Talk:Tips for rail travel

Usefulness

I wonder how usefull this is going to be-- are there really train tips that are general enough to apply to all countries? I mean besides "don't be late" and "women should be careful"? Maybe focus this on the EU or something? (WT-en) Majnoona 11:01, 8 Mar 2004 (EST)

I agree with Maj. I'm not even convinced we need a separate article for EU train travel (or any other region for that matter). If it's going to be regional it should come under "get around" of that region. (WT-en) DhDh 11:56, 8 Mar 2004 (EST)

It could be worth a try shaping it like Tips for hitchhiking. First the general stuff, and then country specific information. (WT-en) Guaka 18:32, 4 May 2004 (EDT)

Like Tips for hitchhiking, I think the country-specific stuff needs to be on the country pages. While there are some people who do travel just to be on trains, the more general traveller (our audience) doesnt usually think "I want to take a train, should I go to Asia or Europe?" They know where they are going and need the train info to be there.... (WT-en) Majnoona 01:11, 16 Jun 2004 (EDT)

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Anybody knows a good site to find train routes and ticket prices? I have horrible experiences with using rail companies' own websites for international train travel... (WT-en) Guaka 15:16, 15 May 2004 (EDT)

Try Seat61. Note that it doesn't even attempt to have up-to-the-minute pricing though... (WT-en) Jpatokal 04:56, 17 May 2004 (EDT)

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Shouldn't the regional railtravel tips be simply included in the appropriate articles? We'll either end up with information here that will be missing from the articles, or we will have redundant information in two places. Either way, a bad idea. -- (WT-en) Nils 03:17, 15 Jul 2004 (EDT)

US, Europe, Canada, North America, Tips

So instead of having three overlapping and (to varying degrees) redundant articles, we now have five (Europe, US, Canada, North America, tips) with Mexico yet to come. Frankly, I didn't see that great a need to split between the U.S. and Canada; moving the "how to find a seat on a train" suggestions to the "tips" article would have brought the North America article down to a reasonable size. (Plus American Orient Express and one of the rail passes apply to both countries.) Any chance we can work out a consensus about how to handle this before putting too much more work into it? - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 12:31, 5 April 2006 (EDT)

The reason North America was broken up is for the reason Evan cited as seeing this turn into various articles. "It seems like we've got one big page with two topics." I also cite Evan from an email he replied to "I could see it becoming an organizing page for Rail travel in Canada, Rail travel in the United States, and Rail travel in Mexico, possibly with other pan-continental information (like the North America pass, for example)."

Additionally, the reason I'm hostile towards Tips is because it isn't as user friendly as Rail travel in the United States or Rail travel in Canada, where the person using this information will know that the information provided in the US article know that the information is reliable for the rail travel in US. The problem with Tips is that it does offer some very good information, however, some (not all) of the information is useless to riders in Canada or the US, but the same information is useful to someone who is traveling in the UK. (WT-en) Sapphire 12:49, 5 April 2006 (EDT)

I don't want to do this without getting input from others, but if we arranged the tips in the Tips article into regions like ===Tips for North America=== or ===Tips for Asia=== the Tips article would be much more user friendly. We would be able to eliminate this information from the US and Canada articles, merge both articles into North America, again (North America would be a much more reasonable size than it was previously), add any information from Mexico in. Would that be an appealing compromise to everyone? Change the format of Tips and in place delete US and Canada a move everything back to North America? (WT-en) Sapphire 12:57, 5 April 2006 (EDT)

vfd discussion

Delete. I incorporated the useful info into Rail travel in Europe. I will incorporaate the same info into Rail travel in North America. The same content is covered in both articles, however the American and European articles are much more useful as they provide information on routes. (WT-en) Sapphire 07:37, 24 March 2006 (EST)

• Keep. Looks quite like a valid travel topic to me. I don't think that the overlapping info would be enough reason for deletion. This is a wiki and just because an article's content isn't complete enough right now, it doesn't me it could never be. (WT-en) Ricardo (Rmx) 17:36, 28 March 2006 (EST)
• Keep. Duplicating the general info in two articles makes it harder to maintain that info. The information that's specific to each continent can be put in "see also" articles, which also link to the article with general info. - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 17:39, 28 March 2006 (EST)
• Update. All the info I thought was revelant to North American article was moved to the North American article. I'm still not persuaded, myself, however, I'm fairly liberal and am willing to flip-flop if the political wind eventual takes me there. (WT-en) Sapphire 17:49, 28 March 2006 (EST)
• Keep. If it's really necessary, perhaps use template transclusion (like {{:Tips for rail travel}}) to copy the contents of this article into [[Rail travel in XXX]]? --(WT-en) Evan 12:29, 5 April 2006 (EDT)
• Keep. Objection withdrawn. (WT-en) Sapphire 16:01, 6 April 2006 (EDT)

Stating the bleeding obvious

Never more so than in this article! --(WT-en) Burmesedays 10:15, 12 February 2010 (EST)

I've met plenty of travellers (often young Americans, who have never had the opportunity to use a train in the US) who could probably find something like this useful. I've tidied it up a bit. M Blissett (talk) 20:31, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

rail air alliances

I think it might be very useful for travellers, especially those from countries where such thinks don't exist or aren't widely used to know about air-rail alliances and the offers they provide. Of course listing 'em all would be well beyond the scope of this article, but we could put some words about them into this here article... there is one on wp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air-rail_alliance that lists (all?) of them but doesn't provide too much details.. I know a thing or two about rail&fly (having used it once in 2011) but know nothing about the other arrangements apart from their existence, so I don't know whether DB is the exception or the rule in this. If I understand the external links policy correctly, we don't want too many wp links in this website, so I guess we should find a way to avoid the link....? Anyway, before moving ahead, maybe other people would want to way inHobbitschuster (talk) 23:26, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

It could be a potential separate article, and I think a useful one for Europe. The WP page you linked to suggest China Eastern in Shanghai also does this, although there is no longer any mention of it on their web site and my personal experience would suggest this is no longer offered. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 00:21, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

So How would you propose to proceed? We could start with a mew section in this article or the rail travel in Europe article and see if it gathers enough content over time to merit its own article or we could start with a new article right away and link to it from this and the rail travel in Europe article. As I said I feel somewhat confident to write something about rail&fly, but I don't know anything about the systems employed in other countries or Lufthansa's AIRail...Hobbitschuster (talk) 00:36, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Not completely sure how to proceed. I personally find this article very hard to read and use so adding yet another section may be less effective than creating a new focused article.

I'd be interested in how to take advantage of this in a clear way. For example, if I have already booked flights with Lufthansa to Frankfurt in order that I can visit Hannover, what advantages would there be to use this, and what steps are need to make it happen? --Andrewssi2 (talk) 00:55, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

So according to this website http://www.lufthansa.com/online/portal/lh/us/info_and_services/from_to_airport?nodeid=1771075&l=en you would have to buy the rail&fly ticket with your flight. As far as I recall that is true for any airline and Deutsche Bahn itself states on their website, that you can only buy rail&fly tickets through the airline. For Lufthansa the fare would be 29€ one way in the second class (incidentally that is also the cheapest possible early bird rate for long distance tickets) You would than get a number with your flight-ticket that you can use to print your train ticket at home or redeem it at any ticket counter or ticket machine in any DB train-station.Hobbitschuster (talk) 13:53, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

hmm, that seems complicated :) Also I gather it is only valid if you book directly at lufthansa.com ? If you book a Lufthansa flight through another website (such as expedia) then I guess this is not available.

It might be worth to state on the Germany 'get in' section that Lufthansa offers this facility for flights booked directly with them. Andrewssi2 (talk) 22:38, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Well other airlines offer it as well (in fact there is even a IATA code for "rail&fly" QYG, but some online booking-tools can't handle it) a little further googling got me to find out that Germanwings (Lufthansa's 100% no frills subsidiary) allows booking rail&fly after you already bought a ticket (see: https://www.germanwings.com/de/informieren/services/hilfe/fragen/was-ist-beim-nachbuchen-von-rail-and-fly-zu-beachten.html ) (in German) the website http://www.ebookers.de also offers rail&fly when searching for a flight and gives a quote including the railfare. The one time I used it (edit: meaning rail&fly not the website (end of edit)), it saved me some 100€ (replacing a German domestic flight with a rail transfer) and it was remarkably hassle-free, but than again I bought the ticket in a travel agency and not online (it was my first long distance flight and the first flight I would be on my own on). There is a forum that says it is usually possible to book a rail&fly ticket after already having obtained a ticket with Lufthansa, but from the way it is worded, this doesn't seem to have been common at the time of the writing of those posts http://www.vielfliegertreff.de/lufthansa/51280-rail-fly-nachtraeglich-dazubuchen.html (again in German, I am sorry to say) . This website seems to provide sort of a general overview http://www.accesrail.com/rail-fly.html . The thing is, the last couple of times I flew rail&fly wasn't really a workable solution for me, but it beats most other modes of transferring to / from German airports hands down in terms of price and often in terms of convenience (once you get the ticket booked) and I think it would be good to have someone knowledgeable on the subject write an article about it. Problem is: I don't have much in the way of practical experienceHobbitschuster (talk) 23:17, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

So I just found this website http://www.rail-und-fly.de that seems to at least try to spell out (almost) all the options there are. Again in German. Btw. German wikivoyage is (as of this writing) hardly any better with infromation on rail-air alliances in general andrail&fly in particular only having two sentences or three in this article https://de.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Reisen_mit_dem_Flugzeug Hobbitschuster (talk) 23:56, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

No problem that it is in German, it is pretty clear. Actually I would consider this next time flying to Germany (assuming the ticket price on the Lufthansa site is similar to other ticket online prices) Andrewssi2 (talk) 09:32, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

So regarding the article though... Any thoughts? It would be great of course if you could write an article about rail&fly if and when you use it, but I figure that might well be several years henceHobbitschuster (talk) 22:09, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

In terms of the article, I would say it is traveler relevant and a short article would not be a problem. Also you are right, I probably won't get a chance to try this for a long while yet.

On a related subject, I am a big fan of using 'City Checkin' facilities. This involves going to the main station in certain cities (I use Hong Kong, Seoul and Kuala Lumpur for this), checking in your luggage and flight, and then taking a train direct to the airport whenever you are ready. Andrewssi2 (talk) 22:39, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

That sounds like AiRail (Lufthansa and Deutsche Bahn) where you can check in in Cologne Stuttgart or Siegburg (the ICE stop serving Bonn) for a flight leaving from Frankfurt...Hobbitschuster (talk) 16:26, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

So I went ahead and started an article on the subject. As of now I fear it to be a stub, but I hope people with knowledge on other countries might help it grow.Hobbitschuster (talk) 16:20, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Promotion to guide and featuring

What do you think should be done to promote this to guide status and make it FTT? Hobbitschuster (talk) 23:49, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Train travel was boring before the Internet?

I took long-distance trains in China in 1987. A 4-hour trip meant listening to one Mahler symphony cassette, and I also had interesting interactions with people. I could tell a bunch of stories, but one particularly fun event was the time when I played a card game of bullshit/I doubt it in three languages with one Chinese-Canadian girl, bilingual in English and Cantonese with some Mandarin skills, who was traveling to Guangzhou to visit cousins, and one boy from Beijing to whom I explained the basics of the rules in my survival-level Mandarin and suggested he say "bushi," a Mandarin word for "no" as a perfect analog to "bullshit." Those folks were in the next train car from me, and I met them because I walked around and talked to people, knowing that I had 33 1/2 hours to kill (not including time asleep). I think while it makes sense to mention the Internet, it doesn't make sense to suggest that things were always so boring before it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:26, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Naming inconsistency

On Wikivoyage, I notice that location articles referring the mode of travel by type of vehicle used (i.e. location articles will have sections of "By bus" or "By train" or "By car"). Likewise, articles specifically relating to travel by mode of bus, are named "Bus travel" or "Bus travel in..."). In contrast, in the case of travel by train, the general articles relating to traveling by train use the term "rail" (i.e. the surface of travel rather than the vehicle of travel). This naming in relation to train/rail is inconsistent. It is also confusing relating to searching for information.

I suggest some form of change for consistency, i.e. either go all in with the term "train" or all in with the term "rail." --DPejano (talk) 17:03, 5 November 2023 (UTC)