Consumer Experience

European rail schedules - where are you?

European train schedules myth or reality? Wouldn't it be great to be able to go to any travel website and type in your departure city and then your destination city and you will recieve an answer that provides both train and airlines? Most online travel sites will have the airline window, but look for a train one and you will more than likely not find it.

You can buy a Thomas Cook European Rail schedules book, but what if the schedules change? With deregulation around the corner this would be a great first step to provide much needed visibility for the railways.

13 May 2009

Posted by: Philip Martin

Comments

Try putting something like "European train times" in Google and there are a few useful sites. The best are those run by the UIC (the railway equivalent of IARO) and German Railways (which accepts few geographical limitations!). Rail Europe is also useful, and Google Transit is spreading. The only truly multi-modal travel planning site I know is for Great Britain only - Transport Direct (www.transportdirect.info). This gives the kind of comparative data you want. However, the big complication with setting up the site was knowing what check-in time to allow for planes - it can vary by airline, class of travel and the amount of luggage you have!
Thinks - is this a market Amadeus should be in?

By Andrew Sharp on 16 Jun 2009

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