Finding walk up fares for Germany

[YorkshireBear]

Hello All,

Travelling to Dusseldorf in December. To maximise Christmas Market time my better half wants to go to Cologne too, i agreed as it means taking the train.

Just wondering how i find out how much it will cost on the day? I do not want to get any advance fares as i want to be very flexible. How do i find it out? For Regional or ICE

Cheers in advance.

 

[Bletchleyite]

You can use the journey planner - the Normalpreis is the walk-up fare.

 

[gordonthemoron]

aren't regional fares between Dusseldorf & Cologne set by the local transport authority and therefore not shown on www.bahn.de?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Ah yes. But (as I tried it) it's 12.50 IC, 17.50 ICE.

For regional would need to look here: http://www.vrr.de/en/ (sorry)

 

[EAD]

aren't regional fares between Dusseldorf & Cologne set by the local transport authority and therefore not shown on www.bahn.de?

Yes that is my understanding too, so you get "Preisauskunft nicht möglich" i.e. unable to give tariff information. I believe the VRS covers this at price level 5 which means a single is €11.50 (see https://www.vrsinfo.de). Düsseldorf itself is in the VRN area (http://www.vrr.de/de/index.html). Sounds complex, but actually the whole North Rhine Westphalia state is made up of local travel authorities that abut with each other.

There is really no advantage in getting a long distance train between Düsseldorf Hbf (main station) and Köln (Cologne) Hbf as they are only up to 9 minutes faster and cost between €12.50 and €17.50 depending on train type as Neil pointed out - regional trains take 30 minutes.

There are also a range of local day tickets that may be more useful if travelling together as they are valid for up to 5 people after 9am Mon-Fri (all day Sat/Sun). The day ticket version of the €11.50 is €35.90 for example (all bus, trams, regional trains in the zones) - have a play on the VRS website. There is also a ticket covering the whole of NRW State on the same terms which is €43, but that would only be of use if you were planning on travelling further afield within NRW that day.

 

[30907]

There is really no advantage in getting a long distance train between Düsseldorf Hbf (main station) and Köln (Cologne) Hbf as they are only up to 9 minutes faster and cost between €12.50 and €17.50 depending on train type as Neil pointed out - regional trains take 30 minutes.

Just avoid the S-bahn which takes an age! And remember that all those local fares are available on all modes of transport within their zones(except IC/ICE)