Interrail Diary

oldtrvller · 30 Jun 2017

I have just returned from Germany where I was using a 1st class one-country pass. I found that although the Calendar was date-stamped on the first trip, in most case the Diary was not even looked at let alone date-stamped!
For DB and DB-Regio trains the following happened.
ICE/IC -out of all journeys in only 3 cases was the calendar looked at and even in 1 of those it was not stamped.
RE/RB/S-bahn - In most cases the Ticket was not checked and in all cases the calendar was not even looked at.
For the "independents" (Abellio, Euregio, HsL and others) the ticket was checked about 75% of the time but the Diary never looked at.
Has anybody else experienced this in Germany or any other country? It makes me wonder about the use of the Diary if it is never checked.

Chris

RailUK Forums

Quakkerillo · 30 Jun 2017

Used Interrail to Croatia (twice, once via Austria, once via Italy), to Italy via Switzerland, to Hungary, and 3 times in the UK.
UK never date-stamps anything, and half the staff don't recognise the ticket easily, although after some quick checking, do accept it.
Continental, always been date-stamped on the ticket. Out of about 30 inspections, only 5 actually looked at the calendar, and only ever once (in Slovenia) did it get stamped. On that same journey, the employee forced people of another group of interrailers to write down their itinerary while she waited.

So yes, hardly ever looked at, but it is technically enforcable. Mostly used to check if the dates you wrote down match up with your journey. Changing " 6/7 "for July 6 into "8/7" or "16/7" becomes more challenging if you also had to write down the previous journeys on the diary. So some may only check the diary if they have doubts about the truthfulness of the dates in the front (i.e. if it looks like it's been altered)

eastwestdivide · 30 Jun 2017

Using a Benelux pass last week, Belgian staff mostly stamped the date against each train in the right column of the calendar, the Dutch only once. Every day on the actual ticket was stamped though.
Moreover, Eurostar were content with the automated gate scan of the Eurostar supplementary print-at-home ticket, and didn't look at the actual Interrail pass at all, outward or back.

Capybara · 30 Jun 2017

The experiences of the OP are normal, particularly in Germany. Looking at my most recent trip which was mostly in Germany my ticket was stamped in the travel diary only three times, of which two were the ICE journeys to and from Brussels. Rarer still are passport checks of which I've had only a handful in several years of travelling, and only once on DB in literally hundreds of journeys.

dutchflyer · 30 Jun 2017

Have used IR on an about yearly base the last 10-12 yrs, mostly the global pass, for varying nr of traveldays.
The last time (travelling UK-BE-FR-DE-CH-AT-CZ-SK-HU, from NL, my home) the travel-report was NEVER checked at all. From previous uses this was also quite rare (though the dates written on it always were), check of ID was just once last time (clearly from a German couple mentor learning junior-but even there the report was not pointed at).
FOund out that the use of the new Aztec-code for NL (to open the gates if there, 1 return trip in home-country now allowed) did work, for about 1 month from first use (=i.e. much longer as the pass itself was valid).
same-same reports from the ''official'' and best forum for new youngish IR-users: on rail.cc (run by Peter and Flo-also go there for specific info on countries/trains and how to avoid rip-off extra fees).

dutchflyer · 30 Jun 2017

Some more to it:
use in the UK-report never checked, but date was and staff generally seemed to know about it, also at gates.
Note that in German railforums and that rail.cc there are stern warnings about HUngary-often even nicknamed MAVia, as there have been several and continuous reports that conductors there ''fine'' (and pocket the takings themselves) for not writing down the exact trip in the report!

duesselmartin · 30 Jun 2017

What is the point of that diary?

30907 · 30 Jun 2017

duesselmartin said:
What is the point of that diary?

In theory, it is (or was, in 1972) to enable the allocation of revenue between the different UIC member railways. Do you still get money back for handing it in?

On the topic, back then it was certainly checked and I had a couple of entries disputed - but it was a novelty then AND I was doing complicated stuff. Last time I had one about 10 years ago nobody seemed terribly bothered.

oldtrvller · 1 Jul 2017

I first bought the Germany Inter-rail ticket in 2014 and I remember there was no Diary to be filled in. The following year the Diary appeared and I remember querying it with the Inter-rail people but just getting a stock response which if I remember was just that it was now necessary to be filled in - no reason given.
I can understand the reasoning behind the All Country ticket needing a Diary but not the single country ticket.
In fact for the next 2 years (2015 and 2016) I didn't fill it in and was never asked for it to be filled in!

Chris

eastwestdivide · 1 Jul 2017

30907 said:
In theory, it is (or was, in 1972) to enable the allocation of revenue between the different UIC member railways. Do you still get money back for handing it in?
...

You get a little present - e.g. an Interrail-branded notepad and pen - if you send in the travel diary afterwards.

317666 · 1 Jul 2017

oldtrvller said:
I first bought the Germany Inter-rail ticket in 2014 and I remember there was no Diary to be filled in. The following year the Diary appeared and I remember querying it with the Inter-rail people but just getting a stock response which if I remember was just that it was now necessary to be filled in - no reason given.
I can understand the reasoning behind the All Country ticket needing a Diary but not the single country ticket.
In fact for the next 2 years (2015 and 2016) I didn't fill it in and was never asked for it to be filled in!

Chris

I also first started InterRailing in 2014 and was surprised to find the travel diary appear for my first of 2015! Saying that I've always filled it in to be on the safe side, although I find that no matter what country (I've InterRailed in BeNeLux, Germany, Austria and Switzerland) it very rarely gets checked. I did have one SBB guard who looked at the whole thing, shook his head and said "My colleagues have done a very, very bad job!".

Soyyo · 28 Feb 2019

Have just purchased my first global Interrail (15 days in 2 months) for use mostly in the UK (I live in Spain). Does anyone know the current status of the travel diary, and whether it is considered important to fill in before starting every journey? I often like to travel in a flexible manner, with have no idea where I will alight when boarding a specific train. For example, travelling from Liverpool to Newcastle I might decide to change at York, or even get off at Leeds or Durham having changed my mind altogether. Is the ticket itself like a rover where you need to fill in a date before boarding your first train on each day?

rg177 · 28 Feb 2019

In my experience I found that:

Belgium, Slovenia, Slovakia, Czechia, Germany, Austria, Switzerland would often clip it. Slovakia often wrote in details by hand.

Netherlands, Luxembourg, Sweden, Spain, France weren't overly bothered.

Hungary gets a special mention for staff clipping the ticket repeatedly, and one even trying the rip the ticket from the travel diary. Others looked at the ticket in disdain, and some didn't have a clue what it was!

Journeys on my part are always written down at the earliest opportunity to avoid trouble.

blackfive460 · 1 Mar 2019

Yes, it is a requirement to fill in a date box before starting your first journey. Not to do so risks having the ticket taken from you!
As regards filling in the travel diary; while I've made much use of Interrail around Europe, being a UK citizen I can't really comment on how seriously it is taken in the UK since UK residents can only use it in their own country on the first and last days of validity to get to and from the border. You might get better information on this aspect by asking on an international travel forum.

Quakkerillo · 1 Mar 2019

I've used interrail in the UK for about 5 years now. No member of staff *anywhere* has ever looked at the travel diary. As long as the correct date is filled in, they'll accept it. And unlike elsewhere in Europe, it doesn't even get stamped! It's really the most lax/relaxed acceptance I've seen anywhere on the Interrail scheme.
I'm not telling you to not write anything down, as technically it is obligatory. But I certainly haven't done so in the UK myself.

Capybara · 1 Mar 2019

blackfive460 has just said most of what I was about to say. The important thing is the date box as this prevents you from using the ticket on more days than it is valid for. As for the travel diary, I always fill it in before, or immediately after, boarding so that there can be no argument. Coincidentally, I was in a similar position earlier this week when travelling back from Germany through Belgium. When I boarded the train I hadn't yet decided whether to continue through to Brussels or get off at Leuven. So I filled it in as a journey to Leuven on the basis that if I decided to stay on to Brussels I could simply add the Leuven to Brussels leg when I got to Leuven. Common sense says that if you've filled in a journey from, say, Liverpool to Newcastle but get off at York, then all you need to do is fill in your next journey from York as that is what will be checked when you are on the train. But, having said that, like blackfive I've never used an Interrail ticket in the UK so can't say how strictly it might be enforced here. You could possibly ask the experts on the fares area of this site, or ask Interrail themselves. But, the really important bit is that you fill in the date box before you start travelling.

As an aside, I've just read my post on here from 2017 where I said passport checks have been rare in my experience. My recent 5-day trip had three passport checks, including two in Germany.

edit: see Quakkerillo's post.

Capybara · 1 Mar 2019

And just to add, as I advocate filling in the diary, if you envisage taking lots of journeys, take a couple of spare diary sheets with you as the one attached to the ticket will soon fill up.

DaiGog · 1 Mar 2019

It is supposedly to help with revenue allocation, as mentioned above. However, the fact that it depends entirely on whether the user returns it makes something of a mockery of it. They would receive far more of them after use if they put say £20 on the ticket price, and refunded the £20 on receipt of the travel diary.

MisterT · 1 Mar 2019

I've used the interrail pass a few weeks ago for a last minute trip. A bit to my surprise, on almost every train, the travel diary was checked and stamped. On one of the trains there was a woman with an interrail pass too, and she hadn't filled in the diary, and she even got a warning that she should fill in the diary.

317666 · 1 Mar 2019

It'd be great if you could get the InterRail as an e-ticket on the app, you could even fill out the journeys on it and it'd be sent directly to their database. When using the Swiss Pass in Switzerland it's so much more convenient to just open it on the SBB app for inspections rather than having to fish it out your rucksack, make sure it's got the journey written in and so on!

dutchflyer · 4 Mar 2019

Since some years the SwissPASS is the nation-wide chipcard holding seasons.
The swiss holiday pass does not need to fill out any diary-its just a show on demand ticket-but of course for the version x days in y days of use must be noted. Probably you mean the Interrail 1 country for Switzerland? In fact, if you can preplan , its often cheaper and gives much more use (also all local buses and more local tiny railways) top order online the sparpreistagestickets.
In NL conductors on local lines do not even have stamping things anymore-due to that chipcard. Only on the INTernational trains (officially done by NS-INTernational-they have usually much better educated staff) they still do for obvious reasons.
Having used some type of IR at least once the last 5-6 yrs it seems to differ by country. And HU/MAV is very often noted as MAVia for trials to extinct money/assumed ''fines'' for about anything they can find to do so.
The most nasty aspect i find is the need to get special franchise tickets for gates in FR/Paris area, and PT-Lisboa area, where there are often no staff at all, also for RENFE/cercanias.

rg177 · 4 Mar 2019

Yes I found that only Cercanias in Madrid knew what to do with the tickets.

Cercanias Asturias refused to give me more than one gate pass at a time and so I was frequently trapped in the system and had to donut or climb under the gates.

Staff were often rude about it and the ticket office at Oviedo laughed in my face when I said I had to force a gate as all of them were unattended. At another station, they attempted to force me to pay to get out (Trubia).

Staff on the trains, similarly, often didn't have a clue what I was showing them.

Indeed where there's gates in operation there needs to be some sort of proper system in place. Leaving passengers to visit the ticket office (Where there is one) every single time or just trapping them in the system isn't on.

tsubaki · 4 Mar 2019

MisterT said:
I've used the interrail pass a few weeks ago for a last minute trip. A bit to my surprise, on almost every train, the travel diary was checked and stamped. On one of the trains there was a woman with an interrail pass too, and she hadn't filled in the diary, and she even got a warning that she should fill in the diary.

I went travelling around the South of France last autumn, and I had a similar experience - they checked it on every train, TGV and local, even the really early in the morning ones. They didn't stamp it though, just checked that I'd written it out.

Mag_seven · 4 Mar 2019

dutchflyer said:
FR/Paris area

dutchflyer said:
PT-Lisboa area

dutchflyer said:
RENFE/cercanias

Could you explain what you mean by these terms please?

matt · 4 Mar 2019

I've used an Interrail Benelux pass the last 3 days. My ticket was stamped each day, the travel diary journey a few times and no passport check.

30907 · 4 Mar 2019

Mag_seven said:
Could you explain what you mean by these terms please?

FR, PT are standard international country codes for France and Portugal and RENFE is the Spanish rail operator whose suburban services are branded Cercanias (or Rodalies in Catalan).
Paris and Lisboa are capital cities, but I imagine you know that

Mag_seven · 4 Mar 2019

30907 said:
FR, PT are standard international country codes for France and Portugal and RENFE is the Spanish rail operator whose suburban services are branded Cercanias (or Rodalies in Catalan).
Paris and Lisboa are capital cities, but I imagine you know that

I suspected it was all connected with suburban services due to automatic gates being encountered and the difficulty in using these with Interrail passes - the poster just needed to explain that.

Requeststop · 6 Mar 2019

Being a British expat I often buy BritRail passes for my trips back home. I usually buy a first class ticket for my journeys around the country. For example my most recent visit I bought a 15 individual days ticket to be used within two months. I traveled London - Truro four times, Euston to Inverness and back on the Caledonian Sleeper (Actually I was able to travel Truro-Inverness as a single days journey but not on the reverse journey), Truro to Swansea and the Central Wales line and back to Reading via Hereford - Oxford and back to Truro, Traveled from Cornwall to Stratford on Avon and Birmingham, via Marylebone, and a tour of East Anglia amongst many others. I reckon somewhere near to 4,000 miles of rail journeys.

More often or not, my ticket was only glanced at. Passing through ticket barriers I just held up my ticket for the gates to be opened. On trains during ticket inspection I was nodded at, even though I had my passport ready for inspection. I was only pulled up once when booking a sleeper berth at Truro, being told that entering the date as say, 9/12, I should enter as 09/12, as I could refill the 9/12 later as 19/12 or 29/12. A technical thing I grant you.

I feel that the same thing must happen on Inter-rail tickets. The tickets are not inspected closely, and in many cases, at barriers, they are nodded through.

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