Interrail, a rail pass that gives unlimited mainline rail travel across Europe can also be used on the new Elizabeth line, even though Interrail tickets are not accepted on the rest of the London Underground.

The Interrail Pass is a single train pass that lets you travel as much as you want on participating European train networks. It’s mainly for national mainline railways, and in the UK, that’s the national rail services, Eurostar, the Caledonian Sleeper, and as it turns out, the Elizabeth line.

For example, someone arriving in London on the Eurostar and needing to get to Paddington can’t use the Interrail ticket to use the London Underground, but could use the ticket on the Thameslink mainline rail service to go one stop to Farringdon and swap on to the Elizabeth line to Paddington.

A TfL freedom of information response confirmed there is a procedure to use before the Interrail ticket can be used – and passengers “must visit a ticket office where the first and last days of validity must be completed in full, the passport number must be recorded on the pass, and a station stamp must be stamped in the date validation box to confirm the dates the pass can be used, which is all completed by the ticket office colleague.”

It was flagged as an issue as not all staff are familiar with Interrail tickets, probably because London Underground staff would have rarely seen them before the Elizabeth line opened. London Overground might have been more familiar with them, as the Overground accepts them, but the Elizabeth line mainly connects with tube stations.

As a rail pass, for people travelling around, it’s a very good way of using the trains with hop-on/hop-off services and can be quite affordable. For example, a pass allowing 5 days of travel in a month across the entire 33 countries is just EUR282 — and if you’re aged 12-27, then it’s just EUR212.

Interrail is aimed at people travelling abroad, so it can’t be used to travel within the UK except for the Eurostar to get to the European mainland.

Interrail was not affected by Brexit, as it’s a wider scheme that covers more countries than are in the EU.