Circumstances

Mr LGD’s Auntie and Uncle were due to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary. We wanted to attend the festivities along with my in-laws. The Auntie and Uncle live in Germany, not in a major city, or near an airport. But near a train station. Previously we had flown to Hannover, nearly 2 hours away from the relatives location by car. This time we wanted to see what the other options were. 

Group of four people stood outside a church

Celebrating at the church they were married in 60 years ago!

The research

Mr LGD checked out how long it would take by train, and how much it would cost compared to flying. The online systems are a lot more joined up than they used to be.

The Trainline website allowed us to see the journey legs, connections and what train companies we would be using. This is great for planning our journey. It is also possible book tickets on this site.

We decided to book separately with Eurostar and Deutsche Bahn. This was to be sure that we could book seats for all sections of the journey, and be sat together.

The journey

St Pancras station from the Eurostar platform. Three trains seen from the front.
St Pancras is an organised and well designed station to start the adventure.
  • Kings Cross St Pancras Eurostar to Brussels 
  • Brussels to Koln
  • Koln to Hannover
  • Hannover to Helmsted (5 mins from where we were staying)
  • Time; 9 hours by train alone. We estimated that with; travelling to the airport from our home, check in, train from airport to our destination in Germany etc, the time difference was not that much.
  • Cost; Eurostar £68, German section £75. Total £143 per person return. The plane is around £200-300, plus the train from Hanover. We did book well in advance to get good rates.

The train’s advantages

Carbon footprint difference – 226kg less carbon dioxide per person by train. The same amount of carbon sequestered by 3.7 trees grown for 10 years!!! This site calculates the carbon difference for journeys all over Europe. Put in the start and end point and it works out the plane, train and car impact on a number of different measures. I used this site to understand what this amount of carbon equated to.

Comfortable – the seats were comfortable and the trains well maintained.

Food – we could bring all our own food for a train picnic and snacks. No extra bag restrictions, or liquid issues. This helped us reduce disposable packaging and have food we really wanted. (note; this may change with Brexit, check before you travel)

Sandwich, banana and metal food container on a train carriage table
It was an early start but we could bring porridge pots, lunch and lots of train snacks!

Lifts – (or escalators) at all the platforms for luggage. 

Lots of space for bags on trains – large overhead spaces for luggage and separate areas for big bags.

No luggage restrictions – you can take what ever you like. Helpful when the in-laws have various food items they are bringing to the family in Germany!

Relaxed – we all found it much less stressful than the airport environment.

Reserved seats – for all legs of our journey. The stations had signs showing where to stand on the platform to board each carriage. No walking through the train with our bags.

Ticket details – for most stations our tickets told us which platform we needed on the next change. If not it was easy to check online using the Deutsche Bahn website.

WiFi – all the trains except the last local one had great WiFi (not in the Channel tunnel). This made the journey a lot more productive than the equivalent plane journey. A huge plus point. 

What happens when things go wrong?

Our penultimate journey was delayed significantly. We found out that other trains in Germany had had problems that afternoon. This delay was going to mean we would not make the Eurostar check in. A quick online chat with Eurostar informed us that we had to get a stamp on our ticket from the train manager to show our train was late. We would then be able to go on the next service. Then we realised we were booked on the last train of the day!

 The station and train announcements were great as they were in three languages (including English). The staff were all very helpful. The train manager explained that as so many people on our train needed to get the Eurostar they were in communication with the staff at Brussels station to ensure the check in would be held open for us. Eurostar even delayed the Eurostar train leaving by a few minutes to ensure everyone could get through security and onto the train. 

Four people sat at a train carriage table with glasses of wine and a food in front of them
Celebrating we made the train home!

Because of this situation we discovered that train travel in Europe is all linked. If you miss a train because of a delay on a previous train you just need to get a stamp from the train manager on your ticket and then you can go on the next service. This includes the Eurostar. 

Overall

A great experience, really opened our eyes to the other places that we can get to from Kings Cross St Pancras Station. Being able to work on the journey, and no food or drink restrictions, where the biggest selling points for me.

Have you been on a European train adventure? How did you find it?