Husband and I are making up our itinerary for a three week tour of Germany, Italy and France this October. We will be using a rail pass and driving combination. This is our first time in europe and we want to get a realistic idea of the travel and connection times to make the most out of our time. So far, I've been told the Thomas Cook timetable is the best and most accurate source of this info but I have been unable to find a place to get it! Is it even possible to get a schedule for next October?

Train schedules change very little. Some additions and deletions seasonally for beach areas, ski areas, etc. <BR> <BR>Cheaper than Cook, you'll find virtually complete (unlike Cook)schedules on the Internet. Note that they are "current" schedules, but as observed above they are quite representative of what you will find in October. In most cases on most routes you'll see almost no change at all. <BR> <BR>I favor the Swiss Rail server www.rail.ch and http://www.bahn.de/home/typ_b_files/...l_guests.shtml is equally good. <BR> <BR>Rome.Switzerland.Bavaria <BR>www.twenj.com

here is one train schedule http://www.raileurope.com/us/ <BR>another on is fs-on-line.com both are only good until may but they usually around the same. you can get an idea. Or call this no. 800-848-7245m and/or 800-248-7245 they are both different. the latter one will be very helpful. you can purchase tix. with them. if you want tips for traveling email me and i will send them for you, they are very useful for italy. [email protected]

Fodors <BR> <BR>If you're in north America you can buy the book for 33 US dollars on US Toll Free 800-367-7984. This price is high: in Britain it costs 16 dollars. But even at this high price the book has great advantages over using the web sites. For any journey you can survey on a single page the choice of trains throughout the day. For summer trains there are notes to day which are taken off srervice in late September. These are a small but significal proportion. <BR> <BR>Please write if I can help further. Welcome to Europe. <BR> <BR>Ben Haines, London <BR> <BR>

The problem here isn't where to get schedules, it's that they all seem to expire at the end of May; and no one seems willing to sell tickets for the summer yet -- just the passes. But the probability that schedules will change substantially isn't high. The only thing to be careful of is which countries observe daylight savings and which don't.

At some point in time DeutscheBahn starts listing both the regular and the summer schedule on their website. I remember this from last spring. I don't remember when they start putting the summer schedule on the web. Does anyone know? <BR>

Thanks to all for the great advice here. I have tried the websites but they don't have times for as far out as October.However, they will be very useful to verify things closer to our departure. Meanwhile I'll order the book recommended by Ben. I think it will be the easiest for planning purposes - at least we'll have a better idea of our options. We're trying to keep some flexibility in our itinerary but would like to have hotels booked for a few nights in the more crowded cities like Venice, Florence and Paris. Knowing the train connections and schedules will help.

Bobbi, <BR> <BR>Add this website of websites to your collection of Europe rail travel info: <BR> <BR>http://mercurio.iet.unipi.it/misc/timetabl.html <BR> <BR>Contains a link to the website of the rail system for every country in Europe. <BR> <BR>Best wishes, <BR> <BR>Rex