european rail. i need help

[britalexis]

european rail is the most confusing thing for someone who doesnt take trains, never has, and doesn't even have them in their town.
First of all... i guess what i don't understand is what eurail and eurostar are? Are they just two seperate rail companys? Are they two seperate companys with that have their own labeled trains. Like what is the Eurocity train? is that a smaller train under eurail? So if i had a eurail pass i could take it or any other train such as Eurostar Italia? This confuses me even more now, because eurostar, i thought was only london, belgium, and parts of france around paris. And i thought Eurail doesnt cover great britain. so if i take a train from edinburgh to london. what train am i taking, if eurostar doesn't go to edinburgh. When im standing at the train station, will the train that pulls up say eurail, or ? Can i just catch any train in say Spain, if i have a eurail pass? Honsetly, trying to understand european rail is so frustrating for me, they might as well not even have an english version

[britalexis]

also, for the passes where they say either 6 days in 2 months, 10 days in 2 months. Does that mean you can any 10 days within a 2 month period. What does just the 15 days pass mean? You must travel 15 days consecutively one after another.. or 15 days whenever.

[WillTravel]

There's Eurostar which is for London, Paris, Brussels, and maybe a couple of other nearby destinations.

This is different from the Italian Eurostar, which are nice, rather fast trains in Italy that run on various routes (like between Rome, Florence, and Venice, but probably elsewhere too). I know the name being the same is quite confusing.

Eurail only comes up when you are talking about railpasses.

I don't know about those specific passes, but there are two basic options:
* X number of days in 2 months
* X consecutive days

But generally, it doesn't make sense to be taking a train every single day, so a 15-day consecutive pass is not likely to be a great option (there may be some exceptions where it pays off even if you don't take a train nearly every day).

UK trains are confusing to me. I know there are Virgin trains, and various other train companies, and I know you can get great deals if you book your tickets months in advance.

A rule of thumb - it's generally not a great value to have a railpass that includes Italy, as Italian trains are so cheap, relatively speaking. Italian trains can be even cheaper if you buy advance tickets for special fares online.

Be sure to check what the supplements cost if you want to, for example, take fast trains. Sometimes you have to reserve a seat, and that costs money also.

[britalexis]

so italian trains are, or aren't associated with a eurail pass... because i will be making 5 stops by train in italy. So basically im getting the jist, that theres a whole wack of train companys in europe.. some are covered by a eurail pass(other than destinations in great britain)...., some are not? .. this rail system thing, is becoming more and more unconvienant and confusing the more i know about it. I right now, just imagine myself, (because im pretty sure i would buy my rail pass months in advance) standing at the rail stop, and all these trains go by but i can't get on them with my rail pass. and then i end up having to buy a point to point ticket. and by the time i do that for every destination, i spend more than i did on a pass. good lord, i don't understand how other travellers find this a good option.

[pointofnoreturn]

Keep in mind that the Italian trains are cheap. For example, you can take a train from Rome to Naples 10-euros each way (of course, the Regional trains, which are slower than the Eurostar/AV trains).

I'd factor in that as well.

[Eagle]

britalexis, European rail travel is not really that confusing. My perception is that you're experiencing a certain amount of frustration in trying to figure out the rail systems. To begin with, I would highly recommend that you read the Rick Steves book Europe Through The Back Door, and especially the "Rail Skills" chapter before you get too far in your planning.

At this point, don't try to decide which of the many Rail Passes will be most appropriate for your trip. It's almost impossible to do that before you have a definite and firm order of cities worked out. Use the website www.railsaver.com to recommend the best pass, after you have a definite Itinerary. The Railsaver site will recommend the best combination of trips to be taken with a Rail Pass as well as which routes to buy P-P tickets.

The Eurail Select Passes are the ones which will provide the xx in 2 months in 3/4/5 countries. There's no point in buying a Pass now, as I believe these have to be validated within six months (as you're travelling in September, it wouldn't be a good idea to buy one now). As you're younger (less than 26 years old), you will have the option of buying less expensive passes than us "older travellers". Whichever Rail Pass you buy, this must be validated before using for the first time. This is easily done by presenting the Pass and your Passport at the ticket window of the first station you use. The pass will be "stamped" and after that you're "good to go". One final point is that Select Passes require the user to write the day of travel in a small box at the bottom. DON'T fill the boxes in until the day of travel! There's also the "7 pm rule" and the need to buy reservations on some routes, but we can cover those later.

To answer your question, Eurail is a consortium of most of the European Rail networks (including the Italian trains), that sells Rail passes and tickets for the rail systems it represents. The Britrail operators belong to this, although I'm not sure they have the same arrangement as the rail networks on the continent. Therefore U.K. tickets can be purchased on the Eurail site so there is some "corporate connection". There are some smaller rail systems (in Switzerland and other countries) that aren't part of this, so in some cases travellers aren't able to use Rail passes on those smaller systems and must pay separately for tickets.

One important point to make regarding the Italian rail network (and other public transport systems). Occasionally there can be "disruptions in service" due to demonstrations or strikes. I experienced this twice last year, once with all transport in Rome (a "Manifesto" was taking place that day, which disrupted everything in Rome!) and once on the way from the Cinque Terre to Switzerland (a strike that started with the Taxis eventually spread to the trains, and I "got out of Dodge" just before everything came to a grinding halt). The point I'm trying to make is that when travelling in Europe, one has to expect occasional problems and adjust to these.

Once you have a more definite idea of the order of cities, I'm sure the group here will be able to help you sort this out.

Cheers!