Annika
Traveller
1 comments
Posted 1 year ago
Hello everyone :) I would like to travel with Interrail to Switzerland from Berlin soon. Germany is my place of residence, so I can only use one travel day from there to leave, so far I have already understood. However, I would like to travel overnight. The problem is that there is no through train to Switzerland (NJ is fully booked) and I would have to change trains after midnight in Frankfurt (so still in Germany). It is not a problem for me to use a second travel day. But would the change already use up my two travel days in my home country? I still need my second home country day for the trip home. Is there a way around this? Buying ticket extra is way too expensive.
I assume that if a Night Jet is already fully booked on öbb seite, that it is also no longer available on interrail. Is this true? I can't check unfortunately as I don't have the interrail ticket yet.
Maybe someone can help me or has a tip!
MisterSteve
Traveller
906 comments
If the Nightjet/ öbb site says full then it is (unless you are too early and the data hasn't been loaded).
Try the NJ from Hannover Hbf at 23:19 if you can get on that the overnight train rule will apply so you leave Germany still on "day 1". You would need to leave Berlin on ICE932 at 19:46. The train from Hannover comes from Hamburg and joins with the NJ from Berlin near Hildesheim, your arrival time at Basel or Zurich would be the same.
There is also the NJ from Köln Hbf at 23:53, But to reach Köln Hbf in time you need to be on ICE552 from Berlin (18:35 ab Ostbhf, 18:46 Hbf, 19:02 Spandau). With this route you would arrive Switzerland one hour earlier.
But what were you trying to reserve? Some of the seats on the night trains to Switzerland are not part of Nightjet, they are DB IC and have a different train numbers in reservations (even though they are joined to the Nightjet).
Annika
Traveller
1 comments
Thank you for your very detailed reply. I will definitely look into the NJ departing from Hannover. I just had a look at nightjet.com, assuming it would show me all available seats there. But now I also looked up the connection at Bahn.de and I could have actually booked it. That probably means it is indeed still available. I never knew about the DB IC seats that are not part of the NJ. Very confusing! But it looks like it will work out after all. What web site would you recommend for reservations?
MisterSteve
Traveller
906 comments
To reserve a seat use bahn.de and click "Nur Sitzplatz" instead of the big red "Suchen" button. That also works for bed reservations. The train number may be different (and long) but if the time is the same as with NJ it will be part of the same train.
nltrainer
Traveller
1334 comments
SOME NJ have a combined portion, labelled as IC, =the seats section (2-3 old style IC cars from DB). These seats canNOT be reserved via bahn.com. They can via oebb.at-via the usual procedure for NJ. These seats are not labelled in the usual DB-style so you will have big issues with those sitting there already. (screens show nothing).
MisterSteve
Traveller
906 comments
I've just tried the Hannover train at bahn.de - it shows two trains running at the same time. One is NJ401 and cannot be reserved , the other is IC 60401 and can be reserved.