The Anonymous Widower

European Train Booking Is Going Backwards

I am only a simple man, but I do know what computer software can do. And often it’s very complicated and works well!

In this post, I describe how I meandered all the way from East London to Yeovil using several trains. What complicated things was that I wanted to go via Littlehampton to see a Thomas Heatherwick-designed cafe. But I ended up with a complicated route from National Rail’s web site and I bought the tickets without difficulty.

So you’d think that if we navigate round our maze of lines in the South of England, then buying a ticket to most major cities in Europe should be a single transaction.

With Paris and Brussels it’s easy, if you go to the Eurostar web site and you just pick your train, pay your fee and then print the ticket.

I have a friend, who I see regularly, who lives near Lausanne. It’s a seven hour journey with a seventy minute change in Paris, so it’s not a short journey, but buying a ticket on Eurostar is as easy as buying one for Paris. Eurostar’s web site, also tells you how to get across Paris.

It’s pretty easy too, to buy a walk-up ticket for Paris in say Geneva and I’ve done it a couple of times.

As it’s a long journey back to Blighty, I usually give myself a couple of hours in Paris to have a good lunch or dinner before taking the Eurostar home. No-one in London, makes crepes like Cafe Breizh

But basically, getting to and from Switzerland by train, is as easy as going say from London to Inverness.

Let’s suppose that you want to go somewhere closer than Switzerland, like The Hague. Obviously, as Switzerland isn’t in the EU and The Hague is, you’d think that the Dutch capital would be the easier journey to book.

But whereas you can book to most large Swiss cities,you can’t book to The Hague.

A few years back, I booked a Eurostar ticket to Any Dutch Station. But this was discontinued!

Now you have to buy a ticket to Rotterdam and then fight your way through the Dutch ticketing system to get to The Hague. Five years ago it was much better.

Buying tickets to places like Berlin and Munich, is not much better either.

If the French, Belgians and the Swiss can get it right and probably up to the same standard as our system, why can’t Dutch and the Germans? The Dutch were even more integrated five years ago!

I’m sure if the best of the British, French and the Swiss had been put in charge of developing a full system for Europe, you’d be able to login to Eurostar, type in any station in Europe and get given a choice of routes, for you to select one.

No wonder the management of the EU is in such a mess!

September 7, 2014 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Europe, Eurostar, Ticketing, Trains