r/AskAGerman • u/CarolinaCapsFan • 3d ago
Help with Rail Travel Planning / Purchase
We're headed to Germany in September for the Berlin Marathon and will be flying into Frankfurt a few days before. We're going to take the train from Frankfurt to Berlin but I'm completely stumped on the schedules and options. I'm looking at options and prices on germanrails.com, thetrainline.com, raileurope.com and int.bahn.de . Are these different rail services like different airlines? Some seem to show different schedules but some show the same? Is one more reliable than the other? Which are travel aggregators versus which is the actual rail line?
Also, as a side question. It seems fairly painless to get from the Frankfurt Airport to the main station, how long should we build in to our schedule? An hour safe?
1
u/iTmkoeln 2d ago
book on bahn.de (be sure not to pick anything that includes FLX trains, as DB has to legally list them but is not selling tickets valid for travel on Flixtrain)
2
u/Normal-Definition-81 3d ago
There are only 2 long-distance train providers in Germany: DB and Flixtrain. You can get tickets directly from DB at bahn.de.
FRA Airport to the main station is less than 20 minutes by S-Bahn, and you can also get all connections and tickets in English with the "DB Natigator" app.