News from german rail (new ICE- and EC-trains announced)

Hi there,

Once again I give you a little input in the current topics of german railways. Unfortunately I don't have considerable news from other european railways. Maybe next time

Let's start with the ICE, because there we have some real news: this week the DB published a new plan to order some more ICE 4 trains in addition to the 100 12-car-trains and the 19 ones with 7 coaches. 18 additional short trains will follow, and 50 of the 100 long trains will get a 13th coach to deal with the growing demand in long-distance-traffic.

Furthermore DB will order 20 new railjet-like trains by a so far unknown producer. These "EC-Nachfolger" (EuroCity successors) will run as a fixed trainset and a locomotive. They will run e.g. between Berlin and Amsterdam and on the West Coast Line to the island Sylt, where due to the lack of electrification ICEs cannot run services. The first of this trainsets will run in 2023. The allocation of the order will be published in this or the next year, it is quite likely that Siemens with its Railjet will win the tender.

And the last big news is that the ICE 1 will live on - not with 12 but 9 coaches (the number of trainsets will be reduced from 59* to estimated 50). So in the 2020s we'll probably have:
50 ICE 1 (9 coaches, two engine end cars)
44 ICE 2 (7 coaches, one engine end car)
50 ICE 3 (8 coaches)
16 ICE 3M (8 coaches, e.g. for Frankfurt-Amsterdam-services)
17 ICE 3V (Velaro, 8 coaches, e.g. for Paris- and Brussels-services)
50 ICE 4-13 (13 coaches, on the top-lines, e.g. Hamburg - Munich, Cologne - Munich)
50 ICE 4-12 (12 coaches)
37 ICE 4-7 (7 coaches)
59 ICE T-7 (7 coaches)
11 ICE T-5 (5 coaches)
27 IC2a (5 double-deck coaches, northwestern triangle Emden-Cologne-Dresden/Leipzig and Cologne-Gera)
17 IC2b (5 double-deck coaches, southwestern lines Zurich-Stuttgart, Karlsruhe-Nuremberg)
25 IC2c (5 double-deck coaches, northeastern line Rostock-Dresde, western line Münster-Frankfurt)
20 EC-N (10 coaches)
= 473 trainsets (compared to 365 trainsets today)

The IC2 can run up to 160 km/h. It is unclear it or when more trains will follow - it depends on the cooperation of the local transport organizations in the (mostly rural) regions where DB is planning new lines.

I don't know when exactly there will follow more EC-N. It also depends on plannings of the foreign railways (e.g. NS for new services from Amsterdam to Cologne or CD for the line from Hamburg to Prague). Also for the domestic routes it is unclear: potentially we talk about four trains for the Sylt-services, one or two services to Oberstdorf and one to Berchtesgaden. I think, if the only international EC-N-route is Berlin-Amsterdam there are enough trains left for these domestic services. The top speed is expected at 200-230 km/h.

The ICE-T will get a redesign in the following years and find a new application area on high-quality IC-lines (e.g. from 12/2018 the on from Stralsund via Hamburg, Kassel and Frankfurt to Karlsruhe) instead of the line Hamburg-Berlin-Munich, where we'll see new and faster ICE4-trains. It runs up to 230 km/h.

The ICE 1, 2 and 4 all run up to 250 km/h top speed (the ICE 1 under special conditions up to 280). This year the trains run several services from Hamburg to Munich (via Nuremberg) and to Stuttgart (via Frankfurt). In addition in december the two-hourly service from Hamburg via Berlin and Leipzig to Munich will follow to replace the ICE-T there. The short ICE4 can support and replace the ICE2 in the 2020s. On the lines from Berlin to Cologne and from Munich to Hamburg/Bremen a double-ICE2/4 is seperated to serve two different sections on the route.

For the high-speed-flagship ICE3 (300 km/h) I don't see some news. The trains are getting a redesign and will run at least until 2030. A successor is not in sight.

Some details has lately been revealed for the timetable 2019 in a german forum (http://www.ice-treff.de/index.php?id=517147" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;):
-two new daily Sprinterservices will connect Berlin and Munich in less than four hours, in addition to the existing three pairs
-the services per direction on the line Cologne-Stuttgart-Munich will be served by an ICE4 - which is special because it is the first time, a train without an eddy current brake will run on the high-speed-line between Cologne and Frankfurt. Until now this was not allowed, the admission could open the door for TGV- or Eurostar-services on this route
-the two trains from Cologne via Kassel to Erfurt will not run to Leipzig anymore, but to Jena and Gera
-a new nightjet-service will connect Berlin and Vienna via Breslau (not via Prague)
-for potential tourists in Bavaria: with introduction of the "Neufahrner Gegenkurve" from December on there is a direct rail link between Munich airport and Landshut/Regensburg. The ÜFEX-train (analogus overregional airport express) will take only 75 minutes from Regensburg Hbf to Munich airport and runs daily and hourly from early morning until late evening. More ÜFEX-services are scheduled when the new airport-circle-line is finished (estimated in the late 2020s)

Due to some problems with the forum's software I cannot upload pictures of the ICE4 (but you find enough images online).

Best regards

*One little not quite positive information:
Tomorrw (3rd june) at 11am is the 20th anniversary of the Eschede derailment, where 101 people lost their lifes. It came back into my head while I was writing down the 59 ICE1-trains (before 1998 there were 60 of these). The reason for the derailment was poor maintenance on a wheel tyre (for more information my English isn't good enough but there are some documentations on Youtube and e.g. Wikipedia). I only wanted to mention it because of the date.

Thank you very much for the detail report from Germany. When I read something like this I see how far ahead (decades) Germany/Europe is when it comes to passenger rail services. Maybe if we have success with Brightline (in Florida) and the HSR project in Texas we will see something start to happen. Only time will tell.

Train60 wrote:Thank you very much for the detail report from Germany. When I read something like this I see how far ahead (decades) Germany/Europe is when it comes to passenger rail services. Maybe if we have success with Brightline (in Florida) and the HSR project in Texas we will see something start to see something happen. Only time will tell.

If the US had a serious transport policy - and an administration organisation to forward it - it might have a policy of extending genuine high speed railways of the type found in Japan or Europe. Instead, in the absence of any political leadership, the US staggers on with slow railways tolerated merely because they have political resistance to abolishing them. These slow trains attract just enough passengers to make it difficult to cancel them but not enough to expand them. I am sure that if genuine high speed rail were introduced in the US they would attract enough passengers to need no government subsidy. There are numerous places I think of visiting in the US that have no rail access of any kind. I have travelled by train occasionally in the US, e.g. from New York to Chicago. The experience was not unpleasant, but it was SLOW.

Train60 wrote:Thank you very much for the detail report from Germany. When I read something like this I see how far ahead (decades) Germany/Europe is when it comes to passenger rail services. Maybe if we have success with Brightline (in Florida) and the HSR project in Texas we will see something start to happen. Only time will tell.

I think for a first step to a better transport system you have to pick out some metropolitan regions in "european dimensions", as they do e.g. in Florida, California and especially the NEC. The area between Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, Toledo, Indianapolis, Columbus and Cincinnati is in my eyes comparable to Germany (at least regarding the big cities, the space between has a way more dense population in Germany) and how realistic do you think is a high-speed-network between these cities in the next 25 years?

You especially need a government which supports this improvements. What I've reported to you about ICE and IC in Germany is more or less all paid by DB itself, because they look on every single service and make it profitable - on the other hand: services which are not profitable are getting canceled. For a starting network this would be a bad idea in my view, because you need a service pattern with many trains to make the system more attractive than using plane or car.

And better don't think, the railway in Germany is suitably supported by the government. Just last month the states proposed a bill to make the federal government pay for long-distance-trains going to cities which are not served today. Angela Merkel however shares not the feeling that this would be necessary. (Fun fact: she criticizes the fact that in her home-district Greifswald are calling just 1-2 ICEs per day, but obviously she don't want to pay for more trains ^^)

Long story short: to improve railway you usually need big political support and I don't estimate your two (by the way: that's really cute: only TWO) parties neiter the Republicans nor the Democrats to develope enough support for a real change in transport politics.