Countries where you can purchase a ticket between any two stations in that country.

Which countries (in Mainland Europe or anywhere else around the world) currently allow you to purchase a ticket from any station in the country to any station in the country just like we offer here in the UK and Ireland? I know that this is one of the good things about our ticketing system and not all other countries offer this so i am just wondering in which other countries you can purchase a Single or Return ticket between any two stations in that country?

The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, possibly (not sure) Austria, Switzerland and Slovakia.

By the way: Aren't there some stations in Great Britain where you can't get a ticket between (e.g. the Catfords)?

Finland, though some of the routing will ensure that you use the Helsinki commuter trains, but you *could* purchase a main line ticket, eg: Helsinki-Pasila/Tikkurila

Spoorslag '70 said:

The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, possibly (not sure) Austria, Switzerland and Slovakia.

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Interestingly, I once bought a standard single from Terborg, Gelderland to Venlo via Arnhem and Nijmegen, however the ticket didn't work Arriva's poortjes, even though the Terborg-Arnhem and Nijmegen-Venlo parts could only be done on an Arriva train. I don't really know what was wrong but it was certainly odd

What ticket routings ? In the UK we have valid routes , are you able to do that in Europe?

user1234 said:

Which countries (in Mainland Europe or anywhere else around the world) currently allow you to purchase a ticket from any station in the country to any station in the country just like we offer here in the UK and Ireland? I know that this is one of the good things about our ticketing system and not all other countries offer this so i am just wondering in which other countries you can purchase a Single or Return ticket between any two stations in that country?

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I think you need to clarify your question.

Firstly as mentioned by others, at least on Great Britain there are some station pairs between which it is not possible to purchase a ticket, because no fare is defined and/or it would not make sense to take a train between those stations.

If it does make sense to take a train, then surely it must be possible to buy some sort of ticket or possibly two or more tickets. As we know in Great Britain buying two tickets still comprises one journey but this may not be the case elsewhere - does your question refer to this?

Next, what sort of trains are we talking about? In Australia you can't buy a ticket from Liverpool to Sunbury because that would involve 3 different "systems" (Sydney Trains, NSW Trainlink, Metro Melbourne) but a similar journey in the UK might be Cockfosters to Ibrox, a journey for which one would not expect to buy a single ticket. Yet it is generally possible to do the equivalent in Germany (you can get a ticket from some random tram stop to a random bus stop in another city, involving several local services and an ICE).

Or are you referring to a country like Japan where there are several competing railways that run on broadly adjacent routes, and they don't sell tickets to stations outside their network?

Thank you all for the info. Interesting to hear which other countries offer this. I suppose i meant countries that you can buy a ticket from any mainline railway station to any mainline railway station. Obviously i accept that some stations that are right next to each other (like we have Catford and Catford Bridge or St Budeaux Ferry Road and St Budeaux Victoria Road here in the UK) won't sell tickets between them so i am still including countries that have a few small exceptions like this. Also if it is possible to buy tickets between any bus/tram/metro stations or stops and any mainline railway station then i am certainly interested to hear about that as well. I just know there are some countries which have different networks and you can't buy one ticket between different stations in two different areas of the country. So i suppose i am interested to hear about countries that have a similar system to the UK allowing you to purchase tickets between any two mainline railway stations.

route101 said:

What ticket routings ? In the UK we have valid routes , are you able to do that in Europe?

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Germany has a not totally dissimilar system but the route is printed on the ticket as a kind of mathematical "Cartesian product", which defines boundaries (Raumbegrenzung) within which you can do what you wish.

Example: ABC * (DEF / GHI) * JKL would mean you must travel via ABC then via any route located between that via DEF and GHI, then via JKL.

user1234 said:

Which countries (in Mainland Europe or anywhere else around the world) currently allow you to purchase a ticket from any station in the country to any station in the country just like we offer here in the UK and Ireland?

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There are many station pairs in the UK between which it is not possible to buy a point to point ticket. These are not just things like St Budeaux, but station pairings which are perfectly sensible such as South Milford to Scarborough - there was a long thread about it in the Fares section.

user1234 said:

Also if it is possible to buy tickets between any bus/tram/metro stations or stops and any mainline railway station then i am certainly interested to hear about that as well.

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I do not know if you can buy a ticket to any station, but in Sweden you can buy a ticket when boarding at any stop on many bus routes which includes lengthy onward connecting journeys by rail.

In southern Sweden, at least, on local buses you can also purchase an international ticket to Copenhagen (and elsewhere in Denmark) which will cover the complete bus/rail/ferry/rail journey.

One thing that has surprised me is that in Estonia / Latvia / Lithuania you can't even purchase a ticket between any two stations despite them all being small countries. You can only purchase tickets between two places that have direct trains. So most journeys that involve changing trains in Tallinn / Riga / Vilnius will require you to purchase two separate tickets.

In DK its much easier-you can even buy tickets from any zone to any zone, using train+additonal bus.
In most of non-mentioned countries (and thats the main caveat) its quite possible to buy any asked for pair of stations, but any train used will be on a separate ticket, mostly also without any discount.
Oh-and for yawners-not that long ago due to the TCV/SCIC it was even possible to just step into a station wit INTernational ticketing and ask for any ticket between any pair of main stations in countries in the system-which ran once as far as Morocco/Tunisa (with boats in between-as it dit to Uk and IE)/Iran/Soviet Union wirtren out and stapled in a cover.
The former eastern bloc had an even simpler ditto system that would run from Magdeburg to HoChiMinh in VNam-the soviet fares in rubles would be applied for any country separate and then added in total., Sleppers etc were extra.

It depends whenever the journey can be done in a single day. There aren't that many trains throughout the country so there aren't that many possibilities. Most require being bought on a physical ticket office to get every single required journey onto a single paper.

user1234 said:

One thing that has surprised me is that in Estonia / Latvia / Lithuania you can't even purchase a ticket between any two stations despite them all being small countries. You can only purchase tickets between two places that have direct trains. So most journeys that involve changing trains in Tallinn / Riga / Vilnius will require you to purchase two separate tickets.

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That was the norm for the Soviet Union - and still is in some or all of its component parts.

vlad said:

That was the norm for the Soviet Union - and still is in some or all of its component parts.

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It is in many countries, even those with nationalised networks. In Thailand and Malaysia, for example, there is no network ticketing - you buy separate tickets for each train you wish to use. And that seems also to be the root of how ATOC/RDG would like the UK to go, albeit with a stack of "tickets" potentially issued on one bit of card.

dutchflyer said:

In DK its much easier-you can even buy tickets from any zone to any zone, using train+additonal bus.
In most of non-mentioned countries (and thats the main caveat) its quite possible to buy any asked for pair of stations, .

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Similarly in Switzerland.

Many fares are now covered by zonal local tariff areas, and increasingly also nationally with the Saver day pass being a rover ticket that can be as cheap as a point to point ticket