Check the price carefully - if it is contains also your ticket and not only the motocycle transport.
I done once Livigno Vienna and experienced that..... bought my ticket on the train....

I looked at the site a while ago and that is how it came across to me: logical really, because booking a vehicle onto the train does not inform the train operating company how many passengers will be with that vehicle (up to two with a motorcycle and even more of a variable with a car).
Then there are the various passsenger accommodation options on offer.

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Dave

I'll be using the Dusseldorf - Vienna service next weekend, I'm only on the road for a couple of weeks so I'll report back when I return, I'll take a few pics of the bunks etc.

The last time I was on a European sleeper train was 15 years ago on a Euro backpacking trip and it was comfy and civilised enough back then. I remember bumping into a couple of students from Leeds on the platform in Vienna, one of the lads showed me a map and pointed at Wien and then asked me if I knew how to get from Wien to Vienna, he said they'd been studying the map for hours and couldn't find it.

Oh yes, I know that problem - on my first ever trip out of the UK I was driving a minibus down to Innsbruck with somebody map reading for me in the passenger seat. At one point I asked him "how much further to Munich?" and got the answer "dunno, but we've just gone past some place called Munchen".

Hi Ben,


Just wondered how your adventure on the above train went, I'm thinking of doing the same next year as I'm doing Croatia and beyond for 3 weeks and don't want to spend 6 or 7 days of that traveling to croatia before I even start exploring.
Went to slovenia this year after we had booked the autozug or which ever company, it then went tits up so had to do 2400 miles before again exploring slovenia.
It was a ball ache.
Cheers

Jules

Yeah good point, its well over due, come on Benny, spill the beans

Wayne

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The Balkans
https://new.horizonsunlimited.com/poi_entity/8417

Hi chums, my apologies, I've been back a couple of weeks but was immediately ordered to start re-decorating so time has been slim.

So, the Autozug. It was an OK experience and I would use it again. We arrived at Dusseldorf and found the area where the vehicles are loaded onto the train, we got there early so we just parked the bike up and went for a wander around, there are a few bars/restaurants within a short walk so no worries there.

I took my Yamaha Super Tenere 1200 which is a fairly tall bike, the car carriage isn't that tall so my face was literally pressed against the tank trying to get the beast on the carriage, but it's easy done, just take your time (or take a small bike). They have employees who will secure your bike on the carriage.

Once on the train, we had two bunks in a 4 berth cabin, we were lucky enough to share the cabin with another biker couple from Germany who had the foresight to pack a backpack loaded with red wine which they duly shared until it was all gone. So for me, I had a good nights sleep.

You are provided with a sheet, a blanket and a small pillow, in the morning you get a small breakfast of 2 bread rolls, coffee, butter and jam - included in the ticket. As you board at the German end, they check over your bike to make sure it is not damaged etc. before you load it on, this didn't happen at the Austrian end on the return journey for some reason.

I left all of my luggage on the bike including my tank bag and everything was fine, I had a set of wind deflectors fitted on my fairing but one of these was missing after the trip from Vienna to Dusseldorf, they are fitted with rubber bungs rather than bolts so I'm guessing it was ripped off somewhere along the way by the wind? So make sure any bags etc. are tightly secured if you are going to leave them on your bike.

I booked my ticket on-line, but at Vienna we met an English couple who had phoned up and managed to book a 2 berth cabin, they only paid about £40 more than us and got free champagne, free tea and coffee, a wash basin in their cabin and free bloody slippers!. So it might be worth calling them to see what deal you can get rather than booking online?

It's easy enough to find the Autozug terminal at Dusseldorf, it looks like it's been there a long time, probably used for the now defunct German DB autozug. However, the autozug terminal in Vienna IS NOT at the main train station (Westbahnhof), all of the other bikers we spoke to on the train had turned up at the main station, one couple had even missed the train the day before because they couldn't find the terminal. Access to the newly built terminal is off a road called 'Gudrunstrabe', it's clearly marked on Google maps so I'm not sure why people had such a problem finding it.

So yeah, I'd recommend it. It's not the most luxurious way to travel but I reckon it saved me four days of motorway boredom and I'll likely use it again next year (if they continue the service).