I learned a valuable lesson all over again this morning. I ordered tickets for a night train, Salzburg to Venice. Die Bahn showed the route being a train to Rosenheim, switching trains at Rosenheim onto Venice.

The tickets arrived today. Upon first exam the dates and times and such looked just fine. Then I looked at the 2nd class tickets a little harder and got to wondering about the route that was listed, it didn't seem correct. So with my history of screwing up train tickets I call the issuer.

I was told three times that my tickets were all correct but I continued to question the route indicated, I did not expect to pass thru any of those towns. Finally the third person I questioned said she would check with a supervisor. Sure enough the tickets were not correct. Sure they were tickets to Venice but that route did not go anywhere near Rosenheim and our night train.

The rules I try to keep in mind are:

Did I get all the tickets expected?
Are the dates and times correct?
Are the departure and arrival points correct for each?
Know you plans well so that errors in booking can be spotted.
Check everything on the day of receipt so that time to make corrections is possible.
If I think there is a problem, don't give up until I've talked to a supervisor.

It's been a pain in the butt straitening this out but better from home 6 weeks before I arrive at the Salzburg train station than at 9 PM in Salzburg.

To update the prior message; the second set of tickets were also wrong. They finally admited they could not sell me the tickets I wanted. Their recommendation was to wait and buy them in Europe. So with my night train tickets/reservation in hand I'll wait until Vienna to buy the rest.

Hopefully this information might help:
Assuming you definitely want to travel overnight from Salzburg and NOT from Vienna (there is a direct night service from Vienna to Venice which bypasses Salzburg entirely)...you could take a train from Salzburg to Villach and connect there or you could connect in Rosenheim according to the Bahn timetable...but that connection is well AFTER midnight.

Frankly, you might be better off taking the 1 1/2 hour trip from Salzburg into Munich and taking the direct night service from there...better hours and no changes in the middle of the night.

Good advise and lesson learned - on any board - I'm double-checking everything !

To Rick -- I can't help wondering who sold you two sets of wrong tickets. Perhaps we all need to know this.

Rick, we took the overnight from Salzburg to Venice, and I thought the Rosenheim connection was the best. We did better going to Munich, then connecting in to the Venice train. I'd rather have the waiting time in Munich than Rosenheim, and you get settled earlier. The Villach connection is at 4 am.

But messed up BIG TIME on the Venice-Vienna leg. I printed out the schedule for the train that left at midnight (that I told my now-former TA to buy). I checked everything carefully, or so I thought. Got to the train station about 11, to find that our tickets were for the 8 pm train. Strike the next day, so trains were full. Finally found a wonderful conductor who told us to go to Mestre, get on the train to Vienna there, and hope for a sleeper. Our tickets to the Vienna Boys Choir (the main reason for the trip to Europe) were the next day..I can't believe I messed up that bad! But all's well that ends well..we actually got a sleeper, and it just cost us some $$ and an hour or so of anxiety! So, now, I wait till I'm there to buy tickets, and will triple-check them!

Anne

I hadn't thought about meeting up with the night train in Munich. At this point though I'm not letting loose of my Rosenheim to Venice sleeper reservation.

I would rather not say who issued the tickets but from now on I will tell anyone I'm buying train tickets from exactly which trains and train numbers if I know them and not rely on the knowledge or lack-there-of of the person on the other end of the phone line.