What are the relevant passenger rights in case of international train travel in Europe?

Question

What are the relevant passenger rights in case of international train travel in Europe? In my experience, railway carriers are often quite poor at informing travellers of their rights; people believe those rights depend on the flexibility of the ticket, but it does not depend on ticket type. The rights can not be signed away.

I am aware of the following two documents:

• COTIF CIV, Uniform Rules concerning the Contract of International Carriage of Passengers by Rail (CIV), in any of the COTIF CIV signatories

• REGULATION (EC) No 1371/2007 OF THE EUROPEAN - EUR-Lex inside the European Union (and probably some other countries like Switzerland, Norway, ...).

In addition, surely each country and each carrier has its own regulations, but do any other relevant international treaties exist within Europe?

Answer 1

Since I got an answer to my inquiry to eurail/interrail and it is too long to post in a comment I will put it here as an answer:

Thank you for your email to Eurail.Com Customer Service. Yes, as a rail passenger, you are entitled to several rights according to the European Union Law.

You can find more information on the page of the European Commission: http://ec.europa.eu/transport/passenger-rights/en/13-rail.html

You can also find the European Union regulations on: http://ec.europa.eu/transport/themes/passengers/rail/

Since the Eurail Pass entitles you to use the train in Europe, you are of course protected by the EU law when you will be traveling with your Eurail Pass.

I believe this boils down to the same regulations and rules that was stated in the original question, but I did not have time to go through it all to make sure. However I do find the links provided by the eurail/interrail customer service to be a lot easier to read than the actual regulation texts, which is why I have posted them here.

Also note that the first link also has maritime and air travel rights information.