How pickthetrain works
pickthetrain lists every direct train that crosses a border in Europe: high-speed, intercity and night trains that take you from a city in one country to a city in another without changing trains.
Where the times come from
Only from official, openly published timetables (GTFS/NeTEx), never from scraping booking sites. National timetables usually stop at their own border, so a Zurich–Milan EuroCity is half in the Swiss data and half in the Italian data. We join the halves only on strong evidence: the same train number, the same stations at the same times, or a single, unambiguous hand-over at the border station, and we reject anything that would need an impossible speed.
The times on the site cover 28 Sep – 25 Oct 2026 (updated 2026-09-29). Timetables change, especially in December and during engineering works, so always check with the operator before you travel: every train links to its operator's own site.
Door to door
For each route we compare the fastest direct train with the fastest nonstop flight, door to door: getting to the station or airport (typical public-transport times, estimates), 10 minutes before a train (60 for Eurostar, which has check-in and passport control), 1h30 check-in and security before a flight (2h to or from the UK), a typical flight time for the distance, 20 minutes to get out after landing (35 from a non-Schengen flight), then into town. Nonstop flights come from picktheflight.com. No prices yet.
Not in open data yet
A few direct trains run through countries or sections that no open timetable covers yet (for example ÖBB and DB trains on their Italian sections, or through Hungary). We show those clearly labelled, with a link to the operator's timetable and no invented times:
- Munich ↔ Venice: DB / ÖBB railjet Munich – Venice, ÖBB (checked 29 Sep 2026)
- Vienna ↔ Venice: ÖBB Railjet Vienna – Venice, ÖBB (checked 29 Sep 2026)
- Munich ↔ Budapest: ÖBB Railjet Xpress Munich – Budapest, ÖBB (checked 29 Sep 2026)
- Munich ↔ Prague: alex Munich – Prague, Die Länderbahn (alex) (checked 29 Sep 2026)
- Zurich ↔ Budapest: EuroNight Zurich – Budapest, ÖBB Nightjet (checked 29 Sep 2026)
- Zurich ↔ Zagreb: EuroNight Zurich – Zagreb, ÖBB Nightjet (checked 29 Sep 2026)
- Zurich ↔ Graz: EuroCity 163/164 Transalpin Zurich – Graz, ÖBB / SBB (checked 29 Sep 2026)
- Zurich ↔ Stuttgart: Intercity Zurich – Stuttgart, Deutsche Bahn / SBB (checked 29 Sep 2026)
Sources and licences
| Source | What | Licence |
|---|---|---|
| SNCF (transport.data.gouv.fr) | TGV INOUI, OUIGO, Lyria, Intercités, TER | ODbL 1.0 |
| Eurostar (transport.data.gouv.fr) | Eurostar | Licence Ouverte 2.0 |
| Renfe France, Trenitalia France (transport.data.gouv.fr) | AVE France–Spain, Frecciarossa Paris–Milan | Licence Ouverte / ODbL (French NAP) |
| DELFI (opendata-oepnv.de) | Germany: every train, incl. DB long-distance and international | CC BY 4.0 |
| DB via gtfs.de | German long-distance and regional | CC BY 4.0 |
| ÖBB (data.oebb.at) | Austria | CC BY 4.0 |
| SBB / opentransportdata.swiss | Switzerland | opentransportdata.swiss terms of use (attribution, kept up to date) |
| SNCB/NMBS | Belgium | SNCB re-use licence |
| OVapi | Netherlands | CC0 |
| Trenitalia via github.com/deryclem/trenitalia-gtfs | Italy (from Trenitalia's official NeTEx on Italy's NAP) | CC BY 4.0 |
| STA Südtirol / Alto Adige | South Tyrol incl. Brenner EuroCity | CC0 |
| Renfe (data.renfe.com) | Spain long-distance | CC BY 4.0 |
| CZPTT via Oběhy / JrUtil | Czechia (Správa železnic CIS JŘ) | CC0 |
| ŽSR (Slovak national open-data catalogue) | Slovakia | Slovak open data |
| PKP PLK via mkuran.pl | Poland | Data: PKP PLK · GTFS: Mikołaj Kuranowski |
| Slovenia NAP (via derp-si generators) | Slovenia (SŽ) | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
| HŽ Putnički prijevoz | Croatia | Published by HŽPP for public use |
| Rejseplanen | Denmark and Øresund trains | CC BY 4.0 |
| Entur (Vy, SJ Norge) | Norway | NLOD |
| European Sleeper, FlixTrain | Their trains | ODbL 1.0 |
| picktheflight.com (Wikipedia) | Which nonstop flights exist | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
| Natural Earth | Map outlines | Public domain |
The combined timetable data we publish (the site and the API) is available under the ODbL 1.0, because it includes SNCF's ODbL data, with attribution to the sources above.
Who runs this
pickthetrain is run by Goldcote Ltd. No ads, no affiliate links, no cookies. Questions or a train we got wrong: [email protected].