European Railroad Discussion > Berlin to Strasbourg via ICE & TGV

Last month, my wife and I spent a little over two weeks in Europe. It was my second time there, and I have been endeavoring to share some of my experiences, especially as they relate to rail transport. That will be taking a lot of different forms, from looks at individual classes of equipment to time spent at specific stations as well as trip reports. Today's installment is the latter, and is a true success story showing how an efficiently operating system can work.

After four days in Berlin, we made our last major journey, a six hour trip from Berlin to Strasbourg, France, where we would spend the last part of our trip. The trip was via DB's Intercity Express, or ICE, from Berlin to Frankfurt, connecting to an SNCF TGV for the run from Frankfurt to Strasbourg. In general, my impression of German rail was a little less impressive than the systems in France and the Netherlands. Of all of the point to point trains I rode, all but one was late. But that's late by European standards, which means two minutes here, three there. All in all, my cumulative total lateness was around ten minutes, which would be a success story for just one journey in the US. But if I had any cause to even sort of ridicule Deutsche Bahn, they were all erased  on our last journey.

Knowing we would be spending the day on the train, we took the S-Bahn metro line from our hotel to Friedrichstraße, the next station east of Berlin Hauptbahnhof. There, we grabbed some snacks and supplies for the journey before heading up to grab another S-Bahn train to the main station. That's where things kind of fell apart. We'd allowed a lot of extra time to get to the station, but something was disrupting everything, from S-Bahn to regional trains that share the same platform and corridor between Friedrichstraße and Berlin Hbf. We sat on a loaded train for over half an hour watching the precious minutes to our train's departure tick down. When we finally started moving, we knew we were in trouble. The journey between stations was all of two minutes, but we arrived at exactly the time our train was supposed to depart.

Berlin Hauptbahnhof is a relatively new station, opened in 2006. The upper level of the station is above ground, featuring a dramatic glass (probably more like acrylic) tiled ceiling covering tracks 11-16, which provide S-Bahn service as well as regional rail lines around Berlin. Below ground is the relatively new North-South Mainline, tracks 1-8. (I have no idea where or what tracks 9 and 10 are.) Between are two levels of concourses and shops. Some of the Intercity Express routes call on the upper levels, but the vast majority of the higher speed long-distance trains call on the lower levels. We arrived at the station on the upper levels, and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that we weren't going to make it.

Fortunately, this is Europe, and there are plenty of options. I figured we'd have to wait an hour or two, but we'd still have no trouble making Strasbourg. Boy was I in for a surprise. I pulled up DB's app and started looking for options, and I was shocked to see that there was another train departing in six minutes that not only would enable us to make our same TGV in Frankfurt, but would meet our original train in a few hours in Erfurt. The two trains cover parallel lines going south before meeting there to exchange passengers and going their separate ways. The DB app also conveniently told us what platform we needed to head toward. So the scramble was on, and we were onboard talking to the conductor with a couple of minutes to go before the doors shut. With a couple of taps on the screen of his iPad, our tickets were changed, and we were headed to an available first class seat to settle in for a few hours and try to recover from the panic. In the US, this would have been a full day problem. I figured we'd be OK, but I never imagined that we'd be on the train we were supposed to be on before all was said and done. The whole thing was mind-boggling.

Photo 1: our first two trains were of DB's early ICE-1 class. They were built between 1989 and 1993 by Siemens, and seat 743 in their 12 cars. Unlike later, lighter weight trains, the ICE-1 is effectively a regular train that US passengers would be familiar with. Each car has two trucks, no shared bogies here. A locomotive (DB calls them power heads) is on each end of the train. This is a representative photo taken a few days before our trip, but we departed from the same track. There was no time for photos during the panicked scramble.

Photo 2: looking at the first class coach, with ample luggage storage above the seats for smaller items. Larger suitcases can go between back to back seats, or underneath seats. There really isn't much in the way of luggage storage onboard when compared to the TGV. For the record, I try very hard not to get peoples' faces in, so a lot of the interior photos that I will present are of single sets of open seats, or at an upward angle like this.

Photo 3: like other offerings, the first class seating is 2+1, while the second class seats are 2+2 across. A few of them have tables as well.

More photos to come. This one will be a long one, so bear with me.

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Photo 3: One of the features that distinguishes the ICE-1 from the smaller ICE-2 is the Bord Restaurant car. On the ICE-1 sets, the car has a distinctive dome shape, with additional windows facing upward. On the ICE-2, the Bord Restaurant car is shaped like all of the others. It is worth noting that on some of the shorter distance ICE-1 sets that I saw while in Berlin, some of the Bord Restauraunt cars were labeled Bord Bistro. I was never inside of one of those, so I can't tell you if there was any difference in the offerings.

Photo 4: Inside the Bord Restaurant of our first train. The slatted coverings of the upper windows are probably a necessity on hot, sunny days, but on this dreary and rainy afternoon, it felt vaguely like a missed opportunity.

Photo 5: Like the TGVs, the ICE-1 Bord Restaurant has some bistro tables, as well as four top table seating for passengers.

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Photo 7: We arrived in Erfurt a few minutes behind schedule, but still four minutes ahead of the train we had originally been booked on, which had taken a slightly longer route to get there. One thing I didn't take into consideration was that our original train had reversed directions in the stub-ended station in Leipzig. So our transfer there wasn't quite as cross-platform as we were hoping it would be.

Photo 8: Second class seats on the ICE-1 are very similar in appearance to the first class ones, but a small amount narrower. To be completely honest, I didn't find the ICE-1 to be nearly as comfortable as the TGVs we have ridden, or the ICE-T that we rode earlier in the trip. (More on that another time.)

Photo 9: In Frankfurt, we were four minutes late arriving, so we had to scramble across to our TGV and board immediately. So to see our EuroDuplex TGV, I present this photo taken in Strasbourg at the end of our journey as it got ready to depart for Marseille from Track 3 (Left). A Paris-bound TGV Reseau is on the platform of Track 1 at right.

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Photo 10: First class seating on the TGV EuroDuplex that we rode from Frankfurt to Strasbourg. The train originated in Frankfurt, and continued on to Marseille. We were seated upstairs - my preference on the Duplex sets - in the rear car on the train. The TGVs all share bogies between all of the intermediate cars, while the end cars have their own end trucks. The power cars (locomotives) have their own trucks as well. So the end cars on all of the TGV sets are a few feet longer than the intermediate cars.

Photo 11: Second class seating on an upper level of the same TGV Duplex. The train carries the new TGV inOui branding, but didn't look much different from the other Duplex trains I've seen. This was, however, my first ride in a EuroDuplex.

Photo 12: The interior of the inOui cafe car.

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Final photo: SNCF EuroDuplex TGV 4707 glides past a setting sun as it heads south out of Strasbourg, France en route to Marseille on the southern coast. Given my druthers, I'd have loved to take the ride. But we were there for Strasbourg's Christkindlmarkt, one of the biggest in Europe. And I have a love affair going with the Alsace region of eastern France as it is. So I was looking forward to the stay. Some of my activities there will be the subject of at least two, possibly three other posts. In the mean time, thanks for reading!

Jody

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Thanks for the series, and the ones to come.

F7sForever Wrote:
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> Berlin Hauptbahnhof is a relatively new station,
> opened in 2006. The upper level of the station is
> above ground, featuring a dramatic glass (probably
> more like acrylic) tiled ceiling covering tracks
> 11-16, which provide S-Bahn service as well as
> regional rail lines around Berlin. Below ground is
> the relatively new North-South Mainline, tracks
> 1-8. (I have no idea where or what tracks 9 and 10
> are.)

Tracks 9-10 are also at the subterranean level and will be used for a new north-south S-Bahn service.

Thanks so much for the report. Love reading posts like yours about train adventures around the world. Done quite a few myself and enjoy reading other peoples travel adventures.

railsmith Wrote:
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>
> Tracks 9-10 are also at the subterranean level and
> will be used for a new north-south S-Bahn service.

There's a U-Bahn station somewhere there as well, and I had jokingly mentioned to my wife that I wondered if 9-10 were those tracks. LOL. Sounds like I was close...

F7sForever Wrote:
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> railsmith Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> >
> > Tracks 9-10 are also at the subterranean level
> and
> > will be used for a new north-south S-Bahn
> service.
>
> There's a U-Bahn station somewhere there as well,
> and I had jokingly mentioned to my wife that I
> wondered if 9-10 were those tracks. LOL. Sounds
> like I was close...

Those are platforms U1 and U2.