Latest news with #TheManinSeat61
Local Germany
27-05-2025
- Business
- Local Germany
Why booking international train tickets in Germany is set to get easier
Buying tickets for train journeys through Europe should get a bit easier for travellers coming from or go to Germany this year as Deutsche Bahn (DB) is set to connect to a new booking system for international fairs. By the end of 2026, DB will be able to "sell tickets from all major railways in our neighbouring countries directly via and the DB Navigator app," the company told DPA. This comes as the latest development in a broader European push to simplify cross-border train travel led by the EU Transport Commission. So far the Austrian and Swiss Federal Railways (ÖBB and SBB) have been the first to be connected to the new pan-European booking system. In the coming months, more partners are expected to join -- including DB from autumn of this year. The goal is that ticket booking on virtually all routes across Europe will be possible in one-step through the usual sales channels by the end of next year. Isn't DB already selling international tickets? Passengers can already buy tickets for trains that connect Germany to surrounding countries through the DB website or app. But for many international journeys tickets may need to be bought individually from different companies. In some cases, they also come at a heftier price. Mark Smith, founder of the European train travel website, The Man in Seat 61 , told The Local that "DB is one of the best operators when it comes to offering through tickets to from or across Germany, including connections from Amsterdam to Prague or Zurich to Copenhagen." Advertisement But he added that DB's current ticket selling portal falls short on a lot of trans-European routes. "Annoyingly it can't do cross-Germany tickets to/from Paris, at least not at sensible prices," Smith said. "Ask it for Paris-Vienna and you'll only see silly-money Flexpreis fares for a journey with a change at Frankfurt. But if you asked it for Paris-Frankfurt and then Frankfurt-Vienna on exactly the same trains it would happily sell affordable advance-purchase Sparpreis fares for both sectors." READ ALSO: 5 tips for surviving Deutsche Bahn's new Paris to Berlin 'direct' train link In other cases, you may find a possible international journey offered on the DB website that says "Determine Price." In these cases DB essentially sells a bundled ticket that includes fairs for multiple journeys, some of which are provided by other railway companies. Advertisement But Smith warned that the "determine price" button "is often a sign you should be booking on some other operator's site -- not DB's!" All in one ticket Assuming everything goes to plan -- and yes, with Deutsche Bahn that is quite the assumption -- all of the aforementioned issues will be dealt with by autumn, when passengers can expect to buy tickets across multiple countries at standard prices through the DB platform. Michael Peterson, long-distance transport board member at DB, told DPA that the goal is to offer everything on one ticket. He added that, "International long-distance transport is booming." DB reported it's strongest year for cross-border ticket sales in 2024, with a 22 percent increase compared to the pre-Covid year of 2019.
Local Italy
12-04-2025
- Business
- Local Italy
Inside Italy: Hope for new international rail links and is Italy's birth crisis irreversible?
Inside Italy is our weekly look at some of the news, talking points and gossip from Italy that you might not have heard about. It's published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to their inbox, by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article. Italy's state-owned rail operator Trenitalia made international headlines earlier this week after it unveiled plans to launch a London-Paris service in competition with Eurostar by 2029, with the possibility of extending the service to cities including Ashford, Lille, Lyon, Marseille and Milan in the following years. The announcement sparked excitement among rail travel enthusiasts, making the dream of travelling directly between London and Milan look closer than ever before. Mark Smith, the international rail guru behind The Man in Seat 61 travel website, said on social media platform X: 'A ready-made Trenitalia network London-Paris-Lyon-Avignon-Aix-Marseille/Turin-Milan is quite exciting, I must admit!' News of Trenitalia's move to expand its high-speed network across western Europe came less than two months after St Pancras Highspeed, which owns and manages London St Pancras station, announced plans to increase international high-speed rail travel between the UK capital and continental Europe in partnership with French operator Getlink. Getlink said direct services could serve the German cities of Frankfurt and Cologne in the early stages of the project, but could eventually reach as far as Geneva, Zurich and Milan. New services should only begin after 2030 given the operator's need to acquire new trains and permissions to operate on both sides of the Channel. Besides a potential London-Milan direct route, rail travellers are set to benefit from new high-speed links between Germany and Italy in the coming years. Under a partnership agreement signed in January 2024, Trenitalia and Germany's state operator Deutsche Bahn are set to jointly launch new links connecting Munich, Bavaria, to Milan and Rome from December 2026. Travel time on the Munich-Milan route should stand at just over six hours, while Munich-Rome journeys are expected to take approximately nine hours. Planned infrastructure improvements, including the launch of the new Brenner Base Tunnel on the Italy-Austria border in 2033, may reduce travel times between Munich and Milan by around one hour. Discussions about extending the new services to Berlin at a later stage have been mentioned in Italian media reports in recent months, but neither Trenitalia nor Deutsche Bahn have confirmed the plans so far. The planned Munich-Milan and Munich-Rome links are set to broaden Trenitalia's cross-border high-speed network, which already includes a recently reopened Paris-Milan line calling at Lyon, Chambéry, Modane and Turin, among others. Trenitalia also operates a number of popular non-high-speed cross-border routes, including Venice-Vienna, Trieste-Ljubljana, Milan-Zurich and Verona-Innsbruck. Is Italy's birth crisis irreversible? Italy's demographic crisis deepened in 2024 as the number of births hit a new record low, according to new data from national statistics office Istat. The country registered 370,000 births last year - the 16th consecutive annual decline (down by 2.6 percent against 2023) and the lowest figure since the country's unification in 1861. Furthermore, the average number of children born to each woman of child-bearing age dropped to 1.18 in 2024, breaking the existing record low of 1.19, registered in 1995. The new figures have rekindled intense public debate over Italy's birth crisis, as population decline keeps casting a long shadow over the country's future, threatening economic growth and productivity, as well as the long-term sustainability of the current pension system. So far, demographics experts have said that the problem can still be solved, though they have warned that it may become 'irreversible' if the downward trend isn't at the very least halted in a reasonably short period of time. Though an exact 'point of no return' hasn't been indicated yet, the consensus among demographers is that the clock is ticking and Italy needs a comprehensive package of family policies capable of quickly boosting the fertility rate. According to Alessandro Rosina, professor of Demography and Social Statistics at Milan's Università Cattolica, Rome should focus on so-called 'reconciliation measures' – steps intended to make it easier for parents to balance work and family responsibilities. These measures, says Rosina, should include improved childcare services (Italy has a chronic shortage of public nurseries), increased parental leave and more flexible part-time work arrangements for parents. Italy's wage stagnation and rising rents, especially in major cities, have also long been cited by experts as reasons why so many young adults are unable to afford to start a family - with many unable to leave their own family home until their late 20s. Italian PM Giorgia Meloni swept to power in 2022 following an election campaign in which she pledged to uphold traditional family values and address the problems that discourage or prevent Italians from having children. But the country has seen little in the way of concrete and decisive measures tackling the birth rate crisis over the past three years. Will the latest figures spur the government into action? Anyone who has Italy's best interest at heart should hope so.
Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Yahoo
Off the rails: Night train from Berlin to Brussels will stop running at the end of March
A sleeper train service connecting Berlin and Brussels will end operations at the end of March. The Nightjet that links the German and Belgium capitals currently runs three times a week. The service is operated by ÖBB Austria's national railway company and is part of a wider network of night trains that connect many of Germany's big cities to other European destinations. The Nightjet sleeper train from Berlin to Brussels, which was launched in December 2023, will cease operations on 28 March. The decision to axe the service indefinitely was announced by ÖBB and first reported by The Man is Seat 61 - a website focused on rail travel around Europe. 'A combination of difficult-to-bypass late-notice trackwork in Germany and (no doubt) the fact that it now runs on the same three days of the week as the European Sleeper mean they seem to have given up,' founder Mark Smith wrote. The overnight service connected Berlin's Ostbahnhof and Hauptbahnhof to Bruxelles Midi and took around 14 hours. Passengers can still travel between Berlin and Brussels on an overnight train using the European Sleeper. Like the Nightjet route, the European sleeper leaves from Berlin's Ostbahnof and Hauptbahnhof stations on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The train stops in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Antwerp along the way. The route has also been extended to connect to Dresden and Prague as well. Related Nine cities, one route: How to make the most of the new sleeper train from Brussels to Venice Night Riviera: Why I ditched the car and travelled to Cornwall on the sleeper train Tickets for the overnight service start at €79 per person in a six-berth couchette, €99 in a five-berth couchette and €109 with a bed in a three-bed sleeper. 'It's worth paying the extra for a couchette in a 5-berth compartment as you get more space per person than in 6-berth and in a nicer car with air-conditioning, too,' Smith writes in his review of the European Sleeper on The Man in Seat 61. 'With friendly staff, comfortable beds and breakfast included it's a great way to travel.'
Yahoo
30-01-2025
- Yahoo
The UK train routes so expensive it is cheaper to fly via Europe
It's the sort of thing that shouldn't happen in a functional transport system: a Cornish couple saved £250 on their cross-country journey by choosing to fly via Malaga rather than take the train. Kristina Coulson says that she and her husband were quoted more than £200 each to travel via train from Newquay to Crewe, where they needed to pick up a car. Instead she says that the duo were able to fly from Newquay to Malaga, before flying back into Manchester the next day. They say that the whole trip cost them £153, including one night in a hotel. It isn't the first time that someone has been able to avoid sky-high rail fares by taking circuitous flights instead. So why does this keep happening? Over the years, campaign groups like Transport and Environment have claimed that Britain's rail fares are the steepest in Europe. But some experts – like travel blogger Mark Smith, who founded the blog The Man in Seat 61 – say this isn't quite accurate. Instead, he says that UK rail operators tend to be much more ruthless in their dynamic pricing models, utilising a similar approach to low-cost airlines. In short, that means that passengers who book on the day will pay a hefty premium. In those circumstances, UK fares are generally higher than European equivalents. But those passengers who book weeks or months in advance will probably get a better deal than their peers on the continent. Of course, that's not much consolation when you need to take a short-notice train journey. But is it really cheaper to fly? Here's what our investigation unveiled. It's one of the most popular long-distance rail routes in Britain, but it certainly isn't cheap for last-minute trips. When I checked at 4pm on Monday afternoon, a seat on the 5pm train out of Kings Cross to Edinburgh was priced at £199.60, with later trains costing £150 or £130. Was it cheaper to go with budget airlines? A quick search on Ryanair's website revealed that both London and Edinburgh had regular flights to and from Budapest, meaning I could connect via the Hungarian capital. Indeed Ryanair offered me a same-day flight at 7pm from Stansted to Budapest for £97.59, with a return flight to Edinburgh the next day available for £87.99 – so a total of £185.58. It was a small saving (£14) that would inevitably be swallowed up by the costs of getting to the airport, let alone staying in Budapest. But would the picture be different if I had a bit more notice? When I decided to check train prices for Friday evening, the same journey (5pm from Kings Cross to Edinburgh Waverley) was priced at £96.80. Alternatively, Ryanair was offering a flight to Budapest for that evening for just £19.99, followed by a mid-morning flight to Edinburgh for £41. On the face of it, it was a much better saving this time around. But I still needed to factor in the cost of one night's accommodation. Not to mention that getting to Stansted on Friday afternoon required a lot more flexibility. If I could escape the office that early, then why not just get an earlier train to Edinburgh? Indeed, leaving Kings Cross at midday reduced the train ticket to £78.90, slashing Ryanair's price advantage. But was it the same story for longer train journeys? For another example, I looked at travelling between Bristol and Edinburgh – a whopping six-hour journey – on January 29. Looking on Trainline in the afternoon of January 27, the peak ticket at 9am cost £106.30, though I could travel for a fraction of that (£46) if I was prepared to wait just 35 minutes… By contrast, Ryanair had a flight from Bristol to Tenerife for just £16.99, followed by a second flight to Edinburgh for £29.43. A decent saving on the peak prices, then. Given the flights were morning and evening respectively, I could also do the detour without having to factor in hotels. The gap would give me just enough time to explore Tenerife. Yes, it would still involve some extra costs – tapas and ice cream, perhaps – but wouldn't that be more pleasant than spending the best part of seven hours on a CrossCountry train? A search on Trainline revealed that this particular journey would cost between £65 and £93.70, depending on which service you wanted to travel on. Looking on Ryanair's website, I was surprised to find that I would be better off taking the early-morning flight to the Polish city of Gdansk, before catching a return leg to Leeds Bradford Airport. Together, both flights would cost just £59.24. Even better, the return leg was just £14.25 – one of the cheapest single tickets I've seen on Ryanair in ages. Fancy a city break in Liverpool? When I checked Trainline, I was offered a peak ticket from London to Liverpool tomorrow evening for £171.30. Alternatively, Ryanair had flights for Marrakech from Stansted for £99.99 on the same day. I could then book a return to Liverpool the next morning for just £30.48. A £41 saving wasn't to be sniffed at, but would it really persuade the average traveller to reroute their journey via Morocco? I wasn't convinced. Thanks to low-cost airlines like Ryanair, it isn't hard to find instances where taking an international detour can be cheaper than relying on the railways. But the kind of big savings (£100 upwards) that Kristina Coulson enjoyed only work if the alternative is taking the busiest peak train services without any kind of pre-planning. Looking at tomorrow's peak trains from Newport to Crewe, there's only one service with tickets over £200 (the 7.12am departure), with most of them priced at around £140. If you can wait until Friday, you can do the trip for £93.60. Generally, the people who end up paying the larger ticket prices are those with less flexibility in the first place. Which means they're less likely to have the time to take a quick detour via the Canary Islands or North Africa. Still, it's nice to know the option is there – if you're feeling spontaneous enough to make the most of it. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
