.  Neither the French Railways website nor the Trenitalia website can sell you tickets for both trains as one journey, but www.thetrainline.com can!

• In my opinion, www.thetrainline.com & www.raileurope.com are the two best European train booking sites.  This page explains the origins & capabilities of www.thetrainline.com.

It started as Capitainetrain.com

• Three young French entrepreneurs set up a website called www.capitainetrain.com to sell French Railways (SNCF) train tickets, as they thought they could sell SNCF tickets better than SNCF themselves.  I happen to think they were right!  It launched to the public in 2012.

  SNCF were initially hostile, mistakenly believing that anyone else selling their tickets was 'competition'.  It took a court case to force SNCF to allow Capitainetrain to connect to their ticketing system.  But Captaintrain soon became very popular with French rail travellers.

• Capitainetrain then added connectivity to the German, Italian and Spanish rail ticketing systems, so that train tickets for much of western Europe could all be bought in one place, much like Loco2.com, now raileurope.com.  Captaintrain became popular with overseas users too, and in 2015 the name was anglicised to www.captaintrain.com.

• In 2016, Captaintrain.com was acquired by Thetrainline.com, the UK's largest independent train ticket retailer, and renamed www.trainline.eu.  At this point Trainline had two websites, www.thetrainline.com for British train tickets and www.trainline.eu for mainland Europe tickets.

• Through 2019 and into 2020, Trainline progressively added the European ticket functionality of www.trainline.eu to their main global website www.thetrainline.com.  www.trainline.eu disappeared on 22 September 2020 leaving just www.thetrainline.com selling all tickets.

Thetrainline.com is connected to:

• SNCF French Railways:  It connects directly to SNCF's ticketing system to sell French train tickets and trains to and from France, at the same prices as www.sncf-connect.com themselves.  Unlike Raileurope.com, it can also sell the lo-cost Ouigo trains.

• Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg):  It connects to the Benelux ticketing system, so can sell domestic tickets within Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg.

• SBB Swiss Railways:  It connects to SBB's ticketing system so can do Swiss train tickets, both at full price and cheap advance-purchase Supersaver fares, which many other retailers including all the Rail Europes can't sell.

• Trenitalia Italian Railways:  It also connects to Trenitalia, to sell Italian train tickets at the same price as Trenitalia, with payment in £ or €, and either collect-at-station tickets or for fast trains, it's ticketless - you just quote the booking reference on board the train.

• Italo:  It also connect directly to Italo, the privately-owned high-speed operator in Italy competing with State-owned Trenitalia on the Milan-Florence-Rome-Naples & Venice-Florence-Rome routes.

• DB German Railways:  It connects to the same system that drives DB's own site bahn.de, to sell train tickets to, from and within Germany, as DB's own prices with DB's own print-at-home tickets and no booking fees.  Note that the datafeed provided by DB can't do sleeper trains, but many of these overnight services can be sold through the connection to ÖBB.

• ÖBB Austrian Railways...  It connects to ÖBB so can now sell tickets through the Austrian Railways system including ÖBB's nightjet & railjet trains, other trains to, from & within Austria, and Nightjet partner routes such as Munich-Budapest.  However it cannot sell routes where a hard copy ticket has to be collected at an ÖBB station, such as Vienna-Kyiv.

• Westbahn...  It connects to private operator Westbahn, which runs trains between Vienna & Salzburg in competition with ÖBB.

• Renfe Spanish Railways:  It connects to Renfe to sell all Renfe's cheap tickets with Renfe's print-at-home ticket delivery.  The system can also sell the international sleeper trains from Madrid and the French border to Lisbon in Portugal.  Given that Renfe's own site has a reputation for quirky translations and rejecting a significant proportion of overseas credit cards, Trainline (or Raileurope.com) is the best way to book Spanish tickets with no fuss.

• Various long-distance bus companies...  Trainline also connects to bus companies such as Flixbus.  Be aware that it may show buses in the search results, and may only show buses if the trains are not yet open for sale, or if it lacks the necessary connectivity to sell train tickets for that route.  It doesn't necessarily mean there are no trains!  Check that journey using seat 61!

Do I recommend www.thetrainline.com for every train route?

• No, because Trainline is not yet connected to the Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Portuguese, Polish, Czech, Slovakian, Slovenian, Croatian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Turkish, Russian or Ukrainian ticketing systems.

  Trainline can book international journeys to or from many of these countries if the route in question can be booked using the French, German, Austrian or Spanish ticketing systems (for example, Berlin to Stockholm using the German system or Vienna to Zagreb using the Austrian system), but for journeys within or between those countries you should use the relevant national train operator's own website.

• On seat61.com I recommend the best site or sites to book the specific journey in question.  That's the whole point!

Tips

• One-way or round trip?

  If you're making a round trip, Eurostar (London-Paris, London-Brussels) is best booked as a return journey because Eurostar return fares are significantly cheaper than two one-ways.  However, for most continental journeys beyond Paris or Brussels, a round trip is simply two one-ways so you may find it easier to book one way at a time and add to basket, it makes no difference to the price.

• How to specify a route or stopover...

  You can enter a via station to specify a route, but cannot currently add a stopover.  Just book two tickets, one each side of the stopover point.

• When does booking open? 

  It varies by route and train operator.  You'll find info about that here!

• If it shows no trains or tickets...

  - All or part of the journey might not yet be open for booking, see more info about when bookings open.

  Solution:  You can sometimes book part of the journey if you break it down.  For example, Paris to Seville means a Paris-Barcelona TGV which opens 120 days ahead then a Barcelona-Seville AVE which opens 40-60 days ahead.  If your Paris-Seville enquiry fails, try Paris-Barcelona, as that part of the trip may be open  for sale.

  - It may not be able to book one component of the journey.

  For example, it'll book the sleeper train from Munich to Zagreb as that is a Nightjet partner route and it can book it through its connection to ÖBB.  But a Munich to Split enquiry will only bring up long-distance buses, because the onward Zagreb-Split train is a domestic Croatian journey held on the Croatian Railways ticketing system, to which Trainline has no connection.

  Solution:  Break the journey down!  Book Munich-Zagreb using Trainline and add Zagreb-Split at the Croatian Railways website hzpp.hr.  Easy when you know!

• Connections between trains...

  Like all journey planners, www.thetrainline.com allows the minimum time at interchange stations, as specified by train operators.  It'll always be possible to make the connection in that time if the first train is on time, and that might be fine if you're connecting into a local train where if you miss it, you catch the next one half an hour later.  But what if, say, you're connecting into a sleeper train, with a separate non-refundable train-specific ticket where if you miss it you're screwed?  Like all journey planners, it will not allow for delay!   I therefore recommend you use the suggested connections given on seat61.com, as I show realistic connections with an allowance for delay given the likelihood & consequences of a missed connection.  If necessary, book each train separately and add to basket.  More about connections.  More about your rights when connections are missed.

  In particular, SNCF French Railways allows cross-Paris journeys to be offered with as little as 42 minutes between trains, when I would never allow less than 60 minutes, and would ideally like longer if going to Spain or Italy, for example, where the connection in Paris is mission-critical.  Use the More options feature to specify a 1 hour stop in Paris, or simply book trains separately either side of Paris, adding each to your basket and ensuring 60+ minutes between trains.

  Incidentally, it's often difficult to see if you're being offered a through ticket for your whole journey or a string of separate tickets one for each train.  In most cases, for a long-distance multi-train journey, it'll be the latter.  Relatively few through tickets exist these days.

Trainline or Raileurope.com?

• These are the two best pan-European train ticketing sites. I recommend both sites.  But which has the edge?

  It almost comes down to personal preference - or sometimes one handling a particular multi-operator route better than the other.  Both sites are good, both allow you to book multiple train operators' tickets across much of western Europe, in plain English, in multiple currencies, with no card payment problems.  As both sites source fares from the same operator ticketing systems, prices should be the same.

• Both sites connect to the French, German, Spanish, Swiss, Italian, Austrian ticketing systems, and to Italo.  Neither site yet connects to the Swedish, Norwegian, Portuguese, Czech, Hungarian, Romanian, Slovenian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Turkish, Russian, etc., ticketing systems.

  However, Trainline has marginally more connectivity, as it also connects to the Benelux & Westbahn systems and it'll also sell French lo-cost Ouigo trains which Raileurope won't.

• Thetrainline.com charges a 3% booking fee on the value of each ticket, Raileurope adds a flat €6.95 fee to the value of your whole basket when you check out.  That makes Thetrainline cheaper for small transactions, it also means you can book a multi-train trip in stages without penalty, paying 3% on each transaction, whereas with Raileurope's flat €6.95 fee, buying in multiple stages would mean paying multiple fees.  On the other hand, Raileurope's flat €6.95 fee might be cheaper for a big trip than paying Trainline's 3%.