Europe Trains Guide Forum
General discussion => Train fares and tariffs => Topic started by: kcm2471 on April 27, 2011, 12:55:09 am
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Our family is traveling in Austria this summer, and has decided to take trains between destinations. We are considering the RailEurope pass that has 4 days during a 2 month period. The routes we will travel will be 1) Vienna to Attnang-Puchheim connect to Hallstatt 2) Hallstatt to Attnang-Puchheim connect to Salzburg 3) Salzburg to Graz and 4) Graz to Vienna. We have not used a rail pass before. Can this rail pass be easily used on the local portion (i.e. Attnang-Puchheim to Hallstatt) of our journeys, without any advance train reservations? Do you think the RailPass is a good idea for the itineraries mentioned?
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We are considering the RailEurope pass that has 4 days during a 2 month period.
Actually such rail pass tends to be rather expensive option in your case since you talking about 'our family', thus more than one passenger. If you are willing to spend a bit more time on road by using slightly slower regional trains (instead of faster InterCity), then the best option for you might be Einfach-Raus Ticket (http://www.oebb.at/en/Tickets/Groups/Einfach-Raus-Ticket/index.jsp), basically daily family pass valid for the whole Austrian network. It cost only 28 EUR for up to 5 passengers, thus much cheaper than any other pass.
As result, you can travel Vienna-Attnang-Puchheim in less than 4 hours (2 changes); Attnang-Puchheim-Salzburg: between 1:14 and 1:34 with none or only one change; Salzburg-Graz: from 5:17 depending on connections (3 changes); Graz-Vienna: 4:01-4:45 depending on connections (2 changes). So in total for all your train transportation for the whole family (<5 people) you will spend only 28 EUR *4=112 EUR. Maybe it's a bit inconvenient to make multiple changes, but on the contrary you get a good deal on Einfach-Raus Ticket. Plus majority of Austrian regional trains in terms of comfort are almost on the same level as InterCity
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Thank you for the website referral. I will check it out. Some of the travel times you noted were not too different from the direct trains I found on RailEurope.
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Some of the travel times you noted were not too different from the direct trains I found ...
It is exactly the point, in many cases regional trains aren't that much slower, especially since most of the connections organized really efficiently.
But in case of timetable it is better to use official Austrian Railways website - http://www.oebb.at/en/index.jsp or similar, but easier to navigate DB website - http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en?newrequest=yes&protocol=http:&