German railpass?

I'm looking at a week's worth of commuting between Koeln and Dueren,
tourism around Koeln one weekend, and hiking the Westweg + a night in
Baden-Baden another weekend (total of 9 or 10 days using trains). The
Eurorail/RailEurope Flexipass type passes don't look appropriate,
which has brought me to the DB passes. Specifically either the 9 day
or 10 day pass, or the 5 day pass plus two "Schoene Wochenende"
tickets.

Does this look like the most cost-effective way of travel? Since I'll
be entirely within Germany, it made sense to me. Any restrictions or
"gotchas" that might not be obvious? I'm assuming also that it's best
to buy these at home (in the US) rather than after I get overseas
(flying into/out of Frankfurt-Am-Main).

Thanks!

Well, I found one money saver (in case anyone else stumbles in here
and is looking for information). The VRS serves the Koeln-Bonn area
(including out to where I'll be working in Dueren), and has multiple
types of passes, including a WochenTicket (43.5 EUR to the outlying
"Region 4" areas), which should do just the trick. Their website
(which is in English as well) is:

http://www.vrsinfo.de/infocenter.php

So that will cut down the number of days I'd need a German railpass to
just the weekend dates, which now really would be about 3 days,
including to/from Frankfurt.

Anyhow. There ya go.

In article
,
Holly wrote:

I'm looking at a week's worth of commuting between Koeln and Dueren,
tourism around Koeln one weekend, and hiking the Westweg + a night in
Baden-Baden another weekend (total of 9 or 10 days using trains). The
Eurorail/RailEurope Flexipass type passes don't look appropriate,
which has brought me to the DB passes. Specifically either the 9 day
or 10 day pass, or the 5 day pass plus two "Schoene Wochenende"
tickets.

Does this look like the most cost-effective way of travel? Since I'll
be entirely within Germany, it made sense to me. Any restrictions or
"gotchas" that might not be obvious? I'm assuming also that it's best
to buy these at home (in the US) rather than after I get overseas
(flying into/out of Frankfurt-Am-Main).

I've used the German railpass every time I've spent even part of a trip
in Germany and discovered I could buy them at FRA airport.

--
Mary Loomer Oliver (aka Erilar)

You can't reason with someone whose first line of argument is
that reason doesn't count. --Isaac Asimov

Erilar's Cave Annex: http://www.chibardun.net/~erilarlo*

"Holly" skrev i meddelandet
...
I'm looking at a week's worth of commuting between Koeln and Dueren,
tourism around Koeln one weekend, and hiking the Westweg + a night in
Baden-Baden another weekend (total of 9 or 10 days using trains). The
Eurorail/RailEurope Flexipass type passes don't look appropriate,
which has brought me to the DB passes. Specifically either the 9 day
or 10 day pass, or the 5 day pass plus two "Schoene Wochenende"
tickets.

Does this look like the most cost-effective way of travel? Since I'll
be entirely within Germany, it made sense to me. Any restrictions or
"gotchas" that might not be obvious? I'm assuming also that it's best
to buy these at home (in the US) rather than after I get overseas
(flying into/out of Frankfurt-Am-Main).

Thanks!
------
Possibly you could think about the local "laendertickets" available for
most German states (and many of them for a wider area)
You've already mentioned "Schoenes wochenende" (Happy weekend)
Those cards are for local trains only (IC,EC,ICE excluded) but included
is generally much of local transport as tram,busses,underground.

On Jun 25, 7:39*pm, erilar wrote:
In article
,
I've used the German railpass every time I've spent even part of a trip
in Germany and discovered I could buy them at FRA airport.

All right, good to know. That'll probably be a titch less expensive,
by eliminating shipping/handling fees. May as well take care of that
and currency exchange at the same time then. Thanks!

On Jun 26, 8:04*am, "Lennart Petersen"
wrote:
Possibly you could think about the local *"laendertickets" *available for
most German states (and many of them for a wider area)
You've already mentioned "Schoenes wochenende" (Happy weekend)
Those cards are for local trains only *(IC,EC,ICE excluded) * but included
is generally much of local transport as tram,busses,underground.

Thanks, Lennart! I will check out the Laendertickets as well. Sounds
like the Schoenes Wochenende won't quite work, then, as I'll be moving
between states on the weekend, so I think I'll end up just using a DB
pass (the 4 day one seems to cover what I have in mind).

Regards.

Holly schrieb:
On Jun 26, 8:04 am, "Lennart Petersen"
wrote:
Possibly you could think about the local "laendertickets" available for
most German states (and many of them for a wider area)
You've already mentioned "Schoenes wochenende" (Happy weekend)
Those cards are for local trains only (IC,EC,ICE excluded) but included
is generally much of local transport as tram,busses,underground.

Thanks, Lennart! I will check out the Laendertickets as well. Sounds
like the Schoenes Wochenende won't quite work, then, as I'll be moving
between states on the weekend,

That's exactly what the Schönes Wochenend Ticket is for. You can move
between states on weekends. You are not allowed to change states on the
Ländertickets (state ticket), or buy several Ländertickets. You will of
course loose some time but save money. Regional express trains (RE) are
quite fast, too!

BTW, DB announced the new Quer-durchs-Land-Ticket, which is more or less
a SWT for workdays. The website seems to be only available in german at
the moment:

http://www.bahn.de/regional/view/reg...chs-land.shtml

Josef

--
Keine Sicherheit ohne Schäuble:
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DSA 1024 / 0xF4B1EA2A / F832 6058 319E FFD4 0EFF 088C 521B 40D4 F4B1 EA2A

On 2009-06-25, Holly wrote:
Well, I found one money saver (in case anyone else stumbles in here
and is looking for information). The VRS serves the Koeln-Bonn area
(including out to where I'll be working in Dueren), and has multiple
types of passes, including a WochenTicket (43.5 EUR to the outlying
"Region 4" areas), which should do just the trick.

Generally, rail passes are only worthwhile for days where you're going
to be travelling long distances. For commuter situations, much better
options should be available - as you've discovered. If you're inside
the coverage area of a local transport authority, they'll always have
something useful.

For the rest of your travel, check out the point-to-point prices before
committing to one of the broader tickets.

On Mon, 29 Jun 2009 22:36:41 +0000 (UTC), Jesper Lauridsen
wrote:

On 2009-06-25, Holly wrote:
Well, I found one money saver (in case anyone else stumbles in here
and is looking for information). The VRS serves the Koeln-Bonn area
(including out to where I'll be working in Dueren), and has multiple
types of passes, including a WochenTicket (43.5 EUR to the outlying
"Region 4" areas), which should do just the trick.

Generally, rail passes are only worthwhile for days where you're going
to be travelling long distances. For commuter situations, much better
options should be available - as you've discovered. If you're inside
the coverage area of a local transport authority, they'll always have
something useful.

For the rest of your travel, check out the point-to-point prices before
committing to one of the broader tickets.

But do not, repeat DO NOT, check out point to point fares at
websites like RailEurope. National rail sites are OK. I
especially like DeutscheBahn for its easy to use schedule and
fare pages.

One thing to do is divide the cost of the pass by the number of
days it's valid (except for full, unlimited, EurailPasses) and
compare this to the point to point fares for your proposed
journey. Be sure to take into account any joint fare deals if
there's more than one of you travelling.


--
************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *

On Jun 29, 7:15*pm, Hatunen wrote:
On Mon, 29 Jun 2009 22:36:41 +0000 (UTC), Jesper Lauridsen



wrote:
On 2009-06-25, Holly wrote:
Well, I found one money saver (in case anyone else stumbles in here
and is looking for information). The VRS serves the Koeln-Bonn area
(including out to where I'll be working in Dueren), and has multiple
types of passes, including a WochenTicket (43.5 EUR to the outlying
"Region 4" areas), which should do just the trick.

Generally, rail passes are only worthwhile for days where you're going
to be travelling long distances. For commuter situations, much better
options should be available - as you've discovered. If you're inside
the coverage area of a local transport authority, they'll always have
something useful.

For the rest of your travel, check out the point-to-point prices before
committing to one of the broader tickets.

But do not, repeat DO NOT, check out point to point fares at
websites like RailEurope. National rail sites are OK. I
especially like DeutscheBahn for its easy to use schedule and
fare pages.

One thing to do is divide the cost of the pass by the number of
days it's valid (except for full, unlimited, EurailPasses) and
compare this to the point to point fares for your proposed
journey. Be sure to take into account any joint fare deals if
there's more than one of you travelling.


Yeah, I've been looking up information/schedules/fares on bahn.de --
much more useful than the others you mentioned, for sure. However, I'm
finding that a car rental for two days may be the better option. It'll
only be me and a couple pieces of luggage, and for $120 (86 EUR)
inclusive, that's hard to beat, and gives me more flexibility in when/
where to go places (see my other posts about the lockers at Baden-
Baden, and trying to figure out where to hit the Westweg in and out).
I love the train travel, but on this compressed timetable and with as
much as I'd LIKE to do... it's presenting some challenges that I
hadn't anticipated.

Thanks!