Paris-Stuttgart, and Stuttgart-Budapest: two railway worlds

This morning state owned railway companies trade body CER put out this on LinkedIn, stating “YES, booking international train journeys once required a crystal ball, BUT now planning ahead is much easier.“

Typically for me I was actually this morning trying to do this, booking seats for a trip from France to Hungary on 11th April. The sort of trip Alberto Mazzola from CER would normally just do in a aeroplane instead.

And damn what a mess it was.

It’s not a crystal ball you need, but something more like the rules for 4D chess.

The France-Germany high speed train I need is TGV 9593 from Paris Est to Stuttgart:

But when you try to book a seat for that TGV* on DB’s site you get this error:

And because it is a France-Germany TGV it is compulsory reservation between Paris and Karlsruhe. No seat, no boarding for you.

I enquired with a friend in Deutsche Bahn to find out what’s up. “It’s not sold out” he told me, “but sales have been suspended on it. But I can find no reason to explain why.“

Why am I even needing to ask a friend who works for a rail firm here?

Then Corentin, a follower of mine on Mastodon, found there were seats on the train only from Strasbourg to Stuttgart, but if you booked with SNCF. But not if you tried to book the whole trip. Presumably some passengers were disembarking in Strasbourg.

So I booked Paris – Strasbourg with SNCF**, and separately booked Strasbourg – Stuttgart. Thereby denyi… no, Jon, don’t go there! The European Commission thinks everything should be one transaction (it shouldn’t, because it can’t).

So I needed to consult two websites (DB and SNCF), message a friend in Deutsche Bahn, and then happen to get the right assistance on Mastodon, and finally – in two transactions on the same website – get what I need.

But that’s not all.

Stuttgart is not the end of the trip. Budapest is.

So, obviously, I booked seats for the ICE Stuttgart – München, and the Railjet München – Wien – Budapest simply in one transaction from… err, Česke Drahy, the Czech railways. A country I am not even transiting. But it worked, simply, cheaply and easily, first time, and in just a few clicks.

Another railway world.

* – I am travelling with Interrail, so this is not a regular seat reservation, but the special Passzuschlag. I tried regular reservations, and regular tickets too, and none of these worked. The “Flexpreis” can be bought, but without a seat reservation cannot be used, because France. Basically there was no way to get a seat.

** – well, actually with RailEurope, because SNCF cannot sell Interrail reservations for its own trains, but let’s not get hung up on that here.

Source: https://jonworth.eu/paris-stuttgart-and-stutt/