Why is the German high speed rail network so patchy?

[quantinghome]

The high speed rail map of Germany is odd. There are so many obvious, huge gaps. One would have thought that there would be a high speed rail line all the way from Cologne to Berlin with a high speed connection to Hamburg, but instead it's a patchwork of 'normal' and upgraded lines. Germany has been building high speed lines for 30 years, and not only is there no high speed line for those routes at present, but there doesn't appear to be anything planned. It's really odd for such an advanced country.

Presumably there are political problems stopping this, but it doesn't seem to make much sense. If even the UK government can build a controversial high speed line you'd imagine the German federal government would be able to overcome political obstacles.

 

[Alfonso]

Unlike England or France, Germany doesn't have one dominating city to act as a hub with key lines radiating outwards to other big cities, it has a selection of cities important for different reasons (politics, finance, industry, culture) and no completely obvious most important route.

 

[quantinghome]

Having had a bit more of a root around online, it appears there are plans to build new lines in the more obvious gaps like Hanover to Hamm.

 

[ainsworth74]

There's an element of history at play here. Recall that Germany was only reunified as one country in October 1990 and whilst the capital became Berlin at the same time the actual seat of government didn't move fully until 1999. For instance the Bundestag (federal parliament) met in Bonn, the West German capital, from 1990 through to April 1999 when it moved into the restored Reichstag building in Berlin (well worth a visit for anyone who may visit Berlin). So Berlin has only assumed the importance of somewhere like London, politically, in the past twenty odd years.

Prior to reunification West Berlin, at least, was something of a backwater both economically, politically and in terms of population so it was the Rhine Valley and various cities in southern Germany that were (and still are!) more important in their own right (which is not to beat up on east Germany as places like Leipzig were and are important too but the economic "weight" of Germany definitely still has a westward focus) with both the population and economic activities more spread out throughout Germany there is no really way of saying "this is clearly the most important artery and should be prioritised for investment".

Unlike the UK and France which have one gargantuan city which is politically and economically the hub of the whole country (for better or worse) Germany is much more dispersed. So the result of history means that on the ground the somewhat patchwork map of German highspeed rail (for those interested see here for example) makes a bit more sense. But they are constantly beavering away on slowly filling in gaps and expanding the network so I'm sure some of the more obvious gaps will be filled in time.

 

[dutchflyer]

It was never ever planned to be a continous allovertthecountry network.
There are some isolated lines that date from old DDR days: as the historic network was mainly aimed to go to Berlin the north-south routes were very slow and thus one of the first lines was the quite long Hannover-Kassel-Fulda-Würzburg stretch. Then followed the cut-off Mannheim-Stuttgart. These are real high-speed and cannot take goods trains.
Most of the existing network heavily served by IC/ICE was upgraded to 200 km/hr. and some parts quadrupled to allow more room for slow and superfast trains. Due to some (dont know all the details, certainly german friends wil chip in) regulations also it was later decided that 250/km (actually 249) was the best limit. Actual stops in major towns/cities are mostly around 1 hr apart-at best, or shorter.
And by now Berlin still is not the major railcentre (measured in pax-nrs) -FRAnkfurt and MÜnchen compete for that. The multi-city Rhein/Ruhr area (some 5-6 major towns in 1 hr) would be if they were combined.

Having had a bit more of a root around online, it appears there are plans to build new lines in the more obvious gaps like Hannover to Hamm.

Not really a new line, but partly quadrupled and some minor shortcut-off (tunnel, in a hilly area) planned. I think VMax remains at 200/hr. Roughly the same as for the Black Forest main line from Karlsruhe south to Swiss/Basel.
Note there is -in the final planning stages- a masterplan labelled Deutschlandtakt- a kind of copy of the Swiss network/timetable (or Dutch) which will determine which sectors are to be upgraded or expanded etc.

 

[stuu]

Presumably there are political problems stopping this, but it doesn't seem to make much sense. If even the UK government can build a controversial high speed line you'd imagine the German federal government would be able to overcome political obstacles.

Germany has a far bigger problem with planning delays than anything in the UK. Projects get held up over and over again - the Dresdnerbahn rebuilding project in southern Berlin was held up by nearly 20 years by various challenges. The planned Mannheim-Frankfurt high speed line was declared urgent in 1985, nothing has been built yet AFAIK

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

Not to mention Stuttgart 21, that might have to be renamed Stuttgart 22

I fear Germany is good at building motorways

One interesting expensive project is the Elbphilharmonie concert halls in Hamburg, they were eventually completed and are now apparently popular as a new symbol of the town

 

[duesselmartin]

Not to mention Stuttgart 21, that might have to be renamed Stuttgart 22

I fear Germany is good at building motorways

One interesting expensive project is the Elbphilharmonie concert halls in Hamburg, they were eventually completed and are now apparently popular as a new symbol of the town

Not to forget Berlin Airport which now opened in the Pandemie.

Yes the system is patchy due to strict planning laws and interests of the regions.
Nobody wants it in their back garden but when it does come, everyone wants a stop.
It is easier in a centralised state like France to force descisions.
I think the last major project I may live to see is Stuttgart to Munich.

An OT question. Why is Belgium's high speed network so good? Liege to Aachen certainly seems underused and Antwerpen to the Netherlands is not that busy either.

 

[stuu]

I fear Germany is good at building motorways

Only slightly, they have similar problems in a lot of the country. Motorways are slightly easier as they can be usefully built in smaller sections than railways, which tends to be what happens.

 

[quantinghome]

An OT question. Why is Belgium's high speed network so good? Liege to Aachen certainly seems underused and Antwerpen to the Netherlands is not that busy either.

It's good in parts. The new lines allow a high frequency and high volume regional service. But the problem again is patchiness, giving slow overall times for longer distance journeys. Despite new lines being built, Brussels to Amsterdam and Brussels to Cologne are about 2 hours for a 220 km distance. That's slower than conventional UK main lines. These journeys should be no more than one hour if they ran high speed all the way. Admittedly this is difficult when you have large cities like Antwerp and Rotterdam on the way.

 

[30907]

Picking up on dutchflyer's comments, many of the German NBS are duplicating lines that were historically low-speed (the Rhine Valley for example, though that was also a capacity issue) and responding to political change. The recent VDE8 route Halle-Erfurt-Bamberg was both, coupled with the decision to include Erfurt as the Land Capital of Thuringia, which pre-1949 had very poor southward connections.
The Stuttgart 21 scheme includes a new line to Ulm, bypassing Geislingen Bank which is the equivalent of Lickey (and even some passenger trains are banked).
The other line being worked on is Mannheim-Basel, for capacity and speed.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Germany has done much better than we have at upgrading its classic lines to 200km/h or better (several are 230km/h).
Full HSL routes have been coming on separately, with Stuttgart-Ulm being the next to open, and Dortmund-Hanover will follow.
West Germany had high-speed plans which were disrupted by unification, and the political need after 1990 was to upgrade routes to Berlin quickly.
Hence Berlin-Leipzig/Hamburg/Hannover were upgraded quickly to 230km/h without the planning delays of a true HSL.
Electrification has continued steadily, eg with Munich-Lindau(-Zurich) starting next month.
Compared to our start-stop approach and general overlooking of regional lines, they have done very well.
The ambition which led to the new Hbf in Berlin and the lines which radiate from it, is very impressive - but they did have an empty city corridor for it.
It's what you get when the federal regions (Länder) have real power - money is spread more evenly than here.
Having said that, the DB setup is in dire financial straits, part of which is down to the heavy investment in HSL and classic upgrades in the last 3 decades.

 

[30907]

Hence Berlin-Leipzig/Hamburg/Hannover were upgraded quickly to 230km/h without the planning delays of a true HSL.

Hamburg is 230, yes.
Leipzig is only 200 and Hannover was a massive rebuild to HSL standards (apart from the 200 bit to protect the Great Bustard or whatever it was).
But the general point stands - lots of 200 and piecemeal improvement on conventional routes, rather like the work done on the ECML in the 70s.

 

[Bald Rick]

To add to the above - the Hannover - Würzburg NBS was built to solve a lack of fast routes north to south in West Germany. Planning started in the 60s, construction started in 1973 and took 18 years. By which time, of course, Germany had been (just) reunified.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

Another factor worth mentioning is the Green movement. This is much more established in Germany compared with most other countries and while it doesn't prevent projects from proceeding it does help to explain the lengthy planning process needed to get things done.

 

[30907]

To add to the above - the Hannover - Würzburg NBS was built to solve a lack of fast routes north to south in West Germany. Planning started in the 60s, construction started in 1973 and took 18 years. By which time, of course, Germany had been (just) reunified.

Erfurt-Bamberg was a good 10 years late, too.

On the subject of the N-S route, I found myself wondering how important Hamburg-Frankfurt was pre-WW2, looked at the 1939 DRB timetable on Timetableworld.com and discovered that there was a daily FDt highspeed diesel unit - but it was Frankfurt-Hamburg and back. The seaport was far more important than the stock exchange, but that has reversed!

 

[paul_munich]

just to give you an example why everything always takes ages here, today the federal administrative court finally gave green light to the Fehmarnbelttunnel between D and DK. In Denmark there were 64 appeals (I hope it's the right word) against the tunnel, in Germany there were more then 6000.

 

[tasky]

It's good in parts. The new lines allow a high frequency and high volume regional service. But the problem again is patchiness, giving slow overall times for longer distance journeys. Despite new lines being built, Brussels to Amsterdam and Brussels to Cologne are about 2 hours for a 220 km distance. That's slower than conventional UK main lines. These journeys should be no more than one hour if they ran high speed all the way. Admittedly this is difficult when you have large cities like Antwerp and Rotterdam on the way.

This is a good point... as the crow flies Brussels to Amsterdam is broadly the same distance as London to Grantham... the former is 1h50 by Thalys, the latter is 1h10 by LNER. Quite counterintuitive really

 

[Austriantrain]

While strict laws and a strong focus on public participation surely are factors why HSL are not as prevalent in Germany as elsewhere, I actually don‘t think it is the major reason.

Historically, Germany, with its strong car industry, was much more focused on road building (far from unique in this regard, of course, but even stronger than elsewhere).

Also, Germans are less prone than e.g. the French to invest in „grand projects“ without regard to cost/benefit. As has already been pointed out, motorways can be built piece-meal, HSL cannot.

Most importantly, Germany is a decentralized and federal country without a clear center. The federal structure means that building HSL that will only ever serve limited parts of the country are more difficult to push through politically. The decentralized structure with lots of large cities, but no dominating metropolis, means that High Speed trains running hundreds of kilometers nonstop will (a couple of flagship services excepted) never be a major thing there, and the HSL structure will be built to reflect it (eg if it were in France, the Stuttgart - Ulm HSL would surely bypass Ulm; not realistic in Germany). It is simply an acknowledgment of the demographic structure; unlike France or the UK, a HSL cannot be justified simply to shuttle from a 10-million-City to and from everywhere else; if new infrastructure is supposed to make sense, it must be useful for a lot of territory (hence also the Deutschlandtakt-Plans).

Germany is not unique in this regard, but actually typical for most of continental Europe: Brussels - Amsterdam, already mentioned, is a perfect example; it would be politically unthinkable to bypass Antwerp or Rotterdam, nor would it be a sound thing to do commercially. In such a demographic structure, a few headline journey times between capital or other major cities are irrelevant.

 

[30907]

This is a good point... as the crow flies Brussels to Amsterdam is broadly the same distance as London to Grantham... the former is 1h50 by Thalys, the latter is 1h10 by LNER. Quite counterintuitive really

By rail (Midi to Central) it's 220km though, which is almost exactly London to Retford - 1hr 35 or so with 3 stops. ECML still wins but not quite so handsomely!
As various people have pointed out upthread, neither BeNeLux nor Germany are suited to long nonstop runs (Retford still has the one!).

 

[quantinghome]

While strict laws and a strong focus on public participation surely are factors why HSL are not as prevalent in Germany as elsewhere, I actually don‘t think it is the major reason.

Historically, Germany, with its strong car industry, was much more focused on road building (far from unique in this regard, of course, but even stronger than elsewhere).

Also, Germans are less prone than e.g. the French to invest in „grand projects“ without regard to cost/benefit. As has already been pointed out, motorways can be built piece-meal, HSL cannot.

Most importantly, Germany is a decentralized and federal country without a clear center. The federal structure means that building HSL that will only ever serve limited parts of the country are more difficult to push through politically. The decentralized structure with lots of large cities, but no dominating metropolis, means that High Speed trains running hundreds of kilometers nonstop will (a couple of flagship services excepted) never be a major thing there, and the HSL structure will be built to reflect it (eg if it were in France, the Stuttgart - Ulm HSL would surely bypass Ulm; not realistic in Germany). It is simply an acknowledgment of the demographic structure; unlike France or the UK, a HSL cannot be justified simply to shuttle from a 10-million-City to and from everywhere else; if new infrastructure is supposed to make sense, it must be useful for a lot of territory (hence also the Deutschlandtakt-Plans).

Germany is not unique in this regard, but actually typical for most of continental Europe: Brussels - Amsterdam, already mentioned, is a perfect example; it would be politically unthinkable to bypass Antwerp or Rotterdam, nor would it be a sound thing to do commercially. In such a demographic structure, a few headline journey times between capital or other major cities are irrelevant.

This is undoubtedly true. But it means that the longer distance journeys between major European conurbations are not attractive by rail. For example Paris-Berlin, via Brussels and the Ruhr connects a population greater than 20 million even if there are no intermediate stops. The overall distance of around 1100km should be competitive by high speed rail. It would mean having at least two service patterns - like the Japanese high speed network. Large-ish cities (Liege, Aachen, perhaps Hanover and Antwerp) would still be served by frequent high speed trains, but then on top of these longer distance services would use bypasses and stop only at the largest conurbations. This is a realistic idea - if the French are willing to bypass Paris, if the existing British intercity rail network bypasses Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, why not bypass Aachen, Bielefeld, Hanover or Antwerp? I think what it amounts to is a lack of strategic planning at the European level.

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

Bypass Hannover? That would need a new line looping outwith the city, besides it is an important centre with connections in many directions
Little Stendal does have a bypass
I think the ICEs are quite good, in Berlin they stop several times so many destinations can be reached easily with one change

Besides not being as rich as other cities, Berlin is even less central than London

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

It's one of the results of most German large stations being through stations rather than termini - in our case like Birmingham New St or Edinburgh.
There are some German bypasses and electrified alternative routes (probably more then we have) so it would not be difficult to have longer non-stop runs.
Frankfurt-Berlin has some of those (via two fast routes), but the intermediate stations are not all that big.
Germany hasn't had the recent GB phase of multiple operators on routes, and still has an hourly or even bi-hourly mindset with long-ish (sometimes double unit) trains.
We have gone for higher frequency with shorter trains (eg XC/TPE).
Double-deck is also an option in Germany, but not here.

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

What do people think of the Fehmarn Belt project? One simple matter should be the fate of the existing line from Luebeck to Neustadt/Holstein, that line can be bypassed, local services could be upgraded, the trains to Denmark would use a new line. But there was talk of closing the line to Neustadt
What has just happened is only the start of the of the start, a court turned down objections to the project so building can start seriously

I used to know that bit of Germany well, just read lots of critical commentaries. Is there really enough railway already?

 

[quantinghome]

Bypass Hannover? That would need a new line looping outwith the city, besides it is an important centre with connections in many directions
Little Stendal does have a bypass
I think the ICEs are quite good, in Berlin they stop several times so many destinations can be reached easily with one change

Besides not being as rich as other cities, Berlin is even less central than London

Berlin is smaller than London for sure, but it's still a huge city. Ideally you'd want a train service between two cities of about the same size - it means you get trains full in both directions in the morning and evening, making for a more profitable service. That's what you have with Berlin and the Ruhr, and between most of the big German conurbations.

Bypass Hannover? Yes, for some services, if it would yield substantial reductions in journey time. If the approaches to the station allow for a fast alignment then perhaps there's no point, but if it means avoiding crawling through the city for miles then a bypass would be a good idea, just as the UK West Coast Main Line bypasses Birmingham for London-Manchester services, or just as the French TGV system bypasses Paris for Lille-Lyon services.

 

[Austriantrain]

Bypass Hannover? Yes, for some services, if it would yield substantial reductions in journey time. If the approaches to the station allow for a fast alignment then perhaps there's no point, but if it means avoiding crawling through the city for miles then a bypass would be a good idea, just as the UK West Coast Main Line bypasses Birmingham for London-Manchester services, or just as the French TGV system bypasses Paris for Lille-Lyon services.

Not going to happen in our lifetime, more a crayonista dream.

Germans are very hard nosed about such decisions and are very aware that medium-distance traffic flows are vastly more important than the long-distance flows you imagine. They will only ever build such a bypass when they urgently need the capacity. As it is, most long-distance services in Germany run only hourly, so way to go.

Plus, they will never win an internal political discussion on bypassing a major city (and a major railway hub, as well as the capital of a very important state) such as Hannover.

And where the terminus is at capacity or not easy to operate with, they go for city-tunnels, as in Stuttgart and in the future maybe in Frankfurt.

Apart from that, Paris and the English mainlines are bad examples, simply because Paris and London are so extremely large that they will fill every train that starts there nicely. Such a place does not exist in Germany. In a polycentric country, a high frequency in a Takt timetable, reasonably fast, makes much more sense than a small number of extremely fast services.

 

[quantinghome]

Well yes, it is all rather crayonista, I admit. But if France considers it necessary to bypass Paris of all places in order to connect Lille and Lyon, if would seem logical for Germany to bypass some cities in order to better connect its large conurbations. It's surprising that most are only connected by hourly services.

 

[DanielB]

Germany is not unique in this regard, but actually typical for most of continental Europe: Brussels - Amsterdam, already mentioned, is a perfect example; it would be politically unthinkable to bypass Antwerp or Rotterdam, nor would it be a sound thing to do commercially.

Besides it's politically and commercially unthinkable, it would also not be very practical to bypass Rotterdam anyway. The line would be passing through a built up area anyway in a part of The Netherlands were tunneling is relatively complicated.
The current situation in which the high speed traffic is bundled with the domestic lines is just the most practical solution to get trough a large city such as Rotterdam. Most time loss will be not due to the route, but more due to the lower top speed. The same applies to the route between Schiphol and Amsterdam by the way.

And actually the high speed line within the Netherlands is a bad example of a patchy network due to the number of major cities: the line only has stops in cities that are on its route, but does skip major cities. For example The Hague is the third largest city (after Amsterdam and Rotterdam), but not served by high speed trains. And even Breda, at 9 in the top 10 of largest cities, is skipped by the Eurostar and Thalys although it is served by high speed intercity trains.
The main problem however is in the system switchovers: an intercity from Brussels to Amsterdam has to change voltage and train protection system a whopping six times on one single trip (seven when including the changeover from Belgian to Dutch ERTMS RBC at the border)

 

[Ianno87]

Well yes, it is all rather crayonista, I admit. But if France considers it necessary to bypass Paris of all places in order to connect Lille and Lyon, if would seem logical for Germany to bypass some cities in order to better connect its large conurbations. It's surprising that most are only connected by hourly services.

Although Paris's interconnection line isn't completely bypassing Paris - it serves Charles de Gaulle and Marne-la-Vallee as 'outer Paris' stations (and services to Nantes/Rennes etc also serve Massy)

 

[Bald Rick]

Well yes, it is all rather crayonista, I admit. But if France considers it necessary to bypass Paris of all places in order to connect Lille and Lyon, if would seem logical for Germany to bypass some cities in order to better connect its large conurbations. It's surprising that most are only connected by hourly services.

The LGV interconnection was not *just* about bypassing Paris. Indeed it wasn’t even mostly about that.

Firstly it was a northern extension of LGV-SE, which got TGVs 20km + closer to Gare de Lyon and therefore saved another 5 minutes or so on the trip to/from the South.

Also it was about providing high speed ‘inter city’ access to CDG and Euro Disney. It may even have been part of the deal to get Disney to Paris.