On Friday to start my #CrossBorderRail project I need to get from Ravières (Bourgogne, France) to Praha (Czechia), and this is the connection DB (the best rail planning site) shows me:

06:39 Nuits-sous-Ravières
SNCF TER91371
06:49 Montbard

15min to change

07:04 Montbard
SNCF TGV 6760
08:09 Paris Gare de Lyon

56min to transfer from Gare de Lyon to Gare du Nord

09:05 Paris Est
SNCF-DB Cooperation TGV 9521
12:59 Frankfurt(Main)Hbf

19min to change

13:18 Frankfurt(Main)Hbf
DB ICE 1651
17:39 Dresden Hbf

91min to change

19:10 Dresden Hbf
DB-ČD EC 179
21:23 Praha hl.n.

Would you attempt this journey?

And would you attempt this journey when punctuality of long distance trains in Germany is currently dreadful, and the new German government’s illegal border controls are delaying trains at the France-Germany border, and I have just 19 minutes scheduled for the change in Frankfurt (Main)?

The answer is YES I am going to try it.

Here’s why.

I start by asking myself what is the fall back if something goes wrong with each leg?

Nuits-sous-Ravières – Montbard has been reliable in the past (I take it often) and at 6am before leaving home I can check if it is on time, and if it is disrupted go bang on a neighbour’s door to get them to drive me to Montbard.

Montbard – Paris Gare de Lyon is the morning commuter TGV to Paris, and I know I will be able to catch it, and TGVs on this line are normally solid. Live running data about the train (that starts in Besançon more or less the time my alarm will be going!) will alert me to disruptions, but in any case I will head for Paris even if it is delayed.

I will then cross Paris by bike – 6km from Gare de Lyon to Gare de l’Est. This clears my head after the stuffy train, and I prefer it to the RER or Metro. Were I taking the RER I would make sure I had a ticket for that already (you can even get mobile tickets for Paris public transport now) – I want in any case to avoid hassles in Paris.

The crucial one is then Paris Est – Frankfurt (Main) Hbf TGV. It starts in Paris, so is likely to depart on time. But even here I have a backup plan – there is an ICE to Karlsruhe that departs 50 minutes later that would still get me to Praha same day (via Nürnberg, Regensburg). But hang on you’re probably saying, what if they would not let you on that later ICE? These TGVs and ICEs are compulsory reservation on the French section of the routes. Here is where you might simply have to get pushy – there is no safety reason you cannot sit yourself down in the dining car as far as Germany on the ICE. I would normally ask before doing this, but if push came to shove I’d use the QR code on the earlier TGV ticket to get myself through the ticket barriers at Gare de l’Est, and board the ICE anyway, and then proactively find the train manager to explain the situation to them before they find me, using the proofs of the disruption earlier in my trip to help me.

But ideally that is not going to happen, so I will be on the way to Frankfurt.

The train I am most likely to miss is the Frankfurt (Main) – Dresden Hbf ICE, as I have only 19 minutes to get it, and the TGV from Paris might be delayed due to the border controls and anyway uses the heavily overloaded Riedbahn from Mannheim to Frankfurt. Deutsche Bahn tells me the train Frankfurt to Dresden has “Hohe Auslastung erwartet” – heavy demand expected, so I have reserved a seat on it even though I strictly do not have to. If there is danger I am going to miss it, I will go seek out the train manager, perhaps with other customers in the same situation, and ask them if the connecting train can be held. Whether this works or not is open to question, but it will at least mean an announcement will be made on board about the connection at least.

But what would happen if I miss the Frankfurt – Dresden ICE?

Importantly whatever ticket I have in these circumstances (even a cheap Sparpreis that is only valid on the booked train) I switch to “take any train going the right way and explain” mode – if your delay is to be more than 20 minutes, you are allowed to take any train.

The slight headache here would then be what train to take? There are engineering works in Czechia between Plzen and Praha, meaning it’s a rail replacement bus from Beroun. So I would be inclined to stick to the original route and go via Dresden, and to just keep heading that way – take the first ICE to Leipzig and the then whatever goes from Leipzig to Dresden, and Dresden onwards to Praha, via Bad Schandau and Děčín if necessary. I see from the timetable there’s an IC Leipzig-Dresden arriving Dresden a few minutes after the Praha train is meant to depart – maybe delays are in my favour and I could still get that? In any case I keep having options ahead of me that I can use. Collect proofs, explain to train managers, and keep on.

But of course all being well I get EC179 in Dresden onwards to Praha and all is good. And given it’s a summer Friday that it departs with a bit of delay is not impossible.

What other general tips are there?

I find the overviews of the carriages in the unofficial Bahn App (iOS, Android) better than in DB’s official app, so I will use that to work out what type of train I am going to be getting, and hence where my best chances of getting a seat will be. In the case of disruption I will even try my luck in the seats supposedly intended for Bahn Bonus regular travellers, or in the dining car if I have to. If my connection is tight I will make sure I know the platform on which I arrive and from which I depart so I can best make a dash for the connecting train, and will go through the train to the front door so as to make a quick exit if I have to.

So that’s what I am going to be trying to do on Friday. It’ll be be posted on a thread on Mastodon – follow me there @jon@gruene.social.

Any tricks I am missing? Let me know!