Currently less than 3% of British skiers travel by train to the Alps. You can reduce your CO2 emissions significantly by travelling by train, so let’s look at the three main ways you can travel to the Alps by train:
You can book your tickets direct, online or by using a specialist agency, details of which are listed below.
1. Eurostar Ski Train (direct to the Tarentaise via Lille)
The Eurostar Snow Train relaunched in December 2023, offering trains from London to the Tarentaise (Les 3 Vallees, La Plagne, Les Arcs, La Rosiere, Tignes, Val d’Isere) in France via Lille. Iain travelled on the inaugural service and you can watch his review here:
You can also listen to Iain discuss the pros and cons of the service in Episode 195 of The Ski Podcast.
2. Eurostar to Paris + Connecting Train
The Eurostar Snow Train only services certain resorts of the Tarentaise valley in France. However, it is possible to travel to many other resorts by train, by combining a Eurostar ticket to Paris with a connecting train to the nearest station to your resort.
Destinations (not an exclusive list, there are many, many options)
Thonon: Morzine, Les Gets, Avoriaz and the Portes du Soleil ski area
Toulouse: Cauterets, Ax 3 Domaines and the French Pyrenees [Listen to our podcast about this journey]
Grenoble: Alpe d’Huez, Les 2 Alpes and Serre Chevalier
Moutiers: Méribel, Courchevel, Val Thorens, Les Menuires, La Tania
Bourg St Maurice: Les Arcs, La Plagne, La Rosière, Tignes, Val d’Isère
Cluses: Flaine and La Clusaz (plus Morzine, Les Gets, Avoriaz and the Portes du Soleil ski area_
Sallanches: Megeve
Saint Gervais: Les Contamines, Chamonix
Zurich: St Anton, Engelberg, Andermatt
Geneva/Lausanne: Verbier, Crans Montana, Zermatt, Zinal-Grimentz and other Valaisan resorts
There are lots of case studies on these different journeys available on Ski Flight Free and Iain has plenty of videos to watch in this playlist.
You will need to cross Paris, but this is not complicated and can take as little as 20 minutes:
3. Eurostar to Amsterdam or Brussels + NightJet
This works by taking Eurostar to Amsterdam, or Eurostar and a slick German ‘ICE’ train to Cologne, then joining OBB’s NightJet. This serves a wide selection of Austrian ski resorts including St. Anton, Alpbach, Kitzbühel, Söll, Mayrhofen, Ischgl, Sölden, Westendorf and Zell am See-Kaprun.
The NightJet runs outbound on Fridays, reaching Austrian resorts on Saturday morning, in time for the first of two extra days on the slopes. It travels back overnight the following Saturday evening, after you’ve had a second additional full ski day (compared to a traditional week-long ski package).
Being an overnight train, there are couchette options, as well as luxury private compartments for one to three people. For more info on this, listen to Hannah from the Austrian Tourist Board talk about her experiences in Episode 176 of The Ski Podcast
4. Eurostar to Brussels + European Sleeper
This new service is very exciting. Take the Eurostar to Brussels in the afternoon and then connect to the European Sleeper service that takes you to Innsbruck in Austria then into the Sud Tirol region of Italy, allowing access to the Dolomites.
This service only went on sale in September 2024 and hasn’t operated yet, but Iain will be testing it in March 2024.
You can find out more about this service in Iain’s interview with the co-founder, Chris Englesman.
Prices
Eurostar trains to Paris are available from £39 each way, with prices increasing the later the booking is made. You can get a view of current prices here. The Eurostar Snow Train is available from £99 each way.
One of the limitations of booking SNCF tickets is that trains are only available to book 3 months in advance. It does mean that if you are organised you can get some excellent fares.
While Eurostar bookings can typically be made 5-7 months in advance, frustratingly connecting trains via SNCF are released in tranches. Typically trains from mid-December 2024 to mid-January go on sale in mid-October, and trains from mid-January to end-March go on sale in mid-November.
SNCF trains are typically available from around €100-€120 return from Paris. Sign up to OuiSNCF’s alerts for when tickets go on sale. European Sleeper tickets cost from €99 each way.
When comparing costs with flying, make sure you include travel costs to and from your UK and arrival airports, taking into account petrol, parking and transfer fees. On top of that, if you have your own skis, you must take into account ski carriage costs (they are free on the train).
Once everything is factored in, you’ll often find your point-to-point return fare from the UK will be cheaper by train.
How to Book
Direct
Both the Eurostar and SNCF websites are easy to use. My preference is to make seperate bookings on both sites as then you have more choice over connections.
Book any European Sleeper trains directly on their website.
Travelling across Paris is not difficult. You can either catch a taxi, or travel the short journey from Gare du Nord to Gare de Lyon on the Metro. If travelling from Gare d’Austerlitz, it is literally a 10 minute walk from Gare du Nord.
Specialist Websites
Our favourite is RailEurope.com. You can book point-to-point tickets from within the UK to any destination in Europe. What we particularly like is that results are quick and – even better – they are prepared to offer you shorter connections, advising you that that is the situation, but offering you alternatives, if it’s not for you.
The Trainline is a quick and useful website that works well for point to point travel to and within Europe.
Train Specialist Travel Agencies
Alternatively, if time is limited, there are a number of specialist agencies who can help arrange all your travel for you, including working out your connections.
Snow Carbon – The only ski-specialist train agency, founder Daniel Elkan is the go-to person for any advice on train travel to ski resorts. He works with a selection of tour operators. By going via his site you can select and book ski holidays with ski companies that offer train travel packages. All these packages use the Eurostar direct trains as detailed above.
Ffestiniog Travel – Experienced rail-booking agent, based in Wales.
