Saw on a nice CFM site that online purchases from Chisinau to Kiev are STILL not allowed.
Yep, unfortunately CFM is among the only few European rail companies which still doesn't sell tickets via internet
We have a nice long layover in Chisinau in mid-January where we will sample the local wines.
Well, it depends on when you plan to travel the route. In a few days or in a few month after? Because majority of tickets for interstate rail journeys (like Moldova-Ukraine) are sold only as far as 45 days in advance. Also in case you happen to be in Ukraine before coming to Moldova, you can actually purchase return ticket (like Chisinau-Kyiv) in any ticket counter in Ukraine
Is that also when we must buy our ticket on from Chisinau to Kiev?
Again answer depends on a season. If it's mid-January, then availability isn't an issue at all - it's low season. Basically it means that you can get a ticket even before departure.
All of the other Eastern European Rail sites like Ukraine, Poland, Czech, and Romania look like they are rather easy to use.
Yep, lately rail companies in all the mentioned countries tried to work on improvement of their websites. But remember to use only official rail website of UZ, PKP, CD and CFR (links available on our country pages), only they will assure cheapest fares and safety. Agencies which sometimes mask to be rail tickets websites are much less reliable + you pay extra commission
Will tickets purchased directly from those sites be most likely to be collected in a machine at a station or sent as a ticket for mobile apps?
Mobile apps are still aren't very common, but all the mentioned rail companies sell print-at-home tickets, meaning that you purchase your ticket via website and print it yourself on A4 piece of paper, then just board the train with it. However print-at-home tickets aren't sold for all the trains and all the connections (for instance ticket from Ukraine to Moldova can't be print-at-home), in some cases tickets for certain connection can be bought only at the ticket counters, while in other cases after online purchase you'll need to visit ticket counter and print there your ticket. We advise you just to try official websites for yourself, see whether you can get the tickets you want and, if there are some problems, just ask here
I am new to this forum but will share experiences of a winter time Eastern European runt afterwards.
Great, it always good to hear about personal travel experience. Meanwhile, as we already said, you can ask here any further questions you might have about journeys in Moldova, Ukraine, Poland, Czech republic, Romania etc.
p.s. between Chisinau and Kyiv there are 3 year round trains (#47, #66 & #341), first two are more or less ok, but with #341 there might be some surprises in terms of conditions of carriages
p.p.s. buying direct interstate ticket Chisinau-Kyiv can be a bit expensive, because of the interstate tariff applied for the whole connection, so in case you want to save some money there are a number of ways to cut travel expenses by half or even more, thus in case you interested - we can give some more details on that
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