• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

Why don’t ICE trains run between Amsterdam and Berlin

Status
Not open for further replies.
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

30907

Veteran Member
Joined
30 Sep 2012
Messages
17,864
Location
Airedale
At least as far as I know, Berlin traffic is supposed to be difficult - very few people willing to pay more than discount tickets. That is why the Vienna - Berlin night train is such a complicated service and did not exist at all for a couple of years. Very little premium traffic to go there; no surprise that Amsterdam- Frankfurt has the much better (though still quite slow) timetable. It is also the reason why Berlin has no full service airline hub.
Yes, Berlin is an important destination for politicians and tourists, but nothing like as important for business. And the hinterland to the East and SE (let alone the empty catchment to the North is price-sensitive.
I think the reason for the lack of a full service airline hub, though, is partly political - Tegel would never have been a serious contender before reunification, and by then Lufthansa had long settled on Frankfurt.

Back to the rail route - I think the best that can be hoped for is a separate Muenster-Osnabruck-Berlin IC to pick up the smaller stops. ISTR this is the plan?
 

Austriantrain

Established Member
Joined
13 Aug 2018
Messages
1,307
Back to the rail route - I think the best that can be hoped for is a separate Muenster-Osnabruck-Berlin IC to pick up the smaller stops. ISTR this is the plan?

Yes, the Deutschlandtakt proposals have two two-hourly services. On the German side of the border, the faster one is supposed to stop only in Rheine, Osnabrück and Hannover.

Both those two-hourly services are supposed to be cross-border.
 
Last edited:

LSWR Cavalier

Established Member
Joined
23 Aug 2020
Messages
1,565
Location
Leafy Suburbia
Apparently the threshold travel time that makes train more attractive than plane is four hours
Enormous sums of money were spent on a new line so that Berlin-Muenchen is possible in four hours with limited stops
Most trains take longer
Ridership increased, could be that train becomes the go to choice for many after restrictions on flights in lockdown
 

Austriantrain

Established Member
Joined
13 Aug 2018
Messages
1,307
I suspect an hourly path could be found.

I think that there are half-hourly trains already on the largest part of the Dutch line (no surprise). Alternating trains from Amsterdam and The Hague might be a possibility.
 

biko

Member
Joined
8 Mar 2020
Messages
487
Location
Overijssel, the Netherlands
I think that there are half-hourly trains already on the largest part of the Dutch line (no surprise). Alternating trains from Amsterdam and The Hague might be a possibility.
Between Hengelo and Amersfoort there are 2 ICs per hour and various freight paths and on the largest part of the route also 2 stopping services. Between Hengelo and Almelo, the route currently is full with another IC and 2 stopping services so it will need major changes to the timetable if the crossing times at the border change. If the current border times are used, it should not be difficult to use the other hour as well, as that path is now unused I believe or used by freight.

Alternating hourly trains from Germany will be difficult as it means replacing domestic services at the hours that the international train goes that way. It currently already replaces the IC The Hague to Deventer between Amersfoort and Deventer in the peak hours. Alternating will add a lot of complexity to diagrams. Another disadvantage of going to The Hague is the reversal in Utrecht. Connections at Amersfoort are good so I think alternating is not a good idea.
 

Chester1

Established Member
Joined
25 Aug 2014
Messages
3,970
Apparently the threshold travel time that makes train more attractive than plane is four hours
Enormous sums of money were spent on a new line so that Berlin-Muenchen is possible in four hours with limited stops
Most trains take longer
Ridership increased, could be that train becomes the go to choice for many after restrictions on flights in lockdown

The biggest tipping point is when a train journey is 3 hours or less. The time taken to get to an airport, go through security and get from the second airport to your final destination makes it difficult for air travel to compete on time. Market share for trains for 4 or 4.5 hour journey times is significantly less, often about 1/3rd. If you take Amsterdam - Berlin as an example, a 4.5 hour train journey will be significantly slower than flying and therefore aviation would keep most of the market. At 3 hours the door to door journey time would in most cases be faster than flying and if the price is reasonable then trains will take the lions share of the market.
 

Austriantrain

Established Member
Joined
13 Aug 2018
Messages
1,307
Between Hengelo and Amersfoort there are 2 ICs per hour and various freight paths and on the largest part of the route also 2 stopping services. Between Hengelo and Almelo, the route currently is full with another IC and 2 stopping services so it will need major changes to the timetable if the crossing times at the border change. If the current border times are used, it should not be difficult to use the other hour as well, as that path is now unused I believe or used by freight.

Alternating hourly trains from Germany will be difficult as it means replacing domestic services at the hours that the international train goes that way. It currently already replaces the IC The Hague to Deventer between Amersfoort and Deventer in the peak hours. Alternating will add a lot of complexity to diagrams. Another disadvantage of going to The Hague is the reversal in Utrecht. Connections at Amersfoort are good so I think alternating is not a good idea.

The trains coming for the Netherlands are supposed to arrive at Hengelo at xx:11, departing towards Amsterdam from Hengelo at xx:49, so different from now.I doubt this has been agreed with the Dutch yet, but who knows.

The full plans for long-distance trains in the Deutschlandtakt can be found here:

 

biko

Member
Joined
8 Mar 2020
Messages
487
Location
Overijssel, the Netherlands
The trains coming for the Netherlands are supposed to arrive at Hengelo at xx:11, departing towards Amsterdam from Hengelo at xx:49, so different from now.I doubt this has been agreed with the Dutch yet, but who knows.

The full plans for long-distance trains in the Deutschlandtakt can be found here:

This timing will indeed mean major changes to the timetable so that will not be straightforward. Currently, a stopping service departs in the same direction just before the planned xx.49 which is nearly impossible to re-time due to connections elsewhere and single track further on its route. So I remain to be convinced it all will be better by then.
 

MisterT

Member
Joined
12 Oct 2014
Messages
403
Location
The Netherlands
Actually, for 2023 there will be a major redesign from the timetable in The Netherlands. The whole timetable and structure has been completely redesigned in the past years (and will be refined in the coming years).
 

Austriantrain

Established Member
Joined
13 Aug 2018
Messages
1,307
Actually, for 2023 there will be a major redesign from the timetable in The Netherlands. The whole timetable and structure has been completely redesigned in the past years (and will be refined in the coming years).

And do not forget that Deutschlandtakt is a long-term aspiration which will guide infrastructure and rolling stock decision, but nobody should expect that there will not be changes or compromises along the way.

As an (OT!) example, the plans in the link above about the Deutschlandtakt include a Munich - Braunau am Inn- Linz - Wien service. There are no current plans for such a service on the Austrian side, let alone for the required infrastructure changes.
 

DanielB

Member
Joined
27 Feb 2020
Messages
937
Location
Amersfoort, NL
If I remember correctly, it is a combination of multiple reasons. ... More importantly, it acts as a domestic service in order to make money. There were not sufficient cross border journeys for 1 train every 2 hours, so it needs passengers within the Netherlands and within Germany.
More importantly: the route through The Netherlands is quite heavily used so even with less stops it's actually quite hard to save a significant amount of time. Between Amsterdam Central and Amersfoort Central it's almost unavoidable to use the path of the domestic IC service as there is no space left at all between Hilversum and Weesp where 10 passenger trains per hour run on a two track line, which also sees some cargo trains.
East of Amersfoort there is a bit more space, but still an ICE won't be able to run at full speed. And besides that: between the Twente region and Amsterdam the IC-Berlin has also an important domestic function as it's the only Amsterdam Central-bound service from that part of the country (domestic IC-trains run via Amsterdam South and would involve a 15 minute wait to change for Amsterdam Central). Therefore the small amount of doors in an ICE als also an addtional inconvenience.

Besides the heavily used line and the low speed limit there's another factor at play avoiding an increase of the speed limit: the winding line. This is because the electrified route from Apeldoorn to Hengelo historically isn't the main line to the east: the "Oosterspoorweg" historically ran via Zutphen, but as that route serves less important towns and villages it's mainly single track and non-electrified. So not really usefull for an ICE.

Already mentioned were the plans for a fast train using an ICE via Utrecht - Arnhem, but that line is also limited in its residual capacity. The other fast option looks like a detour: via Zwolle to Bad Bentheim. Though it would be faster as the line between Lelystad and Zwolle is equipped with ETCS besides ATB and allows a speed of 200 km/h. However this would require ATB-NG in the ICE to allow routing via the Zwolle - Wierden line, which is also partially single track.
 

biko

Member
Joined
8 Mar 2020
Messages
487
Location
Overijssel, the Netherlands
The IC Amsterdam - Berlin finally becomes quicker! From December, some trains between Amsterdam and Berlin will be 10 minutes quicker. These will skip Apeldoorn, have a shorter stop in Deventer and generally have a better path in the Netherlands. It will be two trains to Berlin (dep 9:10 and 17:10) and one to Amsterdam (arrival 16:50). These run during the peak hours between Amsterdam and Amersfoort and are currently busy with commuters. In the new timetable, a domestic train will run on the original times and the IC Berlin will run additional to the domestic trains, so the measure both reduces the crowding and speeds up international journeys.

The new timetable is already in the international journey planner: http://hafas.bene-system.com/bin/query.exe/en?L=profi&
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top