Trains in France

[andym]

I had assumed that the original poster did not have a bike bag so the train from Marseille to Lille-Europe was not an option.

I don't know whether the Thomas Cook European Timetable book usees the bike symbol to show services that take bikes. If you want to use the interweb to find out whether a service takes bikes then this is what you do:

-search on www.tgv-europe.com (or www.voyages-sncf.com or whatever) and you should get a list of services with entries that look like this:

you then click on 'details' to get the expanded entry which looks like this:

- no bike symbol so no bikes. I did find a service that took bikes (but only from Clermont Ferrand). The entry looked like this:

Unfortunately the night train from Nice to Paris is a sleep-in-your-seat TGV, with no bike transport, rather than a couchette sleeper service with bike transport. So it looks like the options are

- long haul by local trains;
- mail a bike bag to pick up in Nice;
- send the bike via the SNCF's freight service. I've never used this but I'm pretty sure it still exists and might well be worth checking out.

 

[andym]

For the sake of completeness (and because I've got a spare few minutes) here's the process of searching for bike-friendly trains using

http://www.bahn.de/international/view/en/index.shtml

- enter your journey details then click 'further options':

- check 'bicycle carriage required' then click search

the initial search results look like this:

click on the arrow (ringed) to reveal the full information about the services:

Note that unfortunately you can't book tickets view the DB website.

Or of course you could use the Thomas Cook European Timetable (and I'm a fan - in the days before the internet I spent lots of happy hours planning trips using it).

 

[Speicher]

AndyM, thank you for those very detailed links.

Perhaps it is my bad luck, that even recently, using the Internet for train enquiries has not been successful, either in this country or abroad.

I once wanted to travel from near Innsbruck over the Brenner Pass, into Italy and return the same day. I was told this was not possible, but closer inspection revealed that "not possible" was because of a wait at Innsbruck of more than 40 minutes, to cut a long story short. Being keen on trains, stations, locomotives etc etc, 40 minutes would not be a problem to find something to do.

If you have a spare ten minutes, I could tell you about the complete muck up of information given to me in Austria this year, information given to me by people who should know better!

I will try the Bahn.de site to see how it compares with my timetable.

 

[Crankarm]

Travel with a Brompton no train is out of bounds .

 

[Ergle]

Thanks to all who replied. Noted that local trains may take a while, so TGV is a good idea - especially as I have yet to travel on one. Thanks for detailed timetable and booking info - I can call home and ask my wife to book online if necessary nearere the time. I have ordered a CTC bike bag to take with me - it'll serve as a footprint for my tent as well.

 

[andym]

Ergle. If you are talking about the big polythene bags, they're no use for the trains as won't fit into the luggage racks, and I very much doubt you'll get away with it (there's a size limitation on the bags you can take on the TGVs) and you'll end up getting chucked off - if they let you get on in the first place.

I'd recommend the Ground Effect Tardis bags. I've used these on the TGVs to and from the south of France and they definitely fit. They have the huge advantage that your missus can post the bag out to you poste restante so you can collect from a post office.

 

[TheDoctor]

I'd buy a bike bag in nice (or wherever you end up) and save the fag of carrying / posting it

 

[bikepacker]

You will need to pack the bike down quite small to get it on a TGV, the luggage space is less than ample. It was a difficult job getting and Airnimal and luggage on. Friends have told me that 2 special TGVs from Toulon to Paris take wheel on bikes. I cannot identify which ones they are from timetables.

3 years ago it was possible to travel on the route I stated earlier from Nice to Le Harve in about 12 hours. I don't know about current time tables.

There is also the possibility of putting bikes on the Eurostar from London to Avignon which runs every Saturday throughout the Summer.

 

[andym]

I'd buy a bike bag in nice (or wherever you end up) and save the fag of carrying / posting it

With the Ground Effect Tardis it's dead simple to simply pop the bag into a polythene mailer and then send it on to a post office or final hotel. I've done this a number of times. Seems a lot easier to me than trailing round bike shops who might or might not have a bag that might or might not be suitable.