Seating on Deutsche Bahn trains

[LukeSkywalker 7,662]

If I take an ICE from Munich Hbf with direction Frankfurt or Stuttgart, wagon 21 is usually fully reserved for passengers like me who prefer silence. It's the first wagon.

[ruapehu 3,756]

 

Typically if it's there's no City-City info, you can assume it's free.

 

Not necessarily. As a general rule, apart from rush times - Monday am, Fri pm, some holiday periods etc, there are normally always free seats. But if you do travel on one of the full trains, you can't rely on the seats without the city information being free - you just have to hope and sit somewhere, but someone with a late reservation may turn up and chuck you out of it..worst case, you end up standing until the next stop and keep your eye out for people who look like they are packing up their stuff so you can grab their seat as it becomes free.

 

You can only reserve on the fast trains, btw (IC/EC, ICE...not sure if you can on the Alex, but certainly not on RB/RE).

[inlovewithmedicine 11]

too much work for saving 3-4 euros... I too used not to reserve seats. Until I had to stand to go to Saarbrücken, 1 hour or so with a huge luggage.. and then again when I went to NRW and had to change 2 trains. Since then I reserve my seats, and I am happy with the decision :)

[pog451 2,486]

I used to commute regularly from Nuremberg to Hamburg at the weekend and I got int6o the habit of ALWAYS making a reservation, whatever the time of day or day of the week. Sometimes I had blown €4 on a half-empty train, but more often than not I was more than glad of my reservation.

 

ICE/IC/EC - Always reserve

[LancelotLink 56]

Weeks ago, I bought a ticket on the ICE from Wurzburg to Frankfurt Airport for this Thursday but didn't reserve a seat at time of purchase. Worried that I'd be scrambling for a seat, I started a seat reservation request a yesterday. Where the DB system allows you to select your seat, the number of (apparently) available seats from which to choose is quite plentiful, half the train it seems. Reserving a seat seems a waste with so many available seats. Any opinions on if it's a safe bet that seating allotment on DB's site is accurate and a late rush of seat reservations isn't a possibility?

[RajeshG 1,989]

I have always found many seats free in train, one just has to get in a compartment and keep moving till one finds one free. Many a times, single people book one seat next to the window and the aisle seat is free.

[tor 17,529]

I don't know if DB monitors volume and alerts you when the train is almost full (which would be a cool thing) but on normally full trains you will see a symbol, an '!' in a triangle, that means seat reservation is recommended.