Founder of Railfinder – https://www.railfinder.eu @railfinder.eu
I post mainly about what we do at Railfinder, train ticketing and trains in general. Sometimes about software.
@jon A VR train has apparently physically been to Haparanda earlier this week!
Interrail reservations are now LIVE on Railfinder!
Our number one question since the start, and now we can finally say: YES, you can use Railfinder when you’re traveling with Interrail.
It’s the same search that finds good routes for any long trip across Europe, and when booking with Interrail we now automatically combine all the reservations needed for your trip, whether they are normal seat only, a supplement/pass fare, or if the train has open seating.
FINALLY might be in order :)
Today I fixed a very long-standing bug in the Railfinder algorithm that meant a small subset of connections were missed in longer journey searches. This was the type of algorithm thing that literally has been mathematically difficult to figure out, and it has taken me multiple attempts to properly isolate and fix. In the end it was an… off by one error! 🎉
If you searched on Railfinder recently and thought there might be some correct connections missing, now is the time to try again!
Today I booked my first Interrail seat reservation using @stefanlindbohm's excellent Railfinder!
Smooth experience overall, I would highly recommend it as soon as it gets out of beta!
What if Interrail reservations were available in a single booking even when travelling across operators and with both regular reservations and Interrail supplements - that would be pretty neat, right?
This is exactly what we have cooking in the Railfinder lab right now ⤵️
Let me know if you’re travelling by Interrail soon and want to test early!
Hello from the 100 years anniversary train of electrification on the Swedish west mainline!
Active loco is the very first class D 101 from the series that was ordered for these mainline services. No ETCS in sight here, two drivers are running on visual signals only (permitted up to 200 km distances in Sweden)
(WARNING: Wind noise in the video)
I almost forgot: another of these changes is that our booking fee is now refundable according to the same conditions as the ticket it is based on
Fully refunding a ticket? You’ll also get our booking fee refunded. Even if your ticket is refunded on a voucher, for example.
If you refund a portion of an order, we’ll update the booking fee based on what is still valid for travel and refund the difference.
I know there has been good discussions on this, so any remaining feedback is very welcome!
As an example of we added under the hood, we now have a system that selects different possible ticket combinations based on what is smartest to book.
For example going via Germany to Paris Est:
1: Connecting from a German station? Get a DB Sparpreis through-ticket
2: Connecting from another country via Germany? Split the ticket and get an SNCF ticket for the last leg.
3: Going direct on the TGV? SNCF ticket
This works on a similar principle with for example Switzerland, Sweden, Austria
The full range of DB tickets are available on Railfinder starting today!
Sooo much work has gone into this, including a lot of improvements under the hood to enable this and future tickets/features. Feels so good to finally be able to go live and see it all work in real life!
Grégoire