For anyone who is planning a trip to Europe that involves extensive rail travel, one question that many travelers have is, "Is it cheaper to get a rail pass?"  The answer is, "It depends."  Hopefully this article will give you a better understanding of how rail passes work and whether it makes sense  to get a rail pass or buy individual tickets.  First, let's look at the rail pass and how it works.

Rail passes are available for many single countries in Europe.  There are also rail passes that apply to multiple countries, and of course the granddaddy of them all, the Eurail Global pass, which covers 33 countries, i.e. most of Europe.  There are also passes for two people traveling together, and other options (and prices) for traveling with children.  So when does it make sense to have a rail pass versus buying individual tickets?  The answer requires answering a few questions, and then applying a little mathematics.

Step 1 will be determining which rail pass you are considering using, and then figuring out the cost.  I think the following questions are the ones to ask yourself right at the start of this decision-making process:

1) Are you traveling alone or with someone?  And if you are traveling with someone, will you both be on the same itinerary, or at least on the same itinerary for the days where you'll be traveling by train?

2) Are you going to travel first class or second class?  Your initial reaction might be, "I don't need to travel first class."  However there are some distinct advantages to traveling first class, which include the following considerations:
 - More space between rows and wider seats might be worth the extra cost alone, especially on longer rides.
 - During busy travel times, like holidays and over summer vacation, trains can be full.  A first class seat is more likely to be available because yes, trains can be full, VERY full, during peak travel times.
 - First class tends to be quieter.  Besides families traveling with children (who generally travel 2nd class), European schools use the train as the primary method of transportation for field trips.  It's not unusual to find train cars loaded with schoolkids of all ages.  
 - In many cases, the first class rail pass covers surcharges for certain types of express trains, whereas the second class pass does not.
 - There are amenities in first class you may not get in second class, which may include having a meal or beverage delivered to your seat, access to special panorama coaches, or in some countries, access to first-class lounges in some stations.

3) Are you going to be a "rail warrior", taking train journeys every day across a country or across Europe, or are you planning on stopping for several days at each destination?  The reason this question is important is because rail passes can be order with consecutive days or with a number of days in a given month.  

4) How flexible would you like your schedule to be?  The railpass allows you to jump on most trains at any time, while the railways in most European countries have fares that change over time- the earlier you book, the better your fare.  However those advanced tickets are locked onto a single train, so if your plans change or you miss the train, you are out that money and will have to purchase a new ticket.  To have the same flexibility as a rail pass, you'll have to pay the full fare, even if you book the ticket in advance.

Besides a little bit of self-reflection, you'll need to do a little online research, so you know the cost of the train ticket if you purchase it either in advance or at the time of departure.  Most countries have their own website for their national railway system, which also shows schedules for trains similar to what sites like Travelocity and Expedia do for air travel.  If you search online for phrases like "train schedule Germany" or similar you'll usually come across them, along with lots of other sites that will provide schedules and costs.  My recommendation is to use RailEurope ( www.raileurope.com) as a starting point for international travel.  At this point you aren't trying to pick an exact train- you are trying to estimate costs and understand directionally how much that train trip from Frankfurt Airport to Munich is going to cost you. Remember to double the cost if you are traveling with a second person.  You're going to want to create estimates for every major railway journey you'll undertake, as well as the date you plan to take it.  Don't worry about the trips that are local- they'll usually be pretty cheap.  But anything that crosses a border or any day you take a train trip or series of trips that take more than an hour in a day should be part of your calculation.  If you are connecting trains you don't need to list those separately, but if you plan to get off the train somewhere, spend a few hours, and then get on another train, maybe to head back to your 'base', you'll need to list both of those even if they occur on the same day.  When you get done, you should have something that looks like this:

 ​Now that you have an idea of your train travels and the cost, it's time to figure out whether the railpass is a cheaper way to go, and which one is best.  Let's assume that the itinerary above is for one person who wants to travel second class.  It looks like this individual is going to have eight days of train travel and three days without.  Total cost is going to be about $441 for 2nd class tickets for all that travel. 

Our next step is to determine our rail pass options and what the cost would be to cover those seven days and two countries.  For this I used www.Eurail.com.  It allowed me to put in the destinations and number of nights, and it will provide a recommendation.    There is a sale going on right now as I write this (fairly common in the first few months of the year), but let's look at the regular prices instead.  The recommendation from Eurail is a 7-day Global Pass.  This gives you unlimited train travel for 7 days in a month in 2nd class for $412. 

Why choose 7 days?  Because that day where the only train travel is to Potsdam from Berlin and back isn't 'worth' a day with the rail pass.  So if we deduct the $16 for that day's worth of train tickets and one day from our train travel days, we end up paying $425 via tickets or $412 for the rail pass.  That's right- you actually save money with the Eurail Global Pass, and don't have to restrict yourself to any particular trains.  And if you want to enjoy the comforts of first class, that's only $124 more than the individual 2nd class tickets would cost, anyway.  With the sale going on as I write this, a first class 7-day Eurail Global Pass to cover that trip is only $14 more than the individual 2nd class ticket price total!

There are other perks to the Eurail Global Pass that may sweeten the deal.  For example, if you decide to take a cruise down the Rhine while you're in Cologne, you'll get a discount because of your pass.  Plus, since your Eurail pass day runs from midnight to midnight, you can use it for local trains that you may want to take the remainder of your travel days.  Finally, if you decide to skip Kiel and decide to go to Legoland in Denmark instead, or maybe visit Paris instead of Rotterdam, the pass will cover those trips, too.

There are a myriad of other options, of course, depending on your itinerary.  If we were flying into Amsterdam first and then spending most of our time in Germany, it may make sense to pay for the Dutch rail travel by buying tickets and have a German Rail pass for the remaining time in Germany.  It's all a question of knowing what your rough plans are, laying everything out in a table, and comparing the costs.  Then weigh the difference in cost against the flexibility of the rail pass, versus what your budget will allow.  

No, it's not a weird new version of Monopoly, but an opportunity to enjoy the ETE Great Lakes modular HO scale European themed Marklin model train layout.  Member Matt Moore brought a tiny HD video camera to the National Train Show which took a trip around the layout.  Here is the result: 

There are many, many reasons to travel by train in Germany and Europe.  It is cheaper, more comfortable, and sometimes more practical than driving and finding a place to park. That said, there are other moments which arise that really hit home.  Here is one such example.
     I was travelling in Germany with a group of my students in June of 2014.  We had just finished three days in the Berlin-Potsdam area and were now on our way to the Dresden area for four days.  It was Sunday evening, and we had elected to take the regional trains (RegioBahn) rather than the speed trains (IC/ICE).  It would give us a chance to relax and rest on a quieter trip after all the walking and fast-paced visiting of Germany’s capital.  This was my first trip through the old areas of the DDR (East Germany), outside of the yearly rides to Berlin via Bremen.   Occasionally we passed towns with mixed Prussian and Czech or Polish names, but the real thing was the amount of, as Joyce put it, “undeveloped” land.  Definitely the population density was much lower in this part of Germany than elsewhere. 
 
Somewhere along the route between the towns and station of Grossenhain-Cottbus and Priestewitz, our train had to halt and allow a transport train to come through.  We stopped a mile or so from Priestewitz, and one of my students, Jacob Anderson, called we over to where he was sitting and pointed out his window and asked “what is that?”  He was pointing to an old farmstead… 5 buildings- a house, a barn, two tool sheds, and a garage/mechanic shop.  All were overgrown and severely damaged.  “Is that from the war,” he asked.  It was clear that the place had been a family home destroyed during the Russian push to Berlin.  It looked like a scene from the old classic war movies, but it was real.  I confirmed his suspicions, and other students quickly came over as the train started to move again.  The students remarked how it was amazing that 70 years after the war it was still there, neither re-built nor torn down.  They expressed wonder and what had happened.  It allowed me to explain how the family probably fled (or were killed) and no one came back. 

My students were deeply touched by this frozen moment in time, and wondered about the family, its history, and if they survived, do they even know their old home is still there.   We discussed the population shift to the West both during and after the war, and how these areas were completely depopulated.  As we started to roll on, we saw land which was once cultivated but now returned to the wild.  My wife Joyce was able to point out the former field lines and crop areas, so subtly different that other wild areas, and the students quickly seized on this knowledge.  Long discussions and questions about the war in Germany and the struggles of East Germany ensued.  The students spent the last hour of the ride to Dresden looking and hoping to find more poignant moments trapped in time.

Such events, I have learned over the years, occur much more often and more deeply on trains than travelling in a car or even a bus tour.  In a car you focus on the destination and trivial moments of chat.  On a bus, you are packed and cramped, and some even have video to watch.  On a train, you can read a book, put on headphones, or even do a crossword puzzle book, but your eyes are always drawn out the window.  There is something magnetic to the passing scenery that interrupts your attempts at distraction and take your eyes and thoughts to the world just beyond the glass.   Add to that the ability to have a group discussion session all at once when a topic arises, and you understand just one of the reasons trains are so amazing to ride on. 

Today we'll take a look at the letters and numbers generally mounted above and next to the tracks on passenger platforms and how they show passengers where to be to catch their train.  The first part, the number, is fairly self-explanatory.  It represents the track next to it as a number in ascending order from the station.  So track 1 would be closest to the station building, track 2 would be next to it, etc.  Note, however, that in some cases a very high number, like track 21, might actually be closer to the station building than 21 tracks out, but we'll stick with the most common situations for the purpose of these articles.

The station departure board above lists only the track / platform for the first two trains.  Why is that?  In some countries and/or stations the track number ​isn't shown until shortly before the train arrives.  That's to allow just about any train to leave from any track.  In some countries and/or stations the same trains always leave from the same track, so it's not necessary to hold off on showing the track number.  But in either case if a track number is showing it's a safe bet that's where your train will be departing from.  Okay, so now that we know which platform to be on for the track, let's take a look at the other half of the signage in the first image of this article, the letter.

The letters that appear above the platform represent different segments of the platform that help passengers know roughly where to stand when the train rolls in.  Today I'll explain how to know roughly where to stand if you are in first class or second class, and where to stand if you'd like a cold, refreshing beer from the dining car for the start of your journey.  In a future article I'll explain how to identify where a particular coach will stop if you've made reservations.  But for now we'll just get you to the right part of the train...

Near the track number and platform segment display is usually a flip-type or digital display board that provides information on the next train coming in on that platform.  This is where we'll identify where to be when the train comes to a stop to quickly get on board and not have to drag luggage the length of the train to find an open seat in the right class.  An insider tip: it also shows us where the end of the train will be, and as a pro will tell you, the ends of the train are where the coaches are the emptiest!

There are a few items of interest on the board to note.  First is the train number and train type.  This display shows a French TGV (France's high-speed train) with train number 9576.  Its final destination is Paris Est, and it's making intermediate stops in Karlsruhe and Strasbourg.  Not all stops will be displayed, usually only a couple.  Now note the small symbol above and to the left of 'Paris Est'.  This actually tells you where the train will be situated on the platform.  It looks like this TGV will be stopping between sections D and G.  Looking very closely at the display (it's hard to read in the image above) one can ascertain the number '2' underneath the 'E' and the number '1' underneath the 'G'.  This tells us that second class will be located in sectors 'D' and 'E' and first class will be in sector 'G'.  The dining car, which can be designated by the letter 'R' or sometimes as an icon of a coffee cup, sits between the two in section 'F'.  Now imagine if you were waiting in section 'A' when this train pulled in for its 2-minute stop...

The destination board here provides information on a longer train.  It shows a first class coach or two in sector 'B', it shows us that limited food service (in this case a 'Bord Bistro') is located in section 'C' and also shows that bicycles (or other larger equipment like wheelchairs) can be stored in a car in sector 'F'.

Here is one final destination board that will save you a world of grief if you know how to read it.  Although fairly unusual, there are times when trains will take part of a journey coupled together, then split up at a particular station to continue to individual destinations.  This is done most commonly on heavily trafficked lines where train density is high.  When the train above pulls out at 19:10 it will run as one unit, but in Duisburg the train will split, with part of it headed west to Amsterdam and another part headed north to Dortmund.  Thanks to your new knowledge, you should now be able to get into the right train to make it to either destination!