Maudie,

I once had a link to list of local networks before I had a near death of my computer. Now I too am trying to reconstruct links for local train networks. The best sources seem to be Larry here and abalada on Tripadvisor. When I look up a train trip between points a & b on Die Bahn and it shows no price, I know that a local network exists. I just post a message asking for it, usually on Tripadvisor.

Regards, Gary

Thanks Gary, I will try that.

I did a Yahoo.de search and found a list; it is overwhelming:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_d...sverb%C3%BCnde

It might just be easier to find the ones that you need.

Regards, Gary

Wow, Gary. I've just pieced together my information from stuff I've found in my searches. RMV (Rhein-Main-Verkehrsverbund does list some of them, and Baden-Württemburg (www.3-loewen-takt.de) has a map of theirs, but I have never seen them all in one place like that.

Maudie: You can read all about the VRM at www.vrm-info.de. I thought it was only in German, but someone recently pointed out that there is a British flag in the lower left corner and you can click it for English. The site has a very complicated map of rail and bus line, a map of the tariff "cells" (Waben), and you can query it for the route, schedule, and fare between two points.

No, the Bahn website doesn't say anything about Verkehrverbünden. It would sure be nice when they don't show a fare because it's inside one, if they would give you the link to it.

Apologies to tc12 for hijacking this thread!
Larry and Gary,
Thanks for that information - it does all look a bit overwhelming. I will have to get DH to try and figure it all out.
I have plotted our travel from the DB website but had no idea that a lot of this existed so i am going to be really dense here - are there regionally operated buses and trains for different area's all over Germany and if this is the case can we just go to the local train station and find this out at the time and plan our day?
We have traveled in Switzerland on trains and buses and were able to do this at the train stations, is it a similar situation in Germany?

No problem at all, Maudie, I'm learning a lot. The website for the Rhine region's transit services www.rmv.de is great - if you want to pre-plan a trip, the site offers an English "Individual enquiry" where you plug in your endpoints, day & time, and it spits out a detailed connection summary down to details on platform, train number, direction, travel time, and cost. But if you're staying in a city that offers a tourist card, the transit might be free! That appears to be the case in Mainz & Koln but I haven't checked the sites for the smaller Rhine towns yet. Or, the day or group tickets are great deals, too.

Ah Tc12, that is just what I am looking for, excellent.
We are just in planning stages and we had Bacharach penciled in for 4 nights but after reading the replies I received on my post most opted to stay on the Mosel so now I am exploring a couple of towns around Cochem. We don't really want to bother with a car if we can get away with it and prefer to take public transport.
Thanks a lot for the link, hope you have a great family holiday.
Maudie

Maudie: If you don't fancy Cochem you might enjoy Bullay. I know I do. Like Cochem it's a major train stop (Faster RE trains and IC trains stop there, unlike in many of the smaller towns; it's also the railhead for the route to Traben-Trarbach.) Unlike Cochem, it's much less visited - fewer dining choices, but a good deal smaller, and quieter, and in a great location; ferry across to Alf for a walk up to Burg Arras castle, hike up to Marienburg, bike up to Zell, Pünderich and beyond on the riverside bike path. Riverboats stop here too. Lovely place to relax, and close to Cochem and Trier for outings.

With apologies to tc12 again.
Thanks Russ, that's a good suggestion and it certainly does have good rail connections, the other place I have been looking at is Klotten just past Cochem. Bullay doesn't even show on my map but I found Alf.
Can I trouble you for any accommodation ideas you may have, a google search didn't bring up too much.
Thanks.

i wrote a report awhile back that perhaps there is a bit of info you might be able to use for accomodations.

i LOVED the mosel.

search here for "moseying down the mosel" and it should appear.

great vacation area.

Maudie: yes, regionally operated trains and buses exist all over Germany. Train stations are a good place to start an inquiry but buses are not operated by the railway company, so they might not be able to give you all information.

Maybe as some background: The system and pricing of the Verkehrsverbuende often seems awfully complicated but it makes more sense if one considers two points: maybe 90% of the passengers are using time passes (month or year) and there are dozens of providers for regional transports (typically every city and county has its own company and the German railway is also a player by running many of the regional trains).
The way the system is set up, the transport providers offer an integrated ticket system which allows people to use all regional transports within a region without having to buy different tickets from different providers (obviously important if you have to switch from bus to train an again to bus to get to work). The cells into which the regions are divided are used for pricing and offer flexibility especially to the people with monthly passes (you don´t pay to go from A to B, but to travel let´s say in the whole of Heidelberg and Mannheim and to use the regional transports in between).

As long as a place can be found on the Bahn website, it´ll often give information of the regional transports, (including buses). If the connection you selected is purely by regional trains (S-Bahn, RE, RB), the bahn website won´t give you a price (as an example, put in Koblenz to St Goar). But if this trip was just the last leg of a longer journey, you could buy the whole ticket (for example Bonn to St. Goar, which includes the same train from Koblenz to St. Goar).
As a rough rule: if you have a bahn (railway) ticket, you can use all trains, including the regional trains. But if you switch to tram or bus, you´ll normally need a new ticket. If on the other hand you have a ticket from one of the Verkehrsverbuende, you can all buses, trams and regional trains, but not the long-distance trains as IC, EC, ICE.

So if you want to see which connections exist, the bahn website is very good. But for special tickets, a whole jungle of them exists in Germany. Every Verkehrsverbund has its own special fares. Additionally there can be special fares by states which integrate several of these Verkehrverbuende, by regions which want to promote tourism or by the bahn itself. To give some hints when it might make sense to look for special fares:

- Family with children: There always exist family friendly fares.
- Group discounts
- Student discounts
- Weekend tickets (most of the passengers are commuters, so the weekend or sometimes even all time but the main commuting hours get special discounts)
- Combination tickets (the ticket to an attraction often includes the public transport to and from that place. In tourist regions, you´ll often find passes which include public transportation and entry to all attractions.)

If you want information for a region, just type in www.name.de You´ll normally get to the homepage with an e-mail address of the local tourist info-center and hopefully they´ll be able to help you. Alternatively, waiting until you´re there and asking in the place you stay can get you the same info.

Great, lincasanova, I will look for your report, thank you. I did find this place at Bullay, it looks really nice.
www.tibo-ferienwohnungen.de

Hans, thank you so much for taking the time to reply with all that information - I have a much better understanding now of which type of tickets we should be looking at. Your explanation was perfect.

Again thanks to everyone.

Maudie:

In Bullay I liked Gästehaus Eberhard best - private B&B with balcony and partial river view, easy walk to station and to river/ferry, excellent breakfast; less than 20 Euros each:

www.gaestehaus-eberhard.de/

Have also stayed at the Hotel Mosella - nice wine-cellar-look restaurant.

Burg Arras castle offers accommodations but would be quite a hike from Alf to get there with luggage - you'd need a car, I think.

Thank you again Russ, you have been very helpful, we really like the look of Bullay too.

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