Touring - Taking Bike Trailers on Trains in Europe

Hi all! New to this forum but not new to forums in general. I tried a search for the answer and found some good information but not exactly what I was looking for.

My brother and I will be touring Europe this Summer (my first tour!! I'm very excited) We will be taking a few small panniers but most of our gear will go in trailers.

My question for all of you experienced travelers is what kind of problems will we face with the trailers when we try to board trains in Europe? Will we face additional charges?

Any advice/experiences would be greatly appreciated!

The problem with trains and bikes in Europe is; there are so many different rules!
For example, in Holland you can take your bike with you (trailer is fine too) , but not in rush hours,, and it will cost you extra money.
In France you can take your bike on certain trains, but not all and again you have to pay extra.
It can be a reall pain in the ass to find all the different rules from the traincompanys.
If you wish, i can find current info about bikes and trains in Holland.

Good luck,

In Germany and Austria you should have very little trouble. On the regular trains you pay a small amount for a daily bike ticket (i think €2.50-3) and then you can take your bike and trailer - i've done it quite a few times with little trouble. The 2 problems are 1) often the trains can be very full, especially on Saturday/Sunday and you have to find enough place and obviously a trailer requires more - don't travle on Saturday morning or Sunday evening into/out of the mountains and you should be fine 2) the fast trains and long-distance trains are pretty pricey for bikes (at least they have fancy racks too) and i would not be surprised if they charged you double for a trailer - i've not paid attention before and then gotten on one of the 'nice' trains with my bike day pass i referred to above and then had to pay an additional bike cost of like €5 each way b/c the day passes and most discounts are not valid on the fast or 'nice' trains...

as far as i know the only other restrictions in Germany are with the local city trains (S-bahn and U-bahn) where, for example, in Munich you cannot take a bike during rush hour (7-9am and 4-6pm).

but in general in Germany you should have little trouble and i think Austria, Switzerland, France and Italy should also be similar... Eastern Europe i am less familiar with as i've never taken my bike on my travels to those countries... in general, the train systems are very accomodating of bikes because of the large number of tourists and locals who take their bikes on the trains.

i don't know if you're looking into some special discount tickets like the Eurail pass or what, but in general you have to buy an additional ticket for your bike although it is usually reasonable in all but the fast trains...although you have to also be carfeful if you cross a border - in Germany there are 2 types of bike day passes (one from the city and one from the regional train) and i once bought the one from the city (b/c it's €.50 cheaper) but then when i crossed the border into Austria they made me buy a new one b/c mine was only valid in Germany.

i think you can get all the info on the web... www.diebahn.de is the German train site... well, i just looked and it's almost all in German. So here are the costs from the site:
€3 normal bike day fee
€8 one-way long distance trains (IC, EC, IR, NZ, EN, D,
CNL, und einzelne ICE mit Neigetechnik)
€10 international

Hi!

I just got back from a bike tour in Italy, and it was hellish sometimes to get my bike on a train. In Italy, only the slow trains take bikes. You had to pay a supplement to take the bike on the train, then sometimes, there just wasn't anyplace to put it but in the front car in the standing area by the doors. Most of the time, they did have a place to put the bikes, but those few times they didn't, I was under some stress. When I was leaving Rome for Milan, they didn't have any train that took bikes, and I went to the train station 4 times and talked to the officials there, and they all said to take the night train anyway, and that it wouldn't be a problem. They said just put my bike on the train anyway. When the time came that the train arrived, they wouldn't let me put my bike on the train after all. Then these big Italian guys that looked like football players hauled my bike on the train anyway, and when the guy who took tickets saw that, he called the police. Then the police came, and I had to fight with the policemen to put my bike on the train. They finally allowed it, but only because I produced the bike ticket proving I hadn't lied. It was probably my worst night ever, but I at least got to Milan on time in the morning.

From what I understand, people have told me there are lots of different rules for each country. The best thing to do is to call ahead if you can, or the first thing you should do when you get to each country is get to the train station for the country and find out what the rules are. The fast trains in Italy wouldn't allow bikes at all, so I assume that would be the same for Europe. Check first.

Good luck.


Koffee Brown

The UK is great fun with bikes, each rail company (and we've got several) have their own rules and regulations.

Some don't charge, some do, some restrict the services you can use, some don't...

There is a leaflet you can get at most stations giving you details, but basically, check in advance of travel.

Richard

Thanks for the information everyone!

It sounds like good policy will be to head to the train stations first and find out what the policy is before trying to get the bikes on. You all have given me hope that our eurail passes will still do us some good over there!

Fortunately we will not have a strict time table so we hopefully won't have too much drama trying to get around on the bikes and trains. We've got our bikes (one recumbent with lots of bags, one Klein with a BOB trailer) boxed up and our gear ready to go.

The plane leaves for Amsterdam tomorrow. Wish us luck!

-Karl Lehtinen

Well then....


Good luck! Keep us posted and have fun (as if I need to tell you that one :rolleyes: )!


Koffee