Deutsche Bahn is targeting expansion of its long-distance operations in Germany thanks to two new fleets of trains, as KEITH FENDER reports
Europe View Special
German Railways (DB) is looking to grow long-distance traffic. Faced with increasing airline and bus competition, the operator has set out plans to improve its Inter-City Express (ICE) high-speed services and expand the slower Intercity (IC) network.
Key to this are two new fleets of trains. In 2011 DB placed an order with Siemens worth around €5.3 billion for 170 new high-speed distributed power EMUs. They were then known as ‘ICx’, but were renamed ICE4 by DB in 2015.
The order – the largest ever received by Siemens or made by DB – has subsequently been amended twice. Firstly, in 2013 170 vehicles were added, taking the total on order to 1,335 and in the process removing the multi-voltage cross-border specification originally planned, in particular for operation from Berlin to Amsterdam. The order was then for 85 12-car Class 412 250km/h trains and 45 seven-car 230km/h trains. Siemens describes the train as a modular system based on ‘power cars’ – these are the powered vehicles, and a wide range of combinations of powered plus unpowered trailer cars is possible.
