Collecting French (SNCF) "Ticket On Departure" tickets from outside of France?

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I would be very surprised if a non-SNCF machine would let you pick up the tickets, and I would doubt that there are any SNCF machines outside of France (apart from perhaps a few exceptions like the SNCF station in Basel).

Unless you are really short of time you shouldn't find yourself queueing for long or at all. At the larger stations there are a number of these machines - as an example at Lille Europe (which I use frequently) I would think that there are at least 10, let alone at a Parisian terminus station.

It is not like on the métro where there are hardly any machines.

(For reference, the machines are bright yellow, and work with a not-very-good touch screen (I find tapping repeatedly is best)).

Upvote:3

There used to be a sncf boutique in Brussels. It is now named Rail europe. You can find them at: Rail Europe, Avenue Henri Jaspar 113, 1060 Bruxelles

But can't you print your tickets at home? I haven't been travelling with the sncf for a while, but I used to travel to Paris a lot some years back, where I always downloaded and printed my tickets at home.

Upvote:3

I can see this is an old thread but I stumbled across it and wanted to explain why I think you were able to print both tickets before, but not this time.

It sounds as though you previously purchased what's called a "French Connection" fare. These are combined Eurostar+TGV tickets that are bundled together by Eurostar (Eurostar is part-owned by SNCF and consequently permitted to bundle tickets).

French Connection tickets use the same ticket collection reference (and PNR) for both portions of your journey so it is possible to print them all out from a Eurostar machine. French Connection fares are still available for sale from Eurostar among others and sometimes offer a discount on point to point tickets.

However, if you purchase a Eurostar and TGV ticket separately it will only ever be possible to print the Eurostar from one machine, and the TGV from the other. If you have two collection references then this is usually the case. As far as I am aware there are only Ticket on departure (TOD) machines in France. But I have heard that some friendly ticket office staff elsewhere in Europe have printed tickets using the PNR number as reference.

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