[Move] Germany Train Transportation guide

A detailed and yet simple to understand train guide for travellers planning their trip to Germany. I will be covering the different types of tickets available (only in places I covered), things to note when boarding the train, different classes. As we only travelled within Germany, I cannot help much if you are planning on a Europe rail trip.

Deutsche Bahn AG

Deutsche Bahn AG also widely known as DB, DBAG is the largest German railway operator and infrastructure owner in Europe.

Type of Tickets

**Will not explain all the offers from the official website, and will only pick out some of the offers that we have purchased during our trip.

Suggestion

Please purchase the regional ticket if you are travelling to the nearby city or a short day trip. Whether to purchase Europass, it is depending on your itinerary, if you will be heading out of Germany to other nearby cities.

Different types of Rail

1. ICE (Intercity Express)-National and international high-speed long distance services.
2. IC (Intercity)-National long distance services.
3. IRE (Interregio-Express) -Fast local services on longer distances than usual Regional-Express-trains
4. RE (Regional Express)-Faster local services with fewer stops.
5. RB (Regional Bahn)- Local services with frequent stops at nearly every station.

Class Type

1st Class

-Quiet cabin

-1st class tickets automatically include a seat reservation.

– At-seat food and beverages service (Only ICE train)

2nd Class

– Free choice of seats.

– The ticket does not include a seat reservation. You can purchase a seat reservation with your ticket or separately at a later point in time.

Intercity Express(ICE) train will provide free wifi on both class cabin, first class will have unlimited wifi usage.

Reserve or non-reserve

How to identify if the seat is reserve or not?

Look at the screen on the top side of your seat, It will show this seat is reserved from which station to the end destination the passenger is travelling to. Example, I am getting on Munich station and this shows that the aisle seat is taken and the window seat is available.

Most of the train seat in Germany are 4 seaters, which looks like this⇓ and sometimes only 1 seat is being reserved and we are travelling in a group of 4. This happened to us quite often, At the start of the trip, we didn’t know about it and went to sit on a 4 seater and didn’t realise that one of the seats is reserved and the sir was really nice and let us have the seat. It might be because the train was not full and there are a lot of empty seats around. But this doesn’t work all the time so it is better to find the non-reserved seats.

What if most of the seats are showing reserved?

Do take note of the station that the passenger will be coming on board, you can sit on the seat first and return the seat back to the passenger who reserved the seat at the designated station indicated at the screen. If you are lucky, the person who has reserved the seat did not appear and you could have the seat all the way to your station.

Check my train

DB App – App store, Google Play

Real-time update

Online- punctuality 

Food on Board?

There are restaurant or bistro on the train, sometimes the train conductor will go down the aisle to ask if anyone wants coffee. ICE and IC train will have a cabin for bistro and food where you can grab sandwich or drinks. The long train ride will have a restaurant where you can have your meal and they serve beer too.

Where to purchase rail ticket?

Online (Offical website)

– Credit card and PayPal booking will have an extra fee of 2.5% apply (debit cards are free).

loco2

– Credit card and PayPal booking will have an extra fee of 2.5% apply (debit cards are free).

Station Ticketing machine

DB sale counter/information counter

Important notes:

Print the ticket out/e-ticket and present it to the ticket inspector on board the train or the Import the ticket into the DB Navigator app before you travel and show the ticket inspector the opened ticket in the app (on your smartphone or tablet). QR code must be fully visible. Upon checking there might request you to present your passport to check on your identity.