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Quite a few countries (France, Spain, Italy for starters) require seat reservations in advance for any long-distance/high-speed trains now. And worse, they have a quota for passes, so even if the train has space, you might not be able to reserve a seat and therefore get on the train. A real shame as it makes it far less flexible than before.

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For France, Spain, and Italy, only the inter-country and the high speed rails (TGV, Renfe, Iryo, Frecciarossa etc) require reservation?

In Switzerland, some of the touristy intra-country routes (ex: Tirano-Chur, Interlaken-Lucerne) may require (a rather expensive) reservation.

For Switzerland, that's only true for the special tourist train panoramic carriages on the route, there are normal trains running on the same routes, too, that don't require reservations.

In France, some destinations are served only by TGV. In Italy, taking local trains can take an eternity.

but with interrail the "useful" thing was to travel overnight, because that saves you one night of $$ for loding, so slow is actually fine.

I don't think fast trains (TGV, Frecciarossa etc) were ever covered by the interrail ticket anyway, were they?

They are covered, but you need a surcharge or a seat reservation, or both.

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