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Direct Paris-Berlin TGV/ICE confirmed
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gordonthemoron
Established Member
I’d prefer Brussels-Berlin
signed
Member
Not for me then, I despise the Velaro stocks for being miles less confortable than a TGV. Mostly seat based, the ride is great however.
DovaModaal
Member
Nouveau : Paris - Berlin en train direct à grande vitesse ! - Voyager en train
À partir du 16 décembre 2024, une nouvelle liaison directe en train sera possible entre Paris et Berlin dès 59 € !www.voyagerentrain.fr
Just had an email advertising the direct Paris to Berlin and vice versa service commencing December. Journey time 8 hours using ICE 3 via Strasbourg & Frankfurt. Bookings open 16th October, fares from €59 standard class.
I had thought this might be a useful way of getting to/from Berlin via Eurostar but I guess they thought of that so timed the outward at 0955 from Paris, not enough time to connect in with the 0601 Eurostar from London.
From London it's quite a detour first going south 1 hour to Paris, walking to the other Paris station and in Germany going north again.
Via Brussels, you can arrive also around 6:32 PM
Transilien
Member
This is good news! I'm surprised such a service between the two cities had taken so long to materialise.
But for a journey of that length, not having a restaurant is pretty poor.
signed
Member
Fair point
How seats feel, is very personal and for any given seat, opinions about it vary a lot.
However, in any TGV I often get a slightly uncomfortable feeling because of the quite low ceiling. I very much prefer any ICE. (Well, maybe not the 406m, but that has another cause...)
any idea why not 408?Confirmed to use DB 407 units, instead of some TGV thankfully!
No homologation for France.
signed
Member
Only the Velaro D are running in France
D6130
Established Member
Yes, that's very poor for an eight hour journey.... especially as other shorter international ICE routes have a restaurant service.
But where does it say it doesn't have a restaurant? I know it's not big but the 408 neo has the same amount of restaurant seats (16).
signed
Member
The 407 has a boardrestaurant
It does have a restaurant. The TGV junk wouldn't have one.
Not quite sure what the relevance is. This 10pm service requires no new infrastructure and is surely basically only linking existing services.We can't get HS2 built in full and yet Europeans are connecting each others' cities for c£57 per ticket.
It's an average of 96 mph; only ~10 mph faster than most London – Edinburgh services, which stop more frequently than three times in 1200+ km.We can't get HS2 built in full and yet Europeans are connecting each others' cities for c£57 per ticket.
I'd guess this will be the same as existing Fr–De high speed services with mandatory reservations up until the first station in Germany (or last station in France?) but not within Germany?
signed
Member
Very likely yes
As far as I can see, it's an additional service on its entire route.
Fragezeichnen
Member
Sure, but it's a bit silly to compare to building a brand new high speed line. The extra effort is limited to training some Berlin drivers on 407's.
When this service was first mooted there was a big tit-for-tat in the press about whether it should run via Strasbourg or Saarbrücken. It seems like Strasbourg won out. You'd think the mayor of Strasbourg might want to apply similar pressure to something more useful like making the Deutschlandticket valid for the cross-border shuttle to Offenburg, or bringing the brand new fleet of electric trains specifically built for Franco-German regional services and now sitting in sidings into use, but no, apparently all that matters is a symbolic single daily train to Berlin
When this service was first mooted there was a big tit-for-tat in the press about whether it should run via Strasbourg or Saarbrücken. It seems like Strasbourg won out. You'd think the mayor of Strasbourg might want to apply similar pressure to something more useful like making the Deutschlandticket valid for the cross-border shuttle to Offenburg, or bringing the brand new fleet of electric trains specifically built for Franco-German regional services and now sitting in sidings into use, but no, apparently all that matters is a symbolic single daily train to Berlin
Goldfish62
Veteran Member
- Joined
- 14 Feb 2010
- Messages
- 11,182
Yes! It would eliminate the all too often nail-biting connections at Köln!
The ICE 3 Neos now on the Brussels - Frankfurt run are lovely and I'd happily sit in one for the 6-7 hour run.
quantinghome
Established Member
- Joined
- 1 Jun 2013
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- 2,311
We have the ability, we just don't want to pay for it.We can't get HS2 built in full and yet Europeans are connecting each others' cities for c£57 per ticket.
TBH a lot of European 'high speed' services aren't all that. This new service runs on existing lines and even with the high speed sections is actually pretty slow in terms of average speed. France, Spain and Italy high speed networks are good but Germany and other countries in central Europe really need to pull themselves together. The new direct Paris-Berlin train will take 6 hours to get from Strasbourg to Berlin; it should be 3 hours tops over that distance.
signed
Member
Politics, I expect that service to have relatively low ridership (why not get onto a plane for the same price and arrive 2h earlier at probably more convenient times)
quantinghome
Established Member
- Joined
- 1 Jun 2013
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End-to-end, yes, but intermediate journeys will fill it up. It's the same principle as the UK cross-country network. "Who wants to go from Edinburgh to Plymouth?" Answer: hardly anyone, but plenty of people will be travelling from Edinburgh to York, Newcastle to Sheffield, Leeds to Birmingham, Sheffield to Bristol etc.
Fragezeichnen
Member
Deutsche Bahn has ordered 90 quad-voltage BR408 Velaros approved for Belgium and the Netherlands, but with only 23 delivered they already outnumbered the 17-strong BR406 fleet and completely replaced them on international services.
So clearly DB will have a lot of new possibilities as the rest of fleet is delivered over the next 5 years and that could well include services to Berlin, perhaps running as a double set in Belgium with another portion to Frankfurt.
riceuten
Member
- Joined
- 23 May 2018
- Messages
- 648
How many people travel London to Inverness when there's a perfectly usable plane. To say politics is actually to needlessly politicise something we should be welcoming
As regards the stock, anyone who has ridden the Paris - Saarbrucken route will know how much more comfortable and smoother the TV Duplex units are
LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
Do we know the routeing between Frankfurt/Fulda and Berlin?
Some ICEs go via Braunschweig and the Lehrter Bahn, others go via Erfurt and Halle.
That assumes that there is sufficient demand to warrant a convenient HSL! Direct connections from Berlin to the French border were in great demand in the 1870s and again around 1914 and 1939 but not so much since. The High Speed Routes in Western Germany were of course designed for a different era (pre 1990). Frankfurt - Berlin is not (yet) particularly well- served without long detours.