kristen12

I will be traveling with three buddies from Munich to Lucerne, Switzerland around the middle of August. We all have Eurail Global youth passes, but Eurail.com shows all trains for this route to be sold out for pass holders like us. Can anyone offer advice on alternatives? Can we still get on a train, even with pass holder reservations sold out (fares are still available without a pass)? Are there other routes? Thanks so much!

scatcat

I have never traveled on a youth pass, but my Eurail pass(15 days) was good on most all trains. I've traveled several times from Munich to Zurich and never had a reservation. To get to Lucerne you should be able to get a train straight to Zurich then change to go on to Lucerne.

Dukey

If your pass will work on a particular train I suggest you get on it and look for any unreserved seats and sit in those.

I assume you already know that seat reservations are sold in segments between two points and that all seats may not be reserved for the entire length of the journey. Therefore you can sit in any seat not reserved for the particular segment involved.

Over the years I have also found that if you take the earliest timinings these are the most likely to have unreserved space available.

Yes, I know that sometimes means getting up early but worthwhile nonetheless.

altamiro

There are no special "passholder reservations" on German and swiss trains. You just buy a seat reservation and that's it, if you want (you don't have to). Tickets would be always available too.
Eurail.com is not a good source for information on particular trains, schedules etc.
You simply take the next train and show your pass.

TimS

I agree with altamiro. Although they may be recommended on some heavily-traveled routes, you don't need to make reservations on German and Swiss trains.

The best timetable site for all of Europe is www.bahn.de. Click on "Internat. Guests" to view the site in English. Enter Muenchen as your departure point and Luzern as your arrival point. After you get summary timetables, click on "Details for all" to see the conecting points for all routes. For even more detail, click on "Show intermediate stops" for each individual route.

TimS

One addition to my previous post: Reservations ARE reguired on night trains.

kristen12

Thanks, everyone, for your advice! I look forward to mastering (or trying to at least understand) the European rail system

altamiro

>I look forward to mastering (or trying to at least understand) the European rail system

;-)

The first step to understanding ould be that there is no "European rail system". There is the German, the Swiss, the Italian train systems... which are connected of course, but have their own sets of rules and so on.
Sorry to confuse you even more

Larryincolorado

I don't know how long you have been planning this trip, but it only takes a few weeks, max, to order rail passes. You should have long ago figured out if reservations are possible. Too many people do this, they leap to buy rail passes, then start looking for reservations and find they can't get them. Note also, that unless you are traveling long distance nearly every day, a rail pass might not be as cost effective as point-point tickets. You can probably find a €29 one way Europa-Spezial fare from Munich to Zurich.

Also, I don't think Eurail.com sells reservations. Are you talking about RailEurope.com? If so, note that they don't sell reservations for all trains, only the fastest ones on some routes. When you get to Germany, you might find you can get reservations on other trains (e.g. ICs) or less direct routes.

There are no reservations on regional trains in Germany; I assume that is also true of Switzerland (?). It would take longer, but you could make the trip with regional trains.

BTW, in over 175 train connections in Germany in the last 7 years, I have never had reservations and only once did I have to stand, and then only for a half hour.