8 great sites for rail trips
Don’t leave home without them!
Let’s be honest, organsing international rail trips is not as easy as it should be. There’s no kayak or expedia equivalents out there for train travel, at least not in the public eye. Yes, there are some very good rail holiday operators, but often their trips are overpriced if you don’t know where else to begin. It will be very interesting to see what the new global ticketing company Quno delivers in the way of integrated journey help, but for the moment you need to delve into a number of sites to plan anything but the simplest point-to-point journey. Happily there is a growing number of very useful sites that can make your rail journeys a breeze, so here is my pick of the best ones.
Unless you’ve been living in the channel tunnel for the past few years you’ve more than likely heard of this one. Let’s make no bones about it, this site is very much the inspiration behind this blog. If you only use one site, this is the one. Mark ‘the train brain’ Smith has toiled away for years carefully hand coding this absolute goldmine of rail information which shows you, step -by-step, how to travel from the UK to more or less anywhere else in the world without flying.
It’s jam-packed with useful info which is frequently updated in light of major route disruption or changes, including sample prices, route maps and suggested itineraries. There’s plenty of decent interior images which give you a clear idea of what to expect on board, particularly on the various sleeper services for example. Ok, it’s not the easiest site on the eyes, but it feels nothing short of churlish to mutter about that in view of the sheer weight of detail on offer. It’s also nicely organised with a individual country pages listed from A-Z in the left sidebar for quick access. He’s trying to get a TV series made at the moment, let’s hope he gets that off that ground…or should that be on the rails.
The German national rail operator is the undisputed big daddy on which most other European rail companies are weaned. Most international routes go through Germany so there is probably a measure of pragmatism about it, but there’s no denying it’s still a marvel of route planning efficiency even far beyond the country’s borders. If it’s just train times you need in Central Europe then its multi-lingual timetable is probably all you need.
Remember to put in city station names in their native languages (Napoli instead of Naples, Beograd for Belgarde etc) and for some cities with several major stations it may be best to do a little research and find out the name of the terminating station for your journey as it will make you choose between the multiple options. It’s interface is a little over fussy in places and it does topple over occasionally, but once you’re familiar with it it is reassuringly reliable. Vorsprung Durch Technik, as the slogan goes.
Not to be confused with the ‘official’ InterRail site, which is good enough for the basics, this one actually carries a good deal more useful, and less obvious, information. The best thing about is undoubtedly the busy and helpful forums in which as well as the many prompt responses to specific journeys and calls for travel buddies you will find the ace up its sleeve: complete listings of the prices of sleeper supplements (the compulsory surcharge you pay for overnight accommodation with any rail pass) for all major routes, the various comfort options (couchette or luxury double cabin etc) neatly accompanied by departure times.
If you’re considering Inter Railing you should think seriously about buying your ticket via their site to support it, as it appears to be run not by a big transport operator but by a small, friendly company of genuine enthusiasts who do an excellent job.
Currently the most hassle-free and user-friendly designed site for booking international journeys if you live in Europe. Not all countries in Europe are joined up to the network through, so this means it can have an annoying habit of telling you that there ‘are too many legs in this journey to book’ even when you know for a fact that there isn’t. It’s also awfully fond of those magic little’ time out beach balls.’
This site does what it says on the tin. It’s dedicated to showing you how to get around the globe without getting off the ground. They can help you plan an overland tour and are busily building a database of many train routes which you can add to and then can then rate your route based on criteria such as, culture, scenery, safety, bathroom facilities, food & drink, staff and comfort.
If you’ve been on a few rail journeys head over there and add your route. They’re giving away a week’s stay in a nice holiday home in North Berwick, Scotland, for one lucky person who records a journey. There’s a forum too and plenty of useful info on other travel options like cargo ships, buses, ferries and cruise ships, plus tips on responsible travel in general. It’s also a recent start up being run by a hard working and dedicated couple still working full time in their day jobs, so please do support it.
If you fancy teaming up with other travellers on a big adventure then this is the best place to start. It’s not dedicated exclusively to train travel but there are plenty of great rail trips listed on there. See my recent post about the Great Indian Railway Challenge for a good example. It has some great features to help you find the right journey for you. You choose the countries you’re interested in and get emails with suggestions for trips to follow, or you can start your own and find travel buddies that way. It beats some of the other, better known, trip planning sites hands down in my book.
This is an interesting, little known site, possibly a hobby project by an ingenious web developer and railfan with a great idea worth taking further. Essentially it details all the main routes of sleeper services in Europe on a google map, backed up with a database, showing you how far your chosen sleeper train is to the next day’s onward connection. It currently includes details of over 2800 stations and some 1200 routes. One to watch definitely.
8. Quno
Still in its launch phase, it promises to offer a complete global train ticket solution. It’s run by SilverRail a recentish start up with a lot of financial backing, so we can expect big things from it. These are also the people who ran the Trainspotter Wanted job competition for a social media person. Their new whizz in this regard is Sophie Collard who takes up the post very soon. I reckon she’ll do an excellent job at getting people geared up for rail travel in the twittosphere and beyond. I haven’t had the chance to test the beta site out yet due to a few minor support issues with registering, but I’m looking forward to doing so and reporting back on the experience. Why not go on the site request an invite to try it out yourself and let me know how you find it?
Here’s a quick round up of some other miscellaneously useful sites:
The official site and first stop for any budding inter railers.
Equivalent site for those outside of Europe.
Simply the best way to get out of blighty, when you can afford it. Nice inspirational content, great competitons and a good example of a big travel company with a friendly attitude and obvious social media nous.
The US rail network and infrastructure may be floundering due to chronic under investment and patchy services, but there’s no denying their world-beating journey planning software with its fantastic interactive map, excellent seat option mini graphics and 360 degree interior visualisations showing you exactly what to expect on board one of their long haul sleeper trains.
Another great British-based ecotravel site started recently with much noteworthy train content, more on it soon.
Excellent, well established green travel site with lots of ideas for inspiring train journeys, attractive and accessibly designed.
Flight search engine mainly, but does include some rail journeys in its search, which is unusual. More enjoyable to use than most.
Rail booking site for UK train travellers, much improved in recent years by its cheap fare finder function. Not to be confused with the fan site of an American rock group with a very similar url!
Pretty new British rail journey site run by Atos Origin. Nice loyalty point scheme and cute graphics but otherwise little to recommend it above Trainline. The journey planner screen is much too small, fussy and confusing for me.
Have I missed some key ones? Comment below and let me know.
(at the moment!)…but we do RailSail to Ireland & Holland…these amazing little packages include a rail & ferry ticket and start at just £29. Ah I know I am cheating as this isn’t ENTIRELY train orientated but given we live on an Island and Eurostar is beyond a lot of budgets it’s worth mentioning eh? Plus they are fantastic cheap little packages!
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Loving this list…. have used some of them , but others I’ve never heard of!!
Invaluable! THANKS!
