Leipzig Travel Forum

Hello everyone!
I'm going to live in Leipzig next semester and I'm schedule my flights so I wanted to know if anyone could give me some help on the cheaper way to get to Leipzig from Frankfurt or from Berlin. I've heard that from Berlin there are some specials trains that pass on Leipzig and are cheaper. Does anyone know about them? :) And if you do, can you please give me the name of the company so I can check the prices and schedule online?
Thank you very much!
Best Regards,
Maria

See; www.bahn.de. It's the web site of the German railway company.

The English pages are here:

http://www.bahn.de/p/view/international/englisch/international_guests.shtml

The site will give you train times/route details and fares.

There is no private company operating railway services in Germany, so you will only get tickets and connections from Deutsche Bahn, via the website www.bahn.de

Probably you refer to the cheap tickets with which you can travel a day in the German states, like the Bavaria Ticket, Baden-Württemberg-Ticket, etc. With those regional tickets you can travel on regional trains, and a single ticket costs 19 Euro in most states.

However, from Berlin to Leipzig you travel through two such states, Berlin/Brandenburg and Saxony (Sachsen), so you would need two such tickets. Saxony costs 19 Euro, Berlin/Brandenburg 26 (night 19), so 45 in total.

This is always dearer than to buy a regular train ticket which you can even use on the ICE, the highspeed train. If you book well in advance this costs 29 Euro. The normal price is 40 Euro.

Another option would be - if you travel on a weekend - to get a "Schönes Wochenende" (Beautiful Weekend) ticket. This costs 35 Euro, and you can criss cross Germany on regional trains.

But now comes the big NO NO: I have checked slow regional connections from Berlin to Leipzig but got only ICE connections during the day, and a trip on the night train would take more than 6 hours because you would be stuck in a place named Calau, wherever this is LOL And it would cost from 33 to 39 Euro.

So you see, the ICE ticket booked in advance is clearly the best and cheapest option.

There are local trains from Berlin to Leipzig at 17 minutes past the hour throughout the day, but the cost is almost the same as the 29 Euro special for the fast ones.(28,30 Euro). The only advantage of the local trains is that the ticket does not tie you to one specific train, as the special does. The special ticket is only valid in the train you booked it for.

If you decide to fly into Frankfurt, absolutely book the direct ICE, since from there local trains take about seven hours, with a couple of changes involved.

Where do you find those local trains from Berlin to Leipzig? And what is the name? (Did not get them on the www.bahn.de website and found this insane info about the 6 hour trips)

www.bahn.de
Choose "local transport only" for means of transport and you'll see the local trains. They are regular RE and RB trains.

Vielen Dank, Christine!

But what a rubbish programme! I think I can expect all kinds of connections including the regional trains if I take the tick off "Schnelle Verbindungen bevorzugt".

The same thing works on the:

http://www.bahn.de/p/view/international/englisch/international_guests.shtml

page if you uncheck the 'prefer fast connections' box. Then all alternatives will be shown.

I don't think that is unreasonable: the vast majority of travellers prefer to take the faster toute when travelling by train and it makes sense for the box to be pre-checked. There would be grounds for criticism if slower options were not shown at all, but I have not found this to be the case.

That is exactly what I had done. I had ticked off the "Prefer fast connections" box and only got the ICE's from Berlin to Leipzig, plus the two six hour trips at night. The same problem with Munich to Nürnberg. Only when I selected "Only local trains" instead of standard search I got the RE and RB.

That is why I complained ;-) If I "prefer fast connections" it is clear that I do not get the local trains.

How odd.

I got the local trains.

Weird.

Yes, very strange. But I am not the only one who had/has this problem. Another VT member asked the same question about a trip from Munich to Nürnberg, and the same happened. Only when the standard search was replaced by "only local trains" you got RB and RE connections.

Wonder if it's a cookie-related thing?

This is just a guess: Maybe it depends on how many trains are going to a particular destination per hour? Only a certain number of trains are shown, and if there are more, the local ones are not shown. As far as I know bahn.de is run by DB, which operates the fast trains, while the local trains belong to a different company, so the site shows their own trains first.
But as I said, just a guess.

Could well be. I always use the 'earlier/later' thing anyway, so perhaps that's when it shows too?

Very good guess, Christine :-)