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Major expansion coming for German long-distance passenger trains
50 million MORE passengers.- does AMTRAK even handle that many a year? And 130 more high speed trainsets. Those people know how to run passenger rail services.
I think Germany’s definition of a long-distance passenger train is different than ours.
Must be Nice to order 130 new train sets for your system, does these trains carry Dining cars or Sleeping cars. Amtrak carry’s about 31 Million people a year .
@Brian A Harris - I don’t know about onboard food service (probably on medium & long runs), but there’s really no need for sleeping cars on these trains. Travel times are relatively short, at longest similar to a long US flight. In fact, European passenger systems are thinking of doing away with overnight sleeper service, thanks to so much access now to high-speed rail.
ICE and IC class trains do indeed have food service cars, with a number of seats and a lounge area. Sleeping cars and overnight trains are unfortunately dying, as the market has been shrinking for a long time. In 2007 I went from Florence, Italy to Frankfurt, Germany in about 12 hours. This was four trains in all, with only the second leg being on more conventional equipment for crossing Switzerland and the Alps, and that leg was slower, although more scenic. The other three legs were all High Speed varieties. Less need to travel at night, if you can do it all in the day.
North Americans can only dream about this kind of service.
Doubtless financed with monies extorted from the untermenschen of Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland by Mrs. Merkel and her minions.
What nonsense. If you bothered to learn the facts, the money “extorted” actually went the other way. Some of which no doubt financed the splendid high speed rail network in Italy and Spain.