Seating on Deutsche Bahn trains

[MonksTown 104]

They CAN be lenient and usually they are. BUT, if they think you are taking the piss, they also have the framework to charge you the €40.

[perdido 6,083]

Yep I have personaly been kicked out of first class myself on a couple occasions, mostly on the account that I was pissed. If you are diplomatic they usually recind in kind.

[ceogero 3]

 

Even if the seat is empty during the whole journey? That sucks.

Try sitting on a Business Class or First Class seat on an airplane when you can't get your preferred economy seat: and enjoy the treatment...

[koorosh 4]

I agree with all your points. Definitely a 1st class passenger does not want to hear a crying baby beside him /her. But when a handsome, quiet gentelman(or woman) is travelling in an EMPTY 1st class cabin with a 2nd class ticket then the story should be different. :-)

[Small Town Boy 6,672]

The first class carriage is never empty, and if it is then presumably there will still be seats in second class.

 

Britain has so far managed to go half the way with regards to locking up all noisy people into the same carriage, with the introduction of both quiet carriages and family carriages. All they have to do now is drag their antiquated booking system into the 21st century so that people can actually choose whether they want to be in those carriages or not (important since most people buy their tickets in advance due to the extortionate costs of not doing so, and a seat reservation is included in the price). Because their ticketing system can differentiate between first and second class and nothing else, I (as a solo traveller) often find myself placed in the family carriage, so I ignore the reservation and head up to the quiet carriage only to find families with kids in there.

[kitkat64 461]

Luckily these people are nice people because about a year ago, I bought a Bayern Ticket to Salzburg for a group of 5 women. I knew that we could not take the ICE train (no stops) and had to take the regional trains (lots of stops) and we had to wait until after 9 am. Well, in the rush to buy the ticket, I told the other ladies 'Find the train that goes at 9:15 or so to Salzburg' and ran off to buy the ticket. I ran back and we ran to the train that they figured out was the correct train. I said to the train guy as we were getting on 'Going to Salzburg, right?' and he said 'Correct'. Once were sitting down and the ticket guy came around, we proudly gave him our Bayern Ticket. He said 'oh, you can't take an ICE train on a Bayern ticket. He didn't make us pay the difference or anything. I think because we were 5 attractive women together and we were obviously foreigners and the look of shock on my face when he said we were on an ICE train. He was extremely nice. We flipped him 50€ for letting us off the hook.

[Small Town Boy 6,672]

Which reminds me, I'm also in favour of women-only carriages. Not because of the security aspect, mind – purely for the purpose of noise reduction in the other carriages...

[NOFXmike 18]

 

Luckily these people are nice people because about a year ago, I bought a Bayern Ticket to Salzburg for a group of 5 women. I knew that we could not take the ICE train (no stops) and had to take the regional trains (lots of stops) and we had to wait until after 9 am. Well, in the rush to buy the ticket, I told the other ladies 'Find the train that goes at 9:15 or so to Salzburg' and ran off to buy the ticket. I ran back and we ran to the train that they figured out was the correct train. I said to the train guy as we were getting on 'Going to Salzburg, right?' and he said 'Correct'. Once were sitting down and the ticket guy came around, we proudly gave him our Bayern Ticket. He said 'oh, you can't take an ICE train on a Bayern ticket. He didn't make us pay the difference or anything. I think because we were 5 attractive women together and we were obviously foreigners and the look of shock on my face when he said we were on an ICE train. He was extremely nice. We flipped him 50€ for letting us off the hook.

I've never seen an ICE go to Salzburg...I'm assuming you mean IC

 

It's also pretty damn obvious with the color of the train...

[kitkat64 461]

Well, we're talking about 5 Americans - 4 of which do not live in Germany and one (myself) who never takes the train anywhere. Plus, I was literally running to the train and did not even notice what color it was or anything, because, if we had missed it, we would have had to wait for a later train. So, we just ran and hopped on. It was an easy mistake, believe me.

[abalada 24]

 

As I travel all the time on Deutsche Bahn, I thought I'd confirm about the fine. I just spoke to someone at Deutsche Bahn at 018051941951 to ask if there is a fine and he said if you are found to be sitting in first class and your ticket is for second there is no fine. You will be asked to pay an uebergang and pay the different in the ticket from first class to second class. If you do not want to pay the different than you will be asked to sit in 2nd class.

That's only true for trains with a conductor, or more exactly with a conductor who can sell you tickets. Here it is even possible to board the train without any ticket and buy it from the conductor (for a small service fee). And to buy an uebergang, i.e. upgrade to first class, is something always possible. I've even seen that upgrading to 1st class already when on the train was recommended in DB leaflets.

 

But since April 2007 buying tickets on board is no more possible on regional trains. Thus also upgrading is no more possible on these trains. If the train has still a normal conductor, the chances are good that he will just ask you to sit in 2nd class. If your ticket is checked by plain clothed ticket controllers the risk to be fined is much higher.

[MonksTown 104]

Bavaria: If you are on a train without a valid ticket then you are defrauding and are liable for a € 40 fine.

[Lavender Rain 7,859]

I was on a regional train yesterday heading to Wurzburg and a women did not have a ticket. The conductor took her ID left for about five minutes and came back and fined her. On the ICE trains I frequently travel on I've upgraded my ticket onboard from second to first by paying additional money on board.

[Guest]

I ordered my tickets today for weekend Jan. 22-24. I have never done this before and think I messed up. Here is what happened:

 

I TRIED to reserve seats for every ''reservable'' portion of the trip. It comes back that one ''leg' on a 'Eurocity/Intercity' train in RED saying that ''Request is not possible'' - my request being 2 seats together as I am traveling with my 6year old daughter - nothing else (what car or window or whatever - just 2 together).

 

Then it asked if I wanted to continue with the order anyway. I did. I thought it would just randomly reserve 2 seats (with out the fullfilled request of 2 together) but it comes up BLANK on the Confirmation. Like I did not 'reserve' at all -- which I am afraid I have done!

 

When the time comes, does anyone know what it will mean to me and my daughter to NOT have a reserved seat, if what I infer the Blank to mean is correct? Is it correct? I appreciate hearing similar experience - Thanks - ML

[eurobabs 644]

Best would be just to pop by the DB office closest to you. They are SUPER friendly (as compared to phone help) and will be able to sort it out for you.

[bal00 1,917]

 

I ordered my tickets today for weekend Jan. 22-24. I have never done this before and think I messed up. Here is what happened:

 

I TRIED to reserve seats for every ''reservable'' portion of the trip. It comes back that one ''leg' on a 'Eurocity/Intercity' train in RED saying that ''Request is not possible'' - my request being 2 seats together as I am traveling with my 6year old daughter - nothing else (what car or window or whatever - just 2 together).

 

Then it asked if I wanted to continue with the order anyway. I did. I thought it would just randomly reserve 2 seats (with out the fullfilled request of 2 together) but it comes up BLANK on the Confirmation. Like I did not 'reserve' at all -- which I am afraid I have done!

 

When the time comes, does anyone know what it will mean to me and my daughter to NOT have a reserved seat, if what I infer the Blank to mean is correct? Is it correct? I appreciate hearing similar experience - Thanks - ML

 

 

FWIW, you can still buy seat reservations after booking the ticket. Just go through the normal booking process as if you were buying a ticket, then choose 'seat reservation only' here:

 

 

You can also get them at the ticket machines (up to 60 mins before departure I think?) or at the Reisezentrum.

[Guest]

Greenie to you for the information... Just tried it and it is shaded in gray and states:

Seat reservation only (no ticket) Not available for this connection.

[yourkeau 7,723]

 

Is it correct information?

Yes.

 

 

If yes the how many such seats are in every compartment.

Compartment? Most wagons are not divided by compartments, only some of them. No idea if any quota for non-reserved seats exists. I think, not.

 

 

How to recognize the unreserved seats?

Look for information above the seats. If you are going from Munich to Nuremberg and you see "Ingolstadt-Berlin" then this seat will be occupied in Ingolstadt. You can either choose to take this seat till Ingolstadt or look for another seat. If there is no information then this seat is vacant.

 

If you see something like this:

ggf. reserviert - this is for last minute reservations. This seat can be either vacant or reserved.

ggf. freigeben - I don't remember but this is for situations when the train doesn't have reservation information for technical reasons. This seat can be either vacant or reserved.

bahn.comfort - seat reserved for Bahn Comfort/BahnCard 100 customers.

[RajeshG 1,987]

Sample photo showing the reservation. This is above the seat and illuminated.

[alderhill 1,089]

Typically if it's there's no City-City info, you can assume it's free. FWIW, I've heard they fill up reservations from one end (front to back? back to front? Not sure). Cars with enclosed compartments or a variety of unusual seating plans (older trains) also tend to be filled last. MEANING, you would have better odds going to the end of the train looking for the unreserved seats -- though they may be taken depending where along the train's journey you are. Then again, there is often an odd free seat in a bunch of reserved ones. You just have to wander around, or you can always ask the ticket-checker. Some will shrug with a vague wave towards the other direction, but some will also find a free seat if the train isn't too busy and they're nice.

[yourkeau 7,723]

 

Cars with enclosed compartments or a variety of unusual seating plans (older trains) also tend to be filled last.

...unless you specify it as a preference. The same applies to "silent wagons": yes, they are filled last but if you specify that you want to be in silent wagon then you'll get reservation there. So, everything depends on passengers preferences, you can't really guess.