Briefings/03
Practical · Continent-wide
The railway, without the folklore
How to buy a ticket, which names matter, and why a pass is not the same thing as a seat.
8 minute read · Desk edition, October 2026
Buy the journey you mean to take
For two or three trains, buy point to point. SNCF, Trenitalia, Renfe, Deutsche Bahn, NS, ÖBB and the operators’ own sites are dull and usually enough. A pass — Interrail if you live in Europe, Eurail if you do not — pays when you will ride most days for a fortnight and you can tolerate the reservation fees the pass does not include.
High-speed trains in France, Spain and Italy, and Eurostar, require a reservation even if you hold a pass. The cheap seats go first. A pass without a reservation is a piece of paper and a conversation with a conductor you will lose. Night trains, where they exist, are a room you book, not a romantic accident.
Names worth knowing
Eurostar is the fixed link: London, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, and a few further cities when the timetable allows. It is a border, with passports, even though you never see the sea. Thalys is gone as a brand; those trains are Eurostar now. TGV is France’s fast train. AVE is Spain’s. Frecciarossa is the fast red train in Italy. ICE is Germany. Railjet is Austria’s, and it will take you toward Budapest if you let it.
Stations are part of the city. Gare de Lyon is not Gare du Nord. Roma Termini is not Roma Trastevere. Arrive at the station your hotel can actually reach on foot or with one metro, and say so when you book. A “central” hotel near the wrong station is a taxi you did not budget.
What the folklore gets wrong
Europe is not one network with one app and one set of rules. Strikes are national. A French strike does not stop a Dutch sprinter. Seat reservations, quiet coaches and whether your bicycle is a passenger all change at the border. So does the plug socket, though less dramatically than people fear — a simple two-pin adapter covers most of the continent, and the United Kingdom is the odd one out.
If a journey is the holiday, take the scenic line on purpose: the Bernina, a Norwegian branch to the fjord, a slow train along the Ligurian coast. If the journey is how you get to dinner, buy the fast train, sit on the correct side for nothing in particular, and read.
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