Train from Brive to Paris
 

We will be taking the train from Brive to Paris on a Friday after a 1 week stay in Sarlat.

Should we buy the ticket on line for the 9am train?
If we can't print it out, can we pick it up at the Brive train station?

Or, should we just stop into the Brive station a few days earlier and buy the ticket for Fri?
How popular is that train and is usually full?

The sooner you purchase the ticket the better the price. Our friends purchased their tickets last week for June travel Paris-Limoges RT (same train as goes to Brive) and paid 108€ RT for the two of them. We used the http://www.tgv-europe.com/en/?DISTRIBUTED_COUNTRY=GB even though no TGV runs from Paris to Limoges.

We will be traveling on Fri. Sept. 21st. Do we have to wait until 90 days before?

I read Man in Seat61 and I checked out that tgv-europe site and am confused about paying for the tickets? I used dates in June just to practice.

3D Square system to have then emailed?? Can't figure that out.

Retrieve in a French station? Don't have a chip & pin credit card.

You need to wait until 3 months out from your travel date. They won't mail them to you in the USA. If you're not printing them out (they may not be printable - I don't know), you just go to the train station (any train station, any day up until your travel date), hand over the same cc you used to buy the tickets online, and will be given your tickets. It doesn't have to be a chip & pin card.

You pay with your credit card information on-line when choosing your ticket. Some tickets can be printed out. If not, print out the transaction information which will include a confirmation number. Use it to pick up the ticket at any SNCF outlet in France. Without a chip-and-PIN credit card you must go to a ticket agent. Present the same credit card that was used on-line.
As to whether you can make the purchase now, go ahead and try it. There was talk of an extension of the usual three-month limit this summer.

StCirq: Sorry for the repetition; our posts arrived neck-and-neck.

Our friends' tickets were printable. They were printed at home, but also saved as PDFs and sent to their e-mail so that if something happens to the paper copy they could always print another copy at any internet site that had a printer.

No problem.

I just went to the www.voyages-sncf.com site and plugged in that date and got a message saying no tickets available until 3 months out. I also didn't see any train listed at 9 am, and the ones that were listed involved multiple stops and took up to 8+ hours. So I'd definitely wait until 3 months out.

Another question, just for practice---

When I put in Fri. June 29th, there is a 9am train.

When I put in Fri. July 6th, no trains offered until late in the day---does this mean the early trains are all sold out? Does this route usually sell out in Sept? Is 9am on a Fri. that popular?

I did try the extended date button but it didn't go that far.

I went to Rail Europe just to see the price difference and it wouldn't take Brive as a departure point. What's with that?

I'm back.
That was on tgv-europe.

I looked at the voyages-sncf site, but I don't read French.

I will wait until 3 months out, but I'm looking for easy, a few dollars more is doable.

TPAYT, I am copying an entry from my trip report from September 2011. No one ever commented on this situation. Hopefully, someone will jump in here and offer a solution so you have no train number/seat number problems. It was a little disconcerting to say the least!

((We made our way to Brive for our 2:38 train to Paris. Gassed up the cars on the outskirts, and then found good parking places right in front of the train station. We had plenty of time to go in and figure out where we needed to return the cars, which platform we were going to need to go to, and then still have time for lunch.

The Avis rental office is just down the street, straight away from the train station. It was just closing for the 12:00 - 2:00 lunch break. We left all our belongings in the cars, and went and had lunch. Then, back to get our things to the right platform. A few minutes before 2:00, Mr. P and I went back to the Avis office to turn in the keys and our rental contracts. We were back to the platform with time to spare.

If we had needed to drop off the keys when the Avis office was closed, we would not have known where the lock box was. For future reference, I asked the Avis woman. She said that if the office is closed, one should drop the keys off at the information booth in the train station. I know we would not have figured this out.

I had printed out the prems train tickets for first class at home 90 days in advance. The ticket said Teoz 3640. When we got to the station, the sign said it was train 3630 that left at 2:38. Hmmmm. I went up to the information booth, and the man said no problem, same train. He crossed off the 3640 on my e-ticket and wrote 3630.

We got on the train, and there are people in DH's and my seats. They showed me their official (not e-tickets) tickets. They were in the right seats. Our 4 traveling companions had no problem. Their seats were vacant. So, we sat elsewhere, but with a very sinking feeling. DH was tossed from his seat right away, and found a single seat further up in the car. I was able to sit in "my" seat until the second stop, when the person with that seat assignment boarded the train. People got on that had the seats where our friends were sitting, but as you know, possession is 9/10ths of the law, so they remained in the seats.

The conductors did not seem to care. "Sit anywhere", they said. Fine and good. But there were no more seats in the car. I finally decided to go to the first car, and found a seat in a compartment there.

So, what is the deal? Why a different number on my e-ticket than the actual train? How can I avoid this in the future??

We arrived in Paris just before 7:00 pm. Here is a word of advice: if you are going to take a cab from the station, make a bee line to the cab line. We dilly-dallied and were at the end of the line. The cabs came about every 5-8 minutes. We waited the better part of an hour for a cab.))

If a train breaks down, or a part of a train breaks down (sometimes there are actually two different trains linked up until a certain point and one "breaks off" partway through the journey), SNCF will usually try to get a replacement train. In which case the train number changes, AND there may not be as many cars on the replacement train as originally anticipated. It can get chaotic, though when this has happened to me (twice), the conductors handled it very well.

You can't avoid it in the future - it's just a quirky thing that happens from time to time (rarely, actually).

TPAYT, I'm not sure why we're seeing different things on the websites. I tried July 6, too, and though there was a fairly big time gap between the first two trains (7:40 am and sometime after 1 pm), it wasn't the case that there were no morning trains. And IME, trains in France hardly ever sell out, so no, I would not assume that any train you've been looking at is sold out.

At any rate, by 3 months out from your date of travel you should have this figured out. And it's worth it, because you will likely end up paying a LOT less for online advance SNCF tickets, not just a few dollars.

We could not get my friend's credit card to work with voyages-sncf, which is why we used the site I mentioned above.

I am happy to get your explanation, St. Cirq. I know I will be back to your beautiful part of France, and will now not be surprised if something like this arises again.

TPAYT, I bought our tickets the 90 days ahead of time, just after midnight France time (5pm CST). Our friends bought their tickets about 9pm the same day. They paid a bit more than I did.

Purchasing the tickets on the TGV-Europe website was really quite simple. And once I decided to move to a different car on the train, I discovered there were plenty of seats available.

St Cirq---this is what I was looking at to practice

July 6th
13:03---4 hr trip (No 9am shown)
http://www.tgv-europe.com/en/train-t...esults?hid=RTR

June 29th
9:03---4 hr trip
http://www.tgv-europe.com/en/train-t...ckhere&hid=OD2

Do you think I could use the SNCF site without knowing French?

kansas---thanks for the tips. I've been making notes from your trip report on the Dordogne. Were you happy with Avis? We've been looking at Europcar, but I'll save these questions for another thread.

Michael---as I said, I tried a trial run on TGV-europe for an earlier date and got confused when it came to the payment. 3D square? Chip & pin card, don't have.

We bought TGV tickets 2 different times a few years ago and it was easy. I just don't understand why I can't get this right.
I've decided to wait until 90 days out(Sun. June 24th, after midnight, for Fri Sept 21st--right?) and then pursue it again.

Although I may have more questions before that. I'm a planner. I like all my ducks in a row and try to avoid surprises.

We bought tickets Paris-Brive and return in March. We had no difficulty with the SNCF site even though our French is limited to menus. ;) I was able to print them at home and just got on the train. There was no problem with the seating. The only difficulty I had was using my US credit card since the companies kept rejecting the charge. I would advise calling the card company and letting them know you will using the card on a foreign site.

We rented a car from Eurocar down the street from the station. When we picked up the car they let us know where to drop the keys if we had a train outside of business hours. Since we took the 9am train it wasn't a problem.

If you are driving up from Sarlat that morning I would advise you to fill the car the night before. We were not able to find a place to get gas since we didn't have a chip in our cards. Also don't expect to get a take out cup of coffee in the Brive station. My husband (who did yeoman service driving from Sarlat without any coffee-he who requires it before speaking) had to chug it at the cafe in the station.

No, it's not 90 days. It's 3 months, so after midnight France time on June 21.

The URLs you gave above don't work. It's not possible to capture a URL for the train schedules as far as I can tell - it just brings you right back to the sign-up screen where you input your destination, etc.

I'll see if I can get my screen grabber software to pick up the actual screenshots of the schedules and prices. Might take me awhile though - I don't use that program much.

Not sure what's happening on 6 July.

3 possibilities:

1) engineering work, earlier trains cancelled
2) engineering work, earlier trains not open for booking yet, while they make up their minds what to do with them.
2) a busy day, trains full - but if so, highly unusual.

Booking for September won't open till June, as others have said, just book at www.tgv-europe.com/en, if you're from the USA select 'Afghanistan' to stop the results from opening on Rail Europe with higher prices, if you're from anywhere else just watch out for and read carefully any popups about being diverted 'to our local website'.

<i>Chip & pin card, don't have.</i>

I do not see how the <i>puce</i> is relevant to an electronic transaction. We just entered the number, expiration date, code and then it went through, although my friend had warned her credit card company during the previous attempt with voyages-sncf that a foreign transaction was being attempted.

>>>Do you think I could use the SNCF site without knowing French?<<<

Certainly... Google's Chrome browser is handy as it will translate a site for you. You can either use it to book or have open in another window to consult.