Taconic...

Remember, you can buy your tickets and print out the voucher at home with a downloaded PDF...then you show it to the conductor on the train...very easy.

In fact (I'm pretty sure, but Fodorites can correct me if I am mistaken), even if you lose the printout, if you know your 6-character ticket code (and have your passport as ID), you're good to go...but I don't recommend that. :-)

NOTE: I used Captain Train for the first time this year to buy Venice-Bologna tickets for our upcoming spring trip. It was, indeed, very easy to use. In the past I had used Trenitalia, which occasionally was finicky about accepting some of my credit cards. (I hear it's much better now.) With Captain train, I didn't even feel the need to alert my credit card company that I was making a purchase in Euros to an overseas website.)

I'll have my PDF with 6-digit code and QR code loaded onto my phone, just in case. I recommend you do the same.

ssander

Thanks again ssander, I will do that. I am mostly freaking out about helping my DH, who is even more elderly than I, and who is challenged in balance, to get from out apartment in Venice, on and off some boat conveyance, to the Santa Lucia station, then on to a train, and off again in Milano.

He thinks he's fine, but we almost had a tragedy in Milano Centrale a few years ago, but a skinny homeless man came to our aid, grabbed DH's suitcase, just as he was about to tumble down a strange escalator, and got us safely to the bottom!!

So another thank you to you and to all the other Fodorites who are almost always so very helpful in sharing their travel information.

Ssander and others: Just to wind this up, I have purchased the tickets thru Captain Train and nothing could have been easier!