European Railroad Discussion > 2-Country Eurail Select Pass Now Offered for 2016

=12ptFrom Rail Europe:

Information on changes to the Eurail Select Pass for 2016We have some exciting news to share with you about the Eurail Select Pass for 2016. Introducing the 2-country Eurail Pass! That's right, now you can select as little as 2 countries to travel in using a Eurail Select Pass. With the addition of this new 2-country option for the Select Pass, we say goodbye to all Eurail regional and multi-country passes.

How unfortunate, _free_ movement of people is one of the founding principles of the European Union after all.

I wonder if the current immigrant crises (many (in the Nordic 2 out of 3!) are on arranged and paid voyage rather than running for their life) was the last drop to the bucket / last nail to coffin? (I'm unaware of the English saying for this, so maybe you can correct?) If wannabe immigrants and refugees flocked to trains with their inexpensive Eurail passes, was this the logical end result? Maybe you can share your opinion on this?

http://www.eurail.com/eurail-passes

Back to normal: you pay for what you travel and every country seems to have a different price. Good news: you can also buy a pass for just about all European countries Turkey included, excluding (surprise surprise) U.K., Albania, Russia, Belarus, and the three Baltic states Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

This will leave arena all open to flying, which is extremely inexpensive these days if you know when and where to buy the tickets. Besides, flying may offer extremely frequent connections. As TGVs and other high speed traffic first killed airline connections on these routes, maybe it is time for a revenge of airliners? Picture of the TGV-Hybrid dashing by our friend Focalplane.

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I just last month bought a pass covering Germany and Czech Republic. No problem.  I actually think a standard two country pass would be a benefit. That way it would be good for any two countries covered by EuroRail instead of trying to find that one pass for the two countries you need. Also, one correction. I don't think Ukraine is covered by a pass. But I could be wrong. We have always bought individual train tickets. It has been great to be able to travel around the Schengen area without boarder checks for so many years. However something has to be done to keep the "migrants" out until there is a way to determine who they actually are. Anyone who thinks differently, look at what happened New Year's Eve in not one, but multiple German cities. Shameful what the governments of these countries is allowing to happen.

Yes, Ukraine is not among the Eurail Pass nations, as of yet, my mistake. I think they might be in 10 years or so. I hope Russia will be too. 

Most of the Nordic people were fooled by the flood of immigrants disguised as refugees. I never noticed before that border controls actually did not work in European Union. They were tested, and now they do. Because of the flood all Nordic countries (except Iceland) have closed their borders with strict controls. This started with Sweden coping with many more immigrants than it could handle (over 100000). Swedes asked for help from European Union, but never seemed to get it, which forced for closure of the borders. Earlier you just drove through the check point (unless searched), now you will need to stop for inspection. Most difficult this situation in the Nordic is for those 25000 Swedes, who daily commute to work in Copenhagen area, along one of the main immigrant routes. Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark all now have returned controls to their borders. Who suffer are the real refugees, those who exist. 

Below one of the Öresundtåg sets running between Sweden and Denmark (and inside Sweden operated by SJ). People say it takes 30 minutes more than normally to cross the border. Train and ship companies are scared to let outside people without visa to enter as the companies would be subjected to hefty fines that way. SJ even ran down their own (SJ owned, SJ operated) connection from Sweden to Copenhagen until situation normalizes. One of the SJ connections is seen below too.

 

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Latest news seems to be that 90% of the refugees are returned to their country of origin (put to plane with guards) so the real refugees according to this would be just 10%!

Maybe the normal old style Eurail Passes & Schengen free movements will be returned after new EU border control troops take over to strengthen national border control officials.

This is one of the ICE-TD / German class 605 units operated by DSB (Danish Railways) for Danish - German cross border traffic. Another location that is now stuck with paper checks. ICE-TD were acquired for DB. but rarely used because of built in design flaws. Yet, it is a pretty streamlined and handsome looking MU for a diesel.

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One of the posters was mistaken:  the Eurail global pass, valid in all participating countries, will remain, both in its continuous as well as "flexi" versions.

The "Select" pass had previously been available in 3, 4, or 5 country versions, but is now being expanded toinclude  a 2-country version.  This likely will replace individual 2-country passes, like Germany/France, that had previously been offered.

And rail passes tend to be quite expensive, useful only for the most ambitious travelers, likely including a few on this board, assuming they ever leave North America.

Definitely expensive. Hope to see many railfans travelling Europe this summer, despite all the challenges around. 

reindeerflame Wrote:
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> And rail passes tend to be quite expensive, useful
> only for the most ambitious travelers, likely
> including a few on this board, assuming they ever
> leave North America.

It isn't a good year without at least one trip to Europe.  This year it is a series of meetings in Lausanne the last week of April and a conference in Berlin in early October.  Generally fly into Frankfurt and then take the train to final destination.  Last year got caught in a DB train strike and had to rent a car and drive from Zurich to Frankfurt.

John