How can I search for French trains (only - no buses)?
I'm generally not a huge fan of rail replacement buses, and try to avoid them where possible. Recently, I've been looking at some French train travel, and bus journeys seem to keep creeping into the results.
Try as I might, I can't seem to get the usual suspects (Loco2, RailEurope / Voyages-SNCF etc) to allow me to exclude buses from my search. They all seem to take the view "if it has a SNCF number it's shown", train or bus. All the results seem to look the same until you get into the journey details, where Loco2 do at least flag up clearly that there's a bus involved, but none of them seem to let me exclude those to focus on just the pure-train results.
Is it possible to do a search online for French rail journeys, and have the options restricted to just actual trains?
Edit Just to clarify, these aren't on routes where no trains run, these are on smaller routes with multiple services per day, some of which are trains, some of which are SNCF operated buses. I wish to exclude this SNCF bus options from the results, such as in the screenshot below only having results 2 and 4 but not 1 and 3:
Best Answer
For searching train schedules across Europe in general, and in particular for such tricky requests, I always rely on the German Railways, the Deutsche Bahn.
I tried some request for a trip between Lyon and Grenoble. The standard search includes buses and there is a late bus from Lyon to Grenoble, leaving at 11.14 PM.
Now if you start a new search with more options, in the Connections category, you can choose the means of transport you accept. You can untick the bus box like in the screenshot and the result of the search will exclude the buses.
Unfortunately this is only for the schedules. If you want to buy the tickets you will have to go on voyages-sncf.com and compare the options.
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What is the difference between TGV and SNCF?
That said, the SNCF site is specific to the French National Railways. The main difference between taking a TGV and other types of train would be speed, with the TGV being the faster mode.What is a TER train in France?
SNCF's TER (Transport Express R\xe9gional) trains allow passengers to travel within a given region of France (of which there are 20 in total) at relatively low cost. TER really does comes into its own, especially if you make frequent journeys within a region as prices can start from just \u20ac2.What is the most popular mode of transportation in France?
Accounting for more than 80 percent of all passenger movement in 2016, cars are the most common mode of inland passenger transportation. Trains (railway, tram, and metro) made up for approximately 13 percent, while buses and coaches only represented 6.2 percent of modes used.Can I use Trainline in France?
Book travel across EuropeSNCF trains take you to all corners of France, as well as to international destinations like Spain and Germany. There are three major SNCF trains you can take \u2013 TGV, TER and Intercities.How To Travel France By Train | France Travel Tips | France 2022
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Answer 2
I am a bit surprised that www.voyages-sncf.com does not help you. There are two different tabs for trains and buses. If you choose the train tab, you get train results... It may be that, if there is no train that reaches your destination, he proposes as an alternative a bus. But this is not the case when train is possible.
EDIT: it seems that for your travel, he indeed proposes bus, even if it is the train tab. It is probably because of a combination of short travel, small town (Auch), in order to offer more choices. And even on my version of the interface (french), no way to disable bus offer. For longer travels, between larger cities, he should not offer you bus options.
Answer 3
The French railway network has suffered from underinvestment during the previous years and is now undergoing extensive repairs. Logically, when track repairs happen, depending on the cases, trains are delayed in the schedules or bus bridges are set up.
In your case, the line used is a "small" regional line, with no other through traffic. This line begins at Toulouse, then forks off the westwards line to Bayonne, continuing all the way to Auch which is a dead-end station. From the forking point to Auch, it is a single-track railway without overhead wires. Services are done using small diesel units.
According to the screenshot, the 4:15pm option happens when part of the line is likely closed for scheduled repairs or maintenance, or there is no train already arrived at Auch ready to go back to Toulouse at that time of the day. Railway scheduling is a science on its own, especially on a single-track line where trains in opposite directions have to cross at designated places! The same situation can happen on some similar dead-end lines.
There is no option to exclude the bus bridge options AFAIK. Just review the other times and pick the one that suits you!
Answer 4
As far as I know, Capitaine Train does train-only searches across France (and a few other countries like UK, Germany etc.).
It probably has the best UX/UI of any transport tickets purchase website too, so it should be quite pleasant to use.
Answer 5
Unfortunately, on some connections where railroads don't exist or are under repair, or when traffic would be too expensive by train, SNCF operates buses.
This is indicated on paper-based timetables but is not always transmitted to databases or taken into account by applications using these databases.
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