
Berlin-Munich high-speed train services carry 2M passengers in first six months - ingve
https://www.railjournal.com/index.php/high-speed/berlin-munich-hs-services-carry-2-million-passengers-in-first-six-moths.html
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cameldrv
They had a "High Speed" line before, but it was on old tracks, and they had to
use tilting trains. I took it a few times when I lived in Berlin. It was
somewhat slower than driving. Still, the ICE is an excellent train. It's very
punctual (Germans will complain when it's five minutes late), it's smooth,
it's clean, the seats are comfortable, you can get a seat with a table if you
want, there are power outlets, and if you get hungry, you can go get a snack,
a beer, or a full dinner. It's just just a civilized, pleasant way to travel.
The Internet, either through the DB system, or my normal 3G/4G tethering was a
bit spotty, but I was nearly as productive on the train as I would have been
at the office. At six hours Berlin-Munich, it was much nicer, less stressful,
and more productive en-route than an airplane, but somewhat slower. At four
hours, the train is a no-brainer.

Air travel is the king of hidden time fees. They say that it's an hour from
Berlin to Munich, but you have to show up at the airport an hour before the
flight, it takes 15 minutes to get off the plane and get out to the curb, even
if you didn't check a bag, it takes 40 minutes to get to the airport, and
another 40 minutes to get from the airport to the city center. By the time you
add it all up, 4 hours is how long it takes on the plane, and most of that is
annoying stressful walking from one place to another, waiting in one line
after another, cooped up in a tiny seat, and for maybe 30 minutes of the whole
4 hours, you can use your laptop and do something useful.

~~~
odiroot
Myself living in Berlin I'd still take the flight (and I did usually).

First of all, it's nearly legendary how unreliable the trains can be here
during winters and hot summers. Second, flying is actually cheaper (I rarely
fly with a big luggage).

Finally, it takes me 15 minutes to get to Tegel airport. All the security and
boarding procedures are highly optimised there. I usually leave my flat around
an hour to the boarding time.

Then the flight to Munich is an hour or less. In the end (with the train to
the city center) it takes less than 4 hours.

On the other hand I wouldn't mind taking a long distance overnight
international train provided I had a bed there.

~~~
hh3k0
The CO2 emissions of trains are significantly lower, though.

You might want to reconsider if slightly more convenience is worth ~80-90%
higher emissions.

~~~
cup-of-tea
The government should be enforcing this. Nobody should be expected to make a
personal sacrifice to do the right thing.

~~~
jaggederest
If only we had a uniform, slowly ramping global $100/ton carbon tax. From the
models I've seen it would fairly abruptly correct all of these "two methods
are vastly different in carbon emissions but otherwise fairly comparable"
situations.

~~~
adrianN
The carbon tax should be tied to the price of extracting a ton of carbon from
the atmosphere.

~~~
vidarh
In Norway there's taxation on drinks containers that is set high enough that
it's cheaper to participate in a return scheme. The audited
return/recycling/reuse rates are then used to provide a discount against the
per-unit tax.

I've always liked this scheme, because assuming you set the tax high enough
for society to - as a fallback - take action to rectify the problem (e.g.
hiring more people to clean up in this case), with a punitive margin on top,
the tax provides a financial incentive to innovate to drive down the cost of
acting responsibly.

There is a collective return service you can participate in, but if you find a
better alternative you're free to use it as long as you can demonstrate what
your return rate is. Or you can pay the tax and leave it to the government,
but your margins will be worse than the competitions, as the return scheme is
cheaper.

The general mechanism feels like it'd be adaptable to a lot of situations
where you want to make sure it gets rectified, but also don't want to trust
the government to dictate specific solutions - in this case it doesn't matter
if e.g. the fallback solution is severely cost-ineffective; the more costly
the fallback is, the stronger the financial incentive to find a better
solution is.

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amzans
As a frequent Berlin-Munich traveller, it’s such a joy to now be able to make
this route in less than 4 hours directly from and to the city center.

Last month I had to instead take a flight (direct ~1h) but it ended up being
more stressful and pretty much taking the same time since you have to add the
time it takes to get to the airport and go through security.

Not to mention that the trains are quite comfortable and there’s lot of room
to walk or even sit down at the on board bistro for a beer or some food.

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beeforpork
> DB will introduce the nre ICE 4 train on the route, which allow bicycles to
> be taken for the first time and with 830 seats provide 10% more capacity
> than the previous model.

These ICE4 are the worst ICEs in terms of comfort. They've been reducing the
distance between rows over the years, and it is now only 85cm. It used to be
102cm in the ICE1 -- that was cool. ICE2 had 97cm, ICE3 had 92cm, which was
still comfortable for me. Now, 85cm is too short to sit comfortably if you are
a tall person. The previous models all had good seats and enough space. But
the ICE4 is awful. The seats are also too upright and the backrest can only be
tilted when pulling the seat to the front, which is impossible for taller
people because the legs will have no space. Without this, the seats are so
upright they almost push you over. Naps are impossible due to this. And where
some lordose support should be, there is a hole. I really hate the ICE4s, I
always end up with a sore back.

But sure, there is 10% more capacity thank you very much.

~~~
ahartmetz
ICE4 also has a maximum speed of "only" 250 km/h. Deutsche Bahn has apparently
given up on higher speeds.

By the way, even ICE1 trains are less comfortable than they used to be because
the rubber rings in the wheels were removed for safety reasons.

~~~
currysausage
Yes, most German routes are not built for higher speeds, so it made sense to
optimize new trains for cost and reliability instead of speed.

But Berlin—Munich has a Vmax of 300 km/h, so it would only make sense to put
more ICE 3 on that route. I doubt the ICE 4 info is correct.

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hihat
I took this connection for the first time this week and I was really
impressed. I even took a picture of the screen once it showed that we crossed
300km/h. They used the latest ICE model, wifi was really reliable and they now
even offer onboard entertainment. You can watch tv shows, movies, get access
to audiobooks etc. on your phone, tablet or laptop (even though the selection
is still quite limited). The train is one of my favorite places to get work
done. I always try to get a seat in the cabin where phone calls are not
allowed.

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jakecopp
With Sydney house prices 12.9 times the median yearly household income [1]
second only to Hong Kong (SF is 9.1, Hong Kong is 19.4, San Jose is 10.3 and
Vancouver is 12.6) would value capture make a similar high speed project work
in Australia? Is the cost in the infrastructure or the rolling stock?

Something like Newcastle <-> Sydney <-> Wollongong?

[1]: [http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-22/australian-housing-
una...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-22/australian-housing-
unaffordability-experts-disagree-on-extent/9349796)

~~~
oger
Even though the rolling stock is technically more advanced and loaded with
sensors (sometimes resulting is degraded service aka. lower speed for security
reasons) the main cost definitely lies in infrastructure. You basically need
to rebuild the whole track for highspeed trains. And with Australia being a
litigious nation it will also take a while to acquire and execute the land
rights.

~~~
2sk21
The line north of Sydney towards Grosford would have to be completely rebuilt
to support fast service.

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Scoundreller
During Oktoberfest... 2012, we stayed during the week in Munich and then
planned on leaving for Berlin before the weekend.

I recall the cost of 2 train tickets being comparable to gas and 1 day 1-way
rental for an entry level Mercedes (E class perhaps?).

Autobahn or train... it wasn’t a hard choice.

Edit: As Canadians, we took the car rental. We couldn't turn down an
experience of no-speed limits, even if driving is work.

~~~
nisa
Yes. Regular ticket prices for trains are horrible expensive in Germany. You
can pay a yearly fee (called Bahncard) to get 25% (62€) or 50% (255€) off.
There is also a flatrate for everything called Bahncard 100 (4.270€)

You can also book early. Often you get a ticket for 20-60€ but these are
limited. At least they made an UI for this:
[https://ps.bahn.de/preissuche/preissuche/psc_start.post?dbka...](https://ps.bahn.de/preissuche/preissuche/psc_start.post?dbkanal_007=L01_S01_D001_KIN0014_sparpreisfinder-
content-button_LZ03#stay)

If you don't use ICE/IC you can get a daily flatrate for 44€ for whole Germany
or for 20-25€ for one (or multiple) federal states.

Now we often have empty trains and busses are on the Autobahn...

~~~
scurvy
Why are the prices so high?

~~~
nisa
It's difficult. They privatized everything in the early 90ies and even
attempted to go to the stock exchange - this resulted in cuts and bad long-
term decisions - now most of the Deutsche Bahn is public owned but a private
company. They probably want to make some profit where it's possible. They need
to invest a lot of money in the coming years because their infrastructure is
crumbling and running on attrition.

Here are the prices vs. inflation:
[https://media0.faz.net/ppmedia/aktuell/wirtschaft/1643856533...](https://media0.faz.net/ppmedia/aktuell/wirtschaft/1643856533/1.2598616/default/die-
preise-der-deutschen-bahn.jpg)

However the price for a certain track depends on a lot of things and this new
high-speed track has lot's of buisness customers that avoid a flight this way
- so it's priced higher.

It's a complicated system with lot's of subsidies, subcontractors and so on.
There is a price to pay for using the track to a different company that runs
the train...

Another problem is that freight train traffic is even more expensive and they
simply forgot to invest in the system for 30 years - now the Autobahn is
clogged with trucks...

~~~
bogomipz
>"They privatized everything in the early 90ies and even attempted to go to
the stock exchange - this resulted in cuts and bad long-term decisions - now
most of the Deutsche Bahn is public owned but a private company"

Can you say how it is "public owned" if it is not a publicly traded stock? It
sound like their bid to list it on the stock exchange failed?

~~~
nisa
I'm sorry not a native speaker - I mean the GmbH is owned by the state of
Germany.

~~~
majewsky
It's an AG (a stock company), not a GmbH (a limited company). But yeah, all
the stocks are still owned by the federal government, and therefore all
profits get credited into the federal budget.

~~~
bogomipz
This is interesting. I am curious what is the upside to a stock company if all
the shares are owned by the same entity(the government)? Are there some
classes of the DB stack that are allowed to be publicly traded then?

~~~
nisa
The original plan was to somehow make the whole thing profitable and publicy
trade a large partion of shares - so they bought a lot of companies and hoped
that they can refinance the train operations. Turn's out it's not so easy...it
was just typical management failure, neoliberal politics and pipedreams - so
they stopped it in 2005 - Hartmut Mehdorn the CEO at the time is now infamous
for basically destroying everything he touches.

It's still not a government entity so they don't need to be that transparent
and have more leeway to keep wages down.

~~~
bogomipz
Very interesting, thanks for the detailed information. I will need to read up
more on this. It sounds like a good case study. Cheers.

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jakobegger
What the article forgets to mention: The train ride takes 3 hours 55 minutes.

~~~
tialaramex
Also, three times per day. You'd have to plan as you would with air travel so
that you were at the station to catch these specific trains even if you
weren't price sensitive enough to book a seat in advance. Three per day isn't
enough for it to make sense to just show up and catch the next one.

~~~
_Microft
The faster ones that only need 4h are indeed going only three times a day but
there is a connection every hour that takes 4.5h (on workdays from 6 am to 7
pm). Seems fine, I think?

(Source: www.bahn.de, the official website of Deutsche Bahn)

------
kome
Well, that took very long... it's 2018 and finally a real high-speed
connection between Berlin and Munich. In France they had that since forever,
and also Spain and Italy have a much better high speed network than Germany.

If anything, why Germany is so late to the party?

~~~
_Microft
Does France still have the problem that a lot of the connections are via Paris
because there are no connections that run between the lines that are
connecting cities to Paris? The image of the rail network on the TGV article
in Wikipedia is giving the impression.

Did you know that mathematicians named a metric after that? It's the SNCF
metric when the distance between two points (cities in real life) is defined
as the sum of their distances from the origin (Paris in this case). (that is:
go from city A to Paris and from Paris to city B, no matter how close A and B
are geographically).

~~~
Tharkun
Yes they still do. You can arrive in Paris North in a fancy Thalys or
Eurostar, but will then have to somehow get to Paris Lyon or South using weird
subway like trains which are often packed, dirty, smelly and confusingly
inefficient unless you're used to them.

This is why I don't travel by train to the South of Europe. It's a waste of
time, and an uncomfortable one at that.

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melling
The distance appears to be about the same as Los Angeles to San Francisco.

~~~
gok
Not with the route the California High Speed Rail is using. Phase 1 of CAHSR
will be 840 km, this route is quoted at 623 km.

~~~
melling
About 135 miles.

Will the CA train run at 186 mph or 220 mph?

This will translate to an extra 30-45 minutes?

~~~
gok
Parts 220, parts much slower (more like 120 from San Jose to San Francisco,
for example).

By the way, CAHSR predicts ridership 20-30x higher than that mentioned in this
headline.

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hotdog97
I rode that train (Munich to Berlin) after I got stranded in Munich during the
2014 Bardarbunga, Iceland volcano eruption. It was kind of slow for an ICE at
the time, and quite expensive (IIRC like 150 EUR in second class).

It was one of the nicest train rides I've ever taken though - you got to see
so much of Germany. The onboard restaurant was awesome.

~~~
scurvy
I thought train systems were heavily subsidized by the state across Europe.
Why are tickets so expensive? The distance isn't far at all, by American
standards I'd expect to pay roughly $20-30 for a train ticket across that
distance. 150 EUR you should be able to fly for that price.

~~~
dagw
_150 EUR you should be able to fly for that price._

Taking the train between major cities is often more expensive than flying in
Europe. People choose the train because it's comfortable and convenient, not
because it's cheap.

Also 150 EUR is a full price ticket. If you book a few weeks in advance, and
are willing to take the 'slow' train you can probably get a ticket around 30
EUR.

~~~
gpvos
Depending on the route, often even on the day before. On more popular routes,
prices rise more quickly though.

