I will be travelling from Ljubljana to Zagreb on Sunday 3rd March. I had planned to take the 08:30 Euronight service - EN 40237/40415 from Zürich HB/Stuttgart.
However, upon trying to get a seat reservation (I'm considering using an Interrail day) or buy a ticket I get either an error message or 'no availability' on every site I've tried - ÖBB, DB, SBB, or the Interrail reservation service. The Slovenian and Croatian railways' websites don't seem to offer international ticketing.
When I try searching from a different origin on the same train it turns out that there is in fact availability from any station in Switzerland, Germany or Austria (e.g. Villach), with a Sparschein (Advance) in the seated portion from the latter being available for €19.90.
That's not a bad price, but considering I am travelling from Ljubljana I'd rather have a reservation from there to avoid my unclaimed seat being taken by someone else. And if I used my Interrail I would only expect to pay a few Euros for the reservation anyway.
Am I missing an obvious trick here here - is the train somehow affected by late notice engineering works? Is there some way of making a reservation for this train for a journey outwith the Germanic countries, or is it just a matter of turning up the day before and hoping there'll be seats left when I go to the ticket office in Ljubljana? FWIW I'll have the opportunity to go to a Swiss or Italian ticket office before this date, but I'm not entirely confident I'll be able to get the reservation at either.
Are there any obvious alternative routes I should consider? I need to be in Zagreb by around 3pm and have actually done the direct route a couple of times before, but I don't think it is possible to travel via Trebnje (let alone Karlovac) in the time I have.
However, upon trying to get a seat reservation (I'm considering using an Interrail day) or buy a ticket I get either an error message or 'no availability' on every site I've tried - ÖBB, DB, SBB, or the Interrail reservation service. The Slovenian and Croatian railways' websites don't seem to offer international ticketing.
When I try searching from a different origin on the same train it turns out that there is in fact availability from any station in Switzerland, Germany or Austria (e.g. Villach), with a Sparschein (Advance) in the seated portion from the latter being available for €19.90.
That's not a bad price, but considering I am travelling from Ljubljana I'd rather have a reservation from there to avoid my unclaimed seat being taken by someone else. And if I used my Interrail I would only expect to pay a few Euros for the reservation anyway.
Am I missing an obvious trick here here - is the train somehow affected by late notice engineering works? Is there some way of making a reservation for this train for a journey outwith the Germanic countries, or is it just a matter of turning up the day before and hoping there'll be seats left when I go to the ticket office in Ljubljana? FWIW I'll have the opportunity to go to a Swiss or Italian ticket office before this date, but I'm not entirely confident I'll be able to get the reservation at either.
Are there any obvious alternative routes I should consider? I need to be in Zagreb by around 3pm and have actually done the direct route a couple of times before, but I don't think it is possible to travel via Trebnje (let alone Karlovac) in the time I have.
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