Gare Montparnasse - ticket query & tips please!

[andym]

andym - if I could give detailed and specific information about using trains in France, believe me I would. I answered this post in the hope I could help. I live here in France and speak the language - so I'm even prepared to phone up and ask. As I said earlier on in this thread, the only people you can rely on to find information about SNCF's rules and policies is the SNCF itself. They change their rules, tarifs, offers, and so on so often that only people who work for the SNCF know for sure. This is a prime example. Whenever I've enquired about taking my bike on a TGV (and the last time was yesterday - but for a different route), I've been told that I need to put the bike in a bike bag. This is also the information that the Lonely Planet Guide to cycling in France gives. Now, thanks to this thread, I've learned that it's possible to put a complet bike on the TGV Atlantique - that's good news (but how long beofre they change this policy??). I'll modify my Cycling in France Tips thread in the light of all this. Sorry if have caused stress - that was far from my intention.

Hi Jimmy. I didn't mean to imply that you had any intention of causing anyone stress. It just seems to be an area that's a bit of a minefield. If I had a pound for every time I'd seen and agonised discussion about bikes on French trains I'd be a rich man. What seems to cause the main difficulty is that people naturally assume that there's one rule for all TGVs so one person says 'you can only take bikes on TGVs if they are in a bag' and another person says 'I've travelled with my undismantled bike on a TGV' and people are left not knowing what to think. The answer unfortunately is that it depends on where you are going, or even on which train you are travelling on: the original TGV line via Lyon seems to have few if any facilities for bikes, while the TGV Est, Nord and Atlantique seem to actually have pretty reasonable provision. The only way to get a definitive answer though is to check the SNCF's timetables.

The situation does seem to have got better rather than worse though, which must at least be some comfort. Although I suspect it will be a long time before there are any bike spaces on the double-decker TGVs. But believe me in Spain and
Italy things are even more tricky.

 

[Jimmy Doug]

Yes, you've hit the nail on the head there - and I think when I started answering this thread I was one of those people guilty for thinking that there was at least one simple rule regarding TGVs - that you can only take bikes dismantled. Well, look, even that was wrong. French trains are terribly complicated - but I certainly agree with you that it's worse in Spain and Italy! I'm not sure it's going to get better, though; I'm afraid it's set to get worse, as France starts to privatise the rail service - I suspect it'll soon be as big a mess as it is in England. Let's hope not. Despite the fact that the SNCF is very complicated, it still provides one of the best rail services in the world.