When I stepped bleary-eyed off the train in southern Sweden back in June 2022, it marked the end of 24 hours of non-stop train travel through six countries.
Together with my long-suffering children, Eira, then aged 10, and Finn, then aged 8, we'd had to deal with two train cancellations, several missed connections, and our sleeper train back to Malmö breaking down in Berlin, forcing us to quickly make other arrangements.
This marked the third time I've done the return trip to the UK by rail, since deciding five years ago that avoiding flights if possible was the easiest way to make a small personal contribution to battling climate change (back then I still hadn't managed to go veggie).
So what have I learnt?
Richard Orange sets off with Eira (10) and Finn (8) on his way back to Sweden from the UK on Monday. Photo: Richard Orange1. Something almost always goes wrong
When you are taking four or five long intercity, and often international, train journeys, you can be pretty certain that at least one of your trains will either be delayed or cancelled, leading to a domino effect of missed connections.
On the way out to the UK, our ICE was delayed, meaning we would miss our Thalys train from Brussels to Paris. (We got around it by taking another Thalys direct from Cologne to Paris, despite lacking a ticket for part of the journey).
And on the way back to Sweden, our ICE from Brussels to Cologne was cancelled, with the guards then sending us off on a series of regional trains, before we gave up and forked out €140 for the Thalys from Liège.
You can reduce the risk of a domino effect by allowing a comfortable transfer time (at least 30 minutes) between trains.
On the Deutsche Bahn (DB) website, you can set a minimum transfer time when researching your journey. One of our fellow passengers on Monday said he always allow enough time at each stop to take the next available train and still get his connection (about two hours).
Screenshot from DB website. Image: Richard OrangeBut you also need to be psychologically prepared for the possibility that you won't make it, that you might need to spend the night somewhere like Cologne, Liège, or Osnabrück, and continue your journey the next day, and is that really so bad?
A German ICE train in Stuttgart, southern Germany. Photo: Thomas Kienzle/AFP2. Consider getting an Interrail ticket (even for a single round-trip)
If you order about three months in advance, it is possible to get long-distance Deutsche Bahn tickets quite cheaply, with a one-way ticket from Malmö to Brussels going for about €50. You can then (if you are lucky and booking at least three months in advance) get a Eurostar to London for around €45. This means you can do the round trip for under €200.
However, getting tickets this cheaply means being both flexible and carefully watching Deutsche Bahn's website. Children aged 6 to 14 travel for free in Germany if accompanying their own parents or grandparents.
For €283 in 2024, you can get an Interrail ticket allowing you to travel four days in one month, or for €381, seven days in one month. And If you order an Interrail ticket for one adult, you can get Interrail tickets for two children for free.
The advantage of travelling on an Interrail ticket is that if something goes wrong, you can hop on the next train without needing to talk to any rail staff or visit a ticket office.
The new Railplanner app, once you've got the hang of it, is also very convenient, allowing you to just show a QR code at the guard on most trains, and even at the gates at stations. The only drawback is that if you want to or need to reserve seats, you still have to do that on the interrail.eu website.
If like me, you intend to travel around quite a lot in your destination country, it almost certainly pays for itself.
3. You need to improvise
When the trains across Europe are a real mess, as they very often seem to be, I have found train guards quite tolerant of people jumping on trains without having exactly the right ticket if they need to make a connection. Particularly if you have another ticket from DB, they often let you travel.
If you've got an Interrail ticket, you've got even more flexibility, although it can be hard to book seat reservations on the Thalys (necessary) and some ICE trains (normally not necessary) at late notice.
The Thalys often seems to sell out of reservations that can be used with an Interrail pass, meaning you need to pay full price. Having said this, on my way out to the UK, I saw people jump on the Thalys with no reservation or ticket at all, and none were made to pay. The staff even gave them advice on making the Eurostar to the UK.
When things go awry, you will probably find yourself linking up with other long-distance train travellers in the same situation, all trying to solve the same puzzle. It's worth identifying who knows what they're talking about and listening to their advice.
The DB Navigator app kept well up to date on which trains are on time and which are delayed, meaning you can often second-guess the guards, who I'm afraid don't always know what they're talking about.
4. Get help from rail staff and staff in the ticket office
The excellent Seat61 website, managed by the former British Rail station manager Mark Smith, recommends that if your train is delayed, you should first get your ticket endorsed by staff on the delayed train or at the interchange station when you arrive, and then approach staff working for the operator of the next train you want to get.
Under the International Convention for the transportation of Passengers (CIV), if you have a through ticket all the way to your final destination, if a delayed or cancelled train means you miss your connections, you have the right to free tickets on later trains. This, however, doesn't always apply if your ticket is split between more than one company (for example with two DB ICE trains and one Thalys train).
If the delay or cancellation means you can't get to your destination that day, the rail company involved (in my case normally DB) is also supposed to arrange a hotel for you close to the last station you end up in.
5. Don't expect decent internet
One of the things that makes replacing flights with trains for long journeys across Europe bearable, or even enjoyable, is the internet. When you have a good internet connection, you can get as much work done in a day's travelling as you would in the office.
The only problem is that on Europe's trains, you rarely do get a good connection. I have found the on-board wifi too slow on trains to be able to work effectively. On the train at home in Sweden, so long as there's mobile phone coverage, there's usually no problem. In Germany, though, the mobile internet is often so ropy that you can't use that either.
This also means that if you are planning on keeping children entertained by hooking them up to a laptop, tablet or phone, you might run into problems. So it's worth downloading some films or cartoons at home before you leave so that they can be played offline.
6. Pack as lightly as possible
As you are quite likely to end up sprinting between platforms and up and down station stairs to get a connection, you really don't want to be heaving around a heavy suitcase, so if at all possible, limit yourself either to a rucksack or backpack or to the smaller type of wheeled luggage.
7. Consider splashing out on a proper meal in the ICE restaurant
The restaurant cars in some of the ICE trains are extremely civilised, with starched white table cloths, proper cutlery, decent wines, and food you'd be happy to get in a mid-range German restaurant. At €15 to €20 for a main course, it's not particularly cheap, but it's a lot better value than the junk food you'll be able to grab rushing through stations during your transfers.
8. Children are surprisingly resilient (at least mine are)
Before I started putting my children through a gruelling 24-hour journey at least once a year, almost invariably involving a succession of stressful mishaps, I would have expected tantrums and breakdowns.
Mine do grumble, saying things like, "Dad, we should have gone on a plane," or, "this is so boring", but they also appreciate the unlimited screen time.
And as we wandered around Hamburg station at close to midnight on Monday searching for somewhere open to buy food and dodging the homeless drug addicts, they almost seemed to be enjoying themselves.
It's quite rare to spend that amount of time so close to your children, and even to find time for the occasional round of Uno. I suspect that the memories of our trips back to the UK are something we'll all treasure.
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