As an American, I can only dream of having convenient train fares of about USD$80 to go between somewhat-distant cities. Berlin to Brussels for GPB63.50 (about $80 right now) sounds downright cheap to me.
I particularly enjoyed the German Rail Pass when I was there recently. Something like 240€ got me 3 days of unlimited travel within a month on the ICE trains (and S-Bahn) around Germany and to Brussels, which worked out fantastic for my travel plans - from Frankfurt to Hamburg, Hamburg to Brussels, and then Brussels to München. Worked out a lot cheaper than flying and the time cost was about comparable. Mostly it was far more comfortable too - apart from the bit where I caught the train from Köln to Brussels at the end of the weekend and ended up sitting on my bags by the toilets because it was so crammed.
Under $200? That’s pretty incredible. You have to pay three quarters of that to get from Munich to Berlin. That’s with a high speed train, but still — under $200, wow.
I think we're missing the context of gas prices here. German gas prices are far higher than in the US, making train more cost-effective. We don't have cheap flights, except apparently Berlin-Frankfurt, so we can't rely on air travel the same way the US does. This overall makes train travel much more attractive in Germany. Then there are things like regional tickets, day tickets, BahnCard discounts, etc.
Yeah, riding train in Germany is just too expensive. Unfortunately I still have to use it because currently it is more flexible than the bus lines. I really hope that the competition will drive the train prices down, but that's something I don't believe in...
Visiting my girlfriend at the other and of Germany costs 220 Euro if I pay the full price. Sometimes you get cheaper tickets but that's still too much. Just visiting each other twice a month cost about 400 Euro which woudl be better invested in a vacation or something similar.
Trains can also be pretty quaint in Europe today now that low cost airlines like Easyjet and Ryanair offer cheap flights to most major cities. I live in Berlin and even domestic trains are far more expensive than domestic flights to medium and large cities.
Berlin reporting: this is huge for anyone taking public transport.
Monthly ticket for the AB area alone was way above 80/€/month for the city only.
This is 49 for everything anywhere in Germany except for high speed long distance trains, flixbuses and flixtrains (the latter are private entities)
From an infrequent visitor, EUR49 a month for all public transportation is reasonable. Also I can just buy a digital ticket before coming to Germany and then use it in any cities sound fantastic.
I would love to use trains more in Europe, but their prices cannot compete with cheap flight providers at all, 30ish EUR flights pretty much from any country to any country in Europe are hard to beat
Really? I live in Munich. Whenever I want to travel to other large German cities, I've found flying to be much cheaper than going by train. The only reasonably priced tickets seem to be the local ones. I don't understand how people can afford train prices unless they have a discount or someone else paid.
But this starting price can be had only if you book way in advance. If you hop on the train from Berlin to Munich today, it will set you back between 93€ and 135€.
I just checked, you can get a ticket from FRA to AMS and back for about 108 EUR (~ 150 USD) if you buy them a few days early and choose a favorable time-slot (full price, second class). I even did that trip some time in the last three years and the price is about right.
Train rides in western Europe are not that expensive and certainly not worth the hassle with airplanes over such short distances. Also, you can buy 25% and 50% discount cards for all tickets for a year for only a few EUR's. (25% for a year = 62 EUR, 50% for 515 EUR for inland travel in Germany).
It kind of baffles me that the only long distance trains that are still being done on European scale are prestigious high speed trains (usually connecting Brussels to X) that are much more expensive than plane tickets or anything else really.
When I travel for work within Germany or just to a neighboring country, I want to get to get from A (which happens to be near Stuttgart) to B as fast as possible. Taking a plane from Stuttgart is even faster, but since climate change is real, I am now trying to avoid flying as much as possible. Hence, Deutsche Bahn. Going by high-speed train is also very comfortable if you reserve seats and do not have to transfer often.
I should also point out that if you book timely, you can often get German train tickets very cheaply at the 'Sparpreis', which starts at 29 Euro. When we had less money, we would often reserve tickets in the minutes after the 'Sparpreis' became available.
tl;dr you can travel cheaply in German by high-speed train. You just have to plan your trip and book tickets timely.
In most of Germany urban areas and metropolitan cities are just a 30-45min train ride away. At the normal ticket pricing you will pay 32 euros for the roundtrip. Now you pay 49 for the whole month. It's a game changer for a lot of people living in rural areas despite everyone without any knowledge living in those areas arguing against it but it's Germany of course everyone and their mom will argue against it with arguments that have no meaning for the people it really effects.
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