Timetable change: Deutsche Bahn wants to run more trains on popular connections

Following the price increases, Deutsche Bahn (DB) has now announced details of the new timetable that will apply from mid-December. After expanding its services last year, it is now focusing on deploying more trains on particularly popular connections, DB announced. In future, for example, there will be six more ICE Sprinters on the route between Frankfurt am Main and Berlin (22); they will cover the distance in four hours.

The new timetable also includes additional transfer-free ICE direct connections within Germany. These include an additional direct train between Berlin and Saarbrücken and a direct connection from Rostock to Leipzig, Frankfurt am Main and Stuttgart. A second daily ICE direct connection will be added between Bremen and Berlin and between Basel and Stuttgart. Osnabrück and Münster are to get another direct connection to southern Germany, which will be one hour faster. To this end, there will be a permanent switch from Eurocity to ICE between Hamburg, Bremen, Osnabrück and Cologne and a through connection to Basel via the high-speed line Cologne–Rhine/Main, as the railroad company puts it.

More direct international connections

Deutsche Bahn describes the new daily direct connection from Berlin via Frankfurt am Main, Karlsruhe and Strasbourg to Paris as a "highlight" in international long-distance rail travel. For the first time, Amsterdam will be connected to Stuttgart and Munich daily by ICE trains without changing trains. Between Frankfurt am Main and Brussels, there will be a new daily late-night connection in both directions from mid-April to the beginning of November. In future, two more trains will run on the Munich–Lindau-Reutin–Zurich route.

With two additional trains per day, there will be a connection with Poland every four hours on the Berlin–Wroclaw–Krakow route in future, the railroad company adds. In the summer months, additional direct trains from Munich beyond Verona will run with four daily trips to/from Venice and six trips to/from Bologna. From mid-December, a total of over 330 daily journeys will connect Germany directly with twelve neighboring countries. This is an increase of around 25 percent compared to 2019, the railroad explained.

Meanwhile, the general refurbishment of the rail network is progressing. Deutsche Bahn expects the modernization of the Riedbahn between Frankfurt am Main and Mannheim to be completed by the timetable change. Next year will see the modernization of the Hamburg–Berlin and Emmerich–Oberhausen lines.

(anw)