National or regional rail passes abroad?

[A S Leib]

In the UK, there's dozens of regional rail rangers and rovers which when used offer unlimited travel for a set period, as well as the all line one. For the majority of Europe, Interrail / Eurail passes are an option at the national and international level. Which other examples of rover-like tickets are there for railways outside the UK (or outside Europe, unless there are any ones substantially cheaper than Interrail passes without massive restrictions, or which offer features Interrail passes don't), whether available to citizens / residents, foreign tourists, or both? I'm especially interested in those outside major cities, as I'd guess that pay-as-you-go caps or other city tickets are a lot more common.

I can think of

• Trekker and Explorer (Ireland)
• Go Explore (Isle of Man)
• Discovery Pass (NSW, Victoria, ACT, Queensland – I can't find a map of validity and I'm not sure if it's valid past Brisbane or not)
• Rail Explorer Pass (seated travel on the Ghan, Indian Pacific and Overland)
• New Zealand Travel Rail / Scenic Pass (Auckland–Wellington, Christchurch–Picton / Greymouth, ferries)
• Amtrak California / USA (limited to 10 segments in 30 days for the latter)

 

[eldomtom2]

Are you asking solely for passes available to native citizens or are you including those solely available to foreign tourists like the Britrail pass?

 

[A S Leib]

Either those available to citizens / residents, those available to tourists, or both.

 

[Flying Snail]

Italia on Tour pass, unlimited travel on regional Trentialia trains. €29 3 day, €49 5 day.

https://www.trenitalia.com/it/treni_regionali/promo-italia-in-tour.html (Italian language page has proper details, English doesn't)

German €49 monthly Deutschland-ticket for nearly all regional transport.

German regional day tickets, even with the above now available the day tickets can still be good value for a short trip especially for groups.

Discover Germany with our regional offers

Regional offers: Travel through Germany's most beautiful regions on local transport with our regional offers, such as the regional day ticket or the day ticket for Germany.

int.bahn.de

 

[Segedunum]

Czech Republic has the OneTicket - which allows travel on effectively all rail services (except open-access RegioJet and LeoExpress services - the trains run under contract to the regions are included).

 

[AlbertBeale]

The European Rail Timetable includes a country-by-country section on domestic rail passes.

 

[Lukeo2311]

https://transportnsw.info/document/1447/Regional-trains-coaches-network-map.pdf -pretty much covers the NSW Trainlink network with both trains and coaches covered

 

[nwales58]

Deleted: not relevant to OP

 

[Three-Nine]

The Japan Rail Pass, which offers travel on many Japan Railways services throughout Japan, as well as some other JR-operated transport modes like ferries. The fastest "Nozomi" services (in other regions of Japan, these services have different names) are usually excluded without paying an additional charge, as are obviously non-JR services operated by private companies. Available in 7, 14 and 21 day versions, though its less of a bargain than it used to be because the prices have shot up a considerable amount in the last few months.

There are also various regional passes for specific areas in Japan.

 

[A S Leib]

There has been a thread on all this before surely?

Not as far as I can find, at least in the first ten pages.

 

[Tester]

• Discovery Pass (NSW, Victoria, ACT, Queensland – I can't find a map of validity and I'm not sure if it's valid past Brisbane or not)

Only on NSW trains outside NSW, hence not beyond Brisbane, but incredible value nonetheless. Available to all - no residence restrictions.

I start one next week.

 

[30907]

The various Swiss regional passes, most of which have been going for decades; there are Austrian regional ones too.

 

[dutchflyer]

In general german speaking countries have best coverage-national and provincial/regional.
The MAg Today'ss Railways, when it was run by a mr. Haydock living in FR had a special every year giving a printed best overview for all of EUR.
And they also once did an overview of senior offers/discounts.
Note that some countries have special SUMMer only offers: (this from last yr-no garantee that they will come back, so check later on)
Belgium-7 days or whole month/off peak (=>9.00 mo-fr)
CZechia- 7 or 14 days, only CD or all trains
Denmark- 7 days ALL transit, had this one last yr and was a good buy.
Sweden: also for around 1 week SJ only. Most Län=regions have their own offers for all transit
NL: we also have a trains only day pass (near 60€)or the Holland travel Ticket, all day or off-peak: 70/46€ (=effectively all day on sat/sun) for 1 or 3 days. InterRail 1 country is combined with BElgium-and nominally still LUx.
Best general offer of course; LUXembourg-all transit free for anyone
And for those older&wiser >65, and from the EU; Hungary: same, except the suplmts for fast and IC trains
France: regional tickets exist for Alsace, round Paris and for the Occitanie (Toulouse-MOntpellier area)- 10€/day for MIN 2 and max 5 days-ONLY available online-existence denied at counter
Poland: check PolRegio site- passes for 3 or 7 days and also valid on several other ''private/regional'' systems, some of these- Mazowieckie around WAW and DolnoSlaskie around Wroclaw also offer their own.

Taiwan: a quite cheap 3 day pass for the Hi-Speed line (cheaper in fact as full fare return whole line) and/or a slightly more expensive one for all trains, use google, I think I ordered mine last nov via trip.com. You then get a voucher to print and then exchange for a chipcard holding pass after arrival-at airport station
Japan Railpass-was raised in price massively last yr-but that was also first rise in some 20+ yrs but remains very good value. JR only.

 

[rvdborgt]

NL:

The NS Flex Weekend Vrij subscription is actually a very good deal. You can cancel or change it after one month, but it can be worth it even for 1 day of travel.
But since it's a subscription and NS like making life hard for customers from abroad, it's a bit of a pain to get it.

Best general offer of course; LUXembourg-all transit free for anyone

In 2nd class.

 

[Lxd2]

In some places there are also "Guest Cards" which you get given by your accommodation. These give free use of local public transport for the duration of your stay, sometimes over quite a large area. They are very common in Alpine regions in Austria and Switzerland. There are probably hundreds of different ones and it is not always that easy to find out information about them.

 

[rvdborgt]

In some places there are also "Guest Cards" which you get given by your accommodation. These give free use of local public transport for the duration of your stay, sometimes over quite a large area. They are very common in Alpine regions in Austria and Switzerland.

Also in (southern?) Germany.

 

[nwales58]

Deleted: not relevant to OP

 

[A S Leib]

Is the OP really trying to compile a Europe-wide list (or global???)?

No, and because of Interrail my intention was to focus on continents outside Europe.

 

[nwales58]

OK. Forget all the stuff on Europe above.

 

[A S Leib]

I'm perfectly fine with including Europe as well; it's just that it's less likely to be useful when Interrail offers such good coverage unless others can compete on cost grounds, whilst I don't know if e.g. anywhere in central Asia has rail passes instead of just point-to-point tickets.

 

[dutchflyer]

Additional: just announced as to come per 1/3-IF Parliament approves:
HUngary: there will be 1 day passes for a ''region (megye, often translates as ''komitat'' or even count-y) or whole country- for 999 and 4.999 HUF (=about 3 and 15€) valid for 2nd cl only in local trains-the national should also be usable in IC-trains with the needed surcharge and seat-REServation. Probably the local version even also valid in regional Volan buses. Await final exact details after approval.
KOrea also has 2-3 passes-consecutive or in 7 days, not that cheap, around 30-40$/€ [per day. via korail.com.] 2 REServations/day free (needed for about any train there), but more trips can be done using the UNres. sections most trains also have.
USA: There are still Amtrak passes, but these are now for a limited (8/12/18) nr of SEGments=effectively trips in 1 train, so cross country should be possible in 2 segments-change Chicago.
Metra suburban trains from CHIcago have weekend passes: 1 or 2 days for 7/10US$, but that is not really a network, bu a few single lines running on sat/sun only ev 2-3 hrs into windy city. Other US suburban systems may also have some offers.
CANada/VIA also used to have passes, withdrawn sin ce covid and not come back (info from seat61)
The mag Todays Railways I mentioned above had its last overveiw-spread out over 4 issues in spring in 2018.
The site egtre. org also british general railfan info has-but sometimes quite dates, info on passes etc for most EUR countries

 

[CarrotPie]

In Finland we have the lomalippu (lit. holiday ticket) that is available for 5, 7, 9, 14 or 30 . A 30-day ticket costs €349/adult. It gives unlimited free travel in Eko (standard) Class on all long-distance trains and most commuter trains (not very local ones that they don't sell tickets for), but they can only be used June-August.

 

[stadler]

In the UK, there's dozens of regional rail rangers and rovers which when used offer unlimited travel for a set period, as well as the all line one. For the majority of Europe, Interrail / Eurail passes are an option at the national and international level. Which other examples of rover-like tickets are there for railways outside the UK (or outside Europe, unless there are any ones substantially cheaper than Interrail passes without massive restrictions, or which offer features Interrail passes don't), whether available to citizens / residents, foreign tourists, or both? I'm especially interested in those outside major cities, as I'd guess that pay-as-you-go caps or other city tickets are a lot more common.

I can think of

• Trekker and Explorer (Ireland)
• Go Explore (Isle of Man)
• Discovery Pass (NSW, Victoria, ACT, Queensland – I can't find a map of validity and I'm not sure if it's valid past Brisbane or not)
• Rail Explorer Pass (seated travel on the Ghan, Indian Pacific and Overland)
• New Zealand Travel Rail / Scenic Pass (Auckland–Wellington, Christchurch–Picton / Greymouth, ferries)
• Amtrak California / USA (limited to 10 segments in 30 days for the latter)

I personally would not include the NSW Discovery Pass or the NZ Rail Travel Scenic Pass tickets. They exclude over 90% of trains so i would not say they really count as national or regional passes. They look good value initially until you realise that these tickets are only valid on a very tiny selection of trains with most trains not accepting these tickets.

I think the NSW Discovery Pass is not that good value when you consider that it is not valid on Sydney Trains (shorter distance suburban trains around Sydney) or on NSW Trainlink Intercity Trains (longer distance suburban trains connecting Sydney with other nearby towns) and these make up over 90% of trains in the NSW area. It is solely valid on NSW Trainlink Regional Trains which is a small tiny network of infrequent long distance trains and makes up less than 10% of trains on the NSW rail network. Yes you can go very far from Sydney to Brisbane and Canberra and Melbourne but this is all on infrequent trains that run once or twice a day or even less of certain routes. The actual frequent extensive network of Sydney Trains and NSW Trainlink Intercity Trains can not be used on this ticket.

Similarly the New Zealand Rail Travel Scenic Pass is also not very good value either. It is not valid on the Auckland suburban trains or the Wellington suburban trains which together make up over 95% of trains on the NZ rail network. It is solely valid only on the three infrequent long distance trains which all operate once a day on only a couple days of the week. So these make up less than 5% of trains operating on the NZ rail network. So again the vast majority of trains are excluded.

Another one for the list is in Northern Ireland where Translink have the Sunday Day Tracker for £9.00 available on Sunday only. It gives unlimited travel every Sunday on the entire NI rail network. Similarly there is a bus version called the Sunday Bus Rambler for £10.00 available on Sunday only. This gives unlimited travel every Sunday on the entire NI bus network. But on Mondays to Saturdays the only day ticket is available on a smartcard (not paper tickets) and is £18.50 for the iLink Day Ticket giving unlimited travel on the entire bus and train networks.

 

[Tester]

I think the NSW Discovery Pass is not that good value when you consider that it is not valid on Sydney Trains (shorter distance suburban trains around Sydney) or on NSW Trainlink Intercity Trains (longer distance suburban trains connecting Sydney with other nearby towns) and these make up over 90% of trains in the NSW area. It is solely valid on NSW Trainlink Regional Trains which is a small tiny network of infrequent long distance trains and makes up less than 10% of trains on the NSW rail network. Yes you can go very far from Sydney to Brisbane and Canberra and Melbourne but this is all on infrequent trains that run once or twice a day or even less of certain routes. The actual frequent extensive network of Sydney Trains and NSW Trainlink Intercity Trains can not be used on this ticket.

Horses for courses!

I start a NSW Discovery Pass tomorrow and I consider it outstanding value.

Of course if you only want to travel within the Sydney equivalent of Network Southeast this is not the pass for you. Opal (Sydney's Oyster equivalent) has that market covered, also with (by British standards) outstanding value.

But for long distance travel, the value is amazing - and available to all, including locals. Worth noting that connecting trains in Sydney (in conjunction with a long distance journey) ARE included.

 

[railfan99]

I personally would not include the NSW Discovery Pass or the NZ Rail Travel Scenic Pass tickets. They exclude over 90% of trains so i would not say they really count as national or regional passes. They look good value initially until you realise that these tickets are only valid on a very tiny selection of trains with most trains not accepting these tickets.

I think the NSW Discovery Pass is not that good value when you consider that it is not valid on Sydney Trains (shorter distance suburban trains around Sydney) or on NSW Trainlink Intercity Trains (longer distance suburban trains connecting Sydney with other nearby towns) and these make up over 90% of trains in the NSW area. It is solely valid on NSW Trainlink Regional Trains which is a small tiny network of infrequent long distance trains and makes up less than 10% of trains on the NSW rail network. Yes you can go very far from Sydney to Brisbane and Canberra and Melbourne but this is all on infrequent trains that run once or twice a day or even less of certain routes. The actual frequent extensive network of Sydney Trains and NSW Trainlink Intercity Trains can not be used on this ticket.

But if you are 'connecting' to or from a NSW TrainLink service, you can just show the Discovery Pass and use a Sydney suburban or intercity train.

In practice, you could be 'connecting' to/from anywhere.

There is a new restriction that Discovery Passes must be used for their first day within 30 days of purchase.

Given the normal adult fares applying on NSW TrainLink, a Discovery Pass (if used a fair bit) can be excellent value, although there is no discount for Seniors/Pensioners.

You can use a Discovery Pass even to Adelaide as once a week NSW TrainLink runs an XPlorer railcar set to/from Broken Hill (1125 rail km from Sydney Central) and then (not same day) there's a NSW TrainLink road coach to Adelaide. I have done both.

 

[Mag_seven]

Czech Republic has the OneTicket - which allows travel on effectively all rail services (except open-access RegioJet and LeoExpress services - the trains run under contract to the regions are included).

I've downloaded the app to purchase this but it won't accept my date of birth when I go to purchase it. In fact it doesn't seem to accept any DOB earlier than 02.01.70! Does anyone know a way around this?

 

[nwales58]

Italia on Tour pass, unlimited travel on regional Trentialia trains. €29 3 day, €49 5 day.

https://www.trenitalia.com/it/treni_regionali/promo-italia-in-tour.html (Italian language page has proper details, English doesn't)

Update on Italia on Tour: no longer valid within Lombardy at all (it used to be valid on Trenitalia and TTPER in Lombardy, not LeNord obviously).

If travelling between Piedmont or western Liguria and the rest of the country you now have to pay for a stretch.

Brilliant value still for most of the country.

 

[rvdborgt]

I've downloaded the app to purchase this but it won't accept my date of birth when I go to purchase it. In fact it doesn't seem to accept any DOB earlier than 02.01.70! Does anyone know a way around this?

Is that ČD's "Můj vlak" app or another one?

 

[Mag_seven]

Is that ČD's "Můj vlak" app or another one?

No it's the actual one ticket app "jedna jizdenka"

 

[Watershed]

Update on Italia on Tour: no longer valid within Lombardy at all (it used to be valid on Trenitalia and TTPER in Lombardy, not LeNord obviously).

If travelling between Piedmont or western Liguria and the rest of the country you now have to pay for a stretch.

Brilliant value still for most of the country.

Frustrating. Why the need to fragment ticketing yet more? It's bad enough that Italia in Tour wasn't valid on Trenord.

Lombardy has great integrated ticketing but does this allow you to conduct a non-stop split at the regional boundary stations? I somehow doubt it.