Hi All,

I just received my train ticket from bahn.de for the Munich-Salzburg leg of my trip. Do I need to do anything with this ticket before I board the train? or is this my final ticket?
Thanks,

Babs

No. Just walk into the train.

great, thanks altamiro!

I hesitate to contradict Altamiro and he's probably right but if it's a full fare ticket don't you have to cancel it yourself before boarding the train. Again I don't know and i'm inclined to take Altamiro's word for it as he has shown an infallible knowledge of such stuff, but am asking for my own information as well. I know in many countries tickets purchased have to be self-cancelled before boarding so that can't be refunded after being used on conductor-less trains??

In case I do need to "self-cancel" the ticket PalQ, how would I go about doing this? Are there automated machines or something?

PalQ,

I think you are confusing it with French and Italian systems. Yes, in France or Italy you have to "cancel " a full-fare ticket. In Germany, the conductor/controller will cancel it when s/he gets around.

>Again I don't know and i'm inclined to take Altamiro's word for it as he has shown an infallible knowledge of such stuff, but am asking for my own information as well.

Thanks for compliments! It is just so that I'm sitting in an ICE every few weeks, I should know how it works

You don't need to stamp your ticket, if your crossing the border of an "urban" transport association like the MVV in Munich. If your traval is limited to the area covered by them, you'll need to validate your ticket. This can be quite confusing (I'm thinking of places like Buchloe here, which is quite a small town and not "urban" at all). On the local trains you would have to buy and validate your ticket only if your not leaving their area. If you do leave it you won't have to validate the ticket, (and can't do so, because of its different size.)

The Babs - you don't have to validate your ticket as per altimiro's knowledge - if you did, like in France or Italy, you just stick it in a date stamping machine trackside and it prints the time on it and thus is no longer refundable - if the conductor finds you without the ticket cancelled he can fine you for not having a valid ticket. Last December i took many French trains and there was inevitably an announcement in French just as the train pulled out to the effect, find the conductor first if you have no ticket or did not "compostez" the ticket as they say before the conductor finds (and fines) you. But in Germany no worry.

>But in Germany no worry.
No worry using a train from Munich to Salzburg with a ticket from the Deutsche Bahn site! Other local trains are different, so it depends.

Great, thank you all for the info.
I will be traveling in France at some point during my trip...so it's good to know about the "stamping" & fines.