London to L'Argentiere les Ecrins

Great, thanks Elliot

You're right, we didn't have the regional train to L'Argentiere les Ecrins in our system. This is because the location wasn't recognised by our ticketing partner Rail Europe.

Variations of spelling/different names for stations and towns are a common problem for small towns but I have been able to fix this one. The station is called L'Argentiere les Ecrins, but the town is called L'Argentière-la-Bessée. On the system, for no good reason, this is listed as 'l'argentiere l.bess' which was making it particularly difficult to geocode for our train maps.

I have now added this location to the system.

Some ideas for your journey:

London to Briançon by Eurostar and TGV by day

There are a couple of ways to do this, via Paris or Lille by Eurostar and then to Valence (as you already worked out). The train map below shows both options. An early morning departure from London can get you to Briançon in time for dinner.

From Briançon to L'Argentiere les Ecrins there are several services during the day according to Deutsche Bahn which remains the most reliable train timetable online. But some of them appear to be buses, and the last service of the day, which passes through at 20.28, is an NZ - a Nachtzug sleeper train coming from further afield. I don't know if walk-on passengers are permitted.

This isn't a perfect solution but Briançon is only 5km away from L'Argentiere les Ecrins which isn't too bad, so worst case perhaps a taxi?

London to L'Argentière-la-Bessée by Eurostar and Lunea night train

There is also an option to travel by Eurostar to Paris, change to Austerlitz and then hop on the Lunea night train to L'Argentiere les Ecrins/L'Argentière-la-Bessée.

Hopefully one of these might work for you. The routes I've shown are for random dates in the future. Booking further ahead will probably yield cheaper tickets. Thank you so much for alerting us to the location issue. Always fantastic when people take the time to point out problems, especially if we can fix them!

Thanks again Kate. All booked and actually managed to get a sleeper down on a Monday night (23 July).

London. Not fussed about whether or not I go through Paris and have to take the metro from Gare du Nord to Gare de Lyon or wherever. Also happy to do a sleeper if there are no changes between Paris and L'Argentiere les Ecrins.

Hi Elliot,

Where is your starting point?

[Editor's note] Kate is a big idiot. Clearly the name of the topic is London to L'Argentiere. D'oh!

Hi again Kate,

We're now looking at later dates and I've found that "tickets are not currently available for this journey" even in late Aug/early Sep:

http://loco2.com/journey/london-largentiere-la-bessee-1ji37ki

In fact, moving the dates back I've found this is true even in July. Think the problem was I was searching for evening departures. Switching to noon departures I can only go as far forward as late Aug though. Is this right?

Thanks Kate, very helpful as usual. For the dates I had in mind the train to Briançon also stops at L'Argentiere so I'll probably take that and do the sleeper thing. Looks good.

Hi Elliot again,

I've looked into it and found that the sleeper train doesn't run everyday. From the 12th July until 1st of September it's running Thursday to Saturdays, but not on Thurs 30th or Fri 31th of Aug or Thursday 1st Nov. That would explain why you're not having any luck on the 28th sadly.

Looking around for alternatives the closest I found was Sat 25th.

London to L'argentiere sleeper train

Annoyingly for dates after you'll be looking at the following week (because there is no service on Thurs 30th or Fri 31th of Aug). This is due to scheduled engineering work. So perhaps you will be forced to travel during the day after all. Sorry it's not easy Elliot! Believe us when we say we want it to be better!

Hey Elliot,

On a Monday? That is a surprise. Not a day goes by that we don't find a new idiosyncrasy in the European train timetables. Oh well, I'm pleased you found what you were looking for in the end. :-)