French trains and buses
 

Two public transportaion questions here:

Is there a single French train website comparable to the Italian Trenitalia site, which will show all the ways to get from one point to another by train, by ANY train line? I know that there are separate sites for SNCF, TGV, etc., but I wonder whether there's a single site that might give all the options, for users who do not already know which line serves a particular route.

Is there a website that provides links to the routes and schedules of various bus lines within France?

The www.sncf.fr site is the French National Railway site, and it shows ALL train routes in France, whether they are TGVs or regular trains.
No, there is no single website that shows routes and schedules for bus routes within France, as they are locally owned and organized.

Oddly enough, I've found that the German site, bahn.de, will sometimes show more choices than the French site.

Hi,

elberko has it right. Somestimes SNCF gives you what it thinks is the best route rther than all routes.

I use this link for the German Rail System
http://www.lesirene.com/index_ing.htm

It gives you train schedules throughout Europe.

So there are several German rail sites that give info for all of Europe?
I think I read that in the context of questions about Italian trains, but for Italy, I've been satisfied with the Trenitalia site, so never bothered with the German sources of information. (I know Trenitalia's often down, but I've been lucky. It works when I need to use it.) I'm not doing "serious" research about France yet, but because I don't rent cars, I always need to be sure that I have a way to get from place to place by public transportation. It seems odd to use a German site for France, but if it works and gives more options than the overly selective SNCF, why not.

I once looked up on SNCF.com a train itinerary which started in a town with no rail lines. The resulting schedule included the bus connection although it was not identified as such.

I think when part of the route is by bus, it's labelled as "autocar," and if it's by train, the name of the train line is shown. I don't like the SNCF site and find it hard to use, compared to Trenitalia. Most of the time I get no results, with a message that such a route can't be sold because it requires at least three changes. It's probably easiest to use when we're searching for something very obvious, like a connection between two major train hubs.

Hi

Correction to that website:

http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en