Story Behind German High Speed Rail System
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- Опубліковано 3 гру 2021
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- As we promised in the previous video, today’s topic is a detailed explanation of the German high-speed rail system!
Bearing in mind that in one period there were two German states, West and East, this division, and later process of their integration, greatly influenced the planning and the development of high-speed rail network.
So, the idea of this video was to explain the concept on which this system is based, its brief history, and the most important dilemmas that policymakers had in relation to development plans - such as dedicated tracks or mixed traffic, west-east or north-south orientation, etc.
In the second part of the video, using some cool animations, we tried to show the step-by-step development of this amazing high-speed rail network.
Enjoy and share with us your thoughts in the comment section!
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#Germany #ICE #HighSpeedRail
I wouldn't say that Germany is finished with building HSR. Apart from the new Stuttgart-Ulm HSR corridor, there's also a new HSR corridor between Gelnhausen and Fulda, and there's planning for a new HSR line between Nürnberg and Würzburg (I'm taking this ride quite often, and it always infuriates me - Fulda to Würzburg is 100 km and takes 30 minutes, Würzburg to Nürnberg is 100 km and takes 60 minutes, Nürnberg to Ingolstadt is 100 km and takes 30 minutes - ridiculous). I can't wait for all those new HSR lines to be build. :)
and they wanna continue the Wendlingen - Ulm hsl to Augsburg, where it will connect to the upgraded railway that is in fact a lot faster than 200 km/h
and there are also plans for Hannover Hamburg hsl, cuz that upgraded line be takin ages and a lot of electricity cuz the train breaks to 110 and then it accelerates to 200 again and this game all over again
@@connectingwings7212 sadly the "Y-Trasse" seems to be far off.
While the DB knows that AlphaE is basically useless and unworkable, even the new government still holds on to AlphaE (for various reasons I read the whole coalition agreement).
For the "Deutschland-Tackt" the "Y-Trasse" is needed.
And also 200km/h line from Dresden to Czech Republik connecting to 320 km/h line from Usti nad Labem to Prague
Add to that the additional HSR Frankfurt - Mannheim and the new HSR Bielefeld - Hannover. Both lines have been making great progress in their planning process and are important pieces to connect the rather fragmented HSR network in the west into a bigger whole with Bielefeld - Hannover connecting the Hamm - Bielefeld line, which is built for 200km/h, and the mentioned Hannover - Berling HSR while Frankfurt - Mannheim will close the gap between Cologne - Frankfurt and Mannheim - Stuttgart.
Great video, you just missed most of the upcoming HSR projects like:
- Frankfurt-Mannheim (300 km/h)
- Gelnhausen-Fulda (300 km/h) + Fulda-Gerstungen (230 km/h); both combined could bring Berlin-Frankfurt below 3:30 h
- Hannover-Bielefeld (300 km/h)
- Hannover-Hamburg
- Nuremberg-Würzburg
- Ulm-Augsburg
- Hamburg-Copenhagen [DK] via the Baltic Sea
- Munich-Kufstein [AT > Brenner Base Tunnel > IT]
- Dresden-Prague [CZ]
So... far away from being done^^
In Germany "upcoming" is such a risky word to use.
Right now it takes about 35 years from start to complete one new highspeed railroad.
For example, upgrading the railroad between Frankfurt am Main and Fulda / Eisenach ist already planned for more than 10 years, and they did not even start building it. They are so many Citizen organisations for every single Project which makes IT such a pain go come Forward.... Kind of sucks.
Ulm-Augsburg seems to just be an upgrade.
HAAAMBUUUURG
@@valentin6824 the biiter aspect of the truth is, a lot of these partitioners of these buergernitiativen, consider themselves enviromentalists! Crazy
Sadly the new Berlin-Frankfurt doesn't stop at my hometown even though it could. They are even considering stopping at a small town in my district just to save up 10 minutes.
I wouldn’t say that Germany has stopped planing new HSR tracks.
Augsburg-Ulm is currently planed, to connect Munich-Augsburg to the new high speed rail Ulm-Stuttgart.
With its fulfillment there will be a non-stop highspeed track from Munich via Augsburg, Ulm, Stuttgart, Mannheim to Frankfurt, which will cut traveling times massively and will be faster than going by car, even on the German autobahn (mostly) without speed limit
Modern Germany is decent at planning new projects, but absolutely terrible at actually building them.
Berlin - Hamburg was revamped to cater for speeds up to 230 km/h by ICE units, but 200 km/h by IC trains. This was achieved without the expense of a new dedicated high speed line.
The Cologne-Frankfurt line also carries the new ICE 4-trains. It can't reach the maximum speed of 300 km/h but is able to restart the train after a complete stop on any point on the line. The ICE 4 matches these requirements.
I'm excited abaout the plans for the new 300 km/h-line Frankfurt-Mannheim and the additional underground-station with tunnels for Frankurt main station. With the new Frankfurt-Fulda (or rather Hanau-Gelnhausen), Frankfurt really becomes the main junction in the German high speed train system.
Yeah, Frankfurt is also main airways hub
Yeah living in Frankfurt is very convenient. I can hop on any train and get to half the country.
Frankfurt is already the main junction
Frankfurt is pretty central so that makes sense
Erfurt aswell, Germany combines the most important south north lines and east west. And the fastest tracks
German railways amaze me! I initially travelled from Munich to Cologne on an ICE train in 2018 then got a loco-hauled IC service to Wuppertal. What amazed me was that the loco-hauled service accelerated to 200 kmh soon after leaving Cologne. In April 2019 after studying the timetable, I found an ICE service going from Berlin to Munich in 4 hours. I don't know how far that is but my limited knowledge of DB told me that if I was going to get a train at 300 kmh in Germany, *_this was going to be it!!!_* Somewhere after Hanover we took a dedicated high-speed line and I watched the interactive map on my laptop as the train accelerated in steps to *300 kmh!!!* It was as if the driver was enjoying it too! My fellow passengers, most of whom I expect were German nationals, didn't see anything noteworthy about this train. 😕
I have grown up in Australia, a place where we still think 160 kmh maximum speed is fantastic and fast enough, yet the UK and Europe have been doing this for decades! 💖DB!!!
In my opinion Germany should spend way more money on railways. The problem is the projects are often short sighted and not future proof (see Stuttgart 21) and explode in cost. I hope we finally start to separate cargo and passenger rail because everything else has shown to be problematic.
I agree.
Although I don't see shortsightedness as the major problem. We'll have to see how Stuttgart21 works. According to simulations I've seen if every single trains is absolutely on time it will work out ... but ... that wont happen, so it would probably have been better to build it with more tracks.
Anyway, I see THE major problem with citizens butting in in every single project and everyone is like "yeah, I totally support you, buuuut .. don't build it where I live, thanks bye"
The incoming coaltion want to spent more and there are plenty projects still being built. Especially ones connecting to Neighboring Countries. Seperation will be unlikely. While there are some seperate tracks. In plenty corridors the is just not enough space. The goal is more that the Regional trains will have together with the freight trains speed rise from 120 km/h to 160 km/h. Also more rails for passing and longer ones, so freight trains can be longer. The new train control system should also allow more trains etc.
I agree that the investments in the train system here in Germany have been far too low and in some cases have been redirected into car- and air traffic. But seperated systems between cargo and passenger rail is simply not possible. Despite of what could have been done better or what should have beeen done in the recent history, the transformation of non existent high-speed rail to upgraded lines and new high speed ones is very impressive. The comparisons to Japan and France and Swiss (although we certainly can learn a lot from them) are often invalid because the realization in Germany is unevenly more complicated than in all these countries.
As consumers we are inclined to demand fast, passenger-only tracks for the most short connections. But meanwhile we need to upgrade our rail-cargo numbers and won't do that by building exclusive passenger rails.
Stuttgart 21 is a vital project. Only execution was bad and therefore it is well over budget and will be finished late
Right now I am using the Stuttgart Hbf as an interchanging station regularly. I am truly sad that soon the construction work will be finished and they will demolish the old station, since I'm definitely expecting longer waiting times that way.
At the moment there are so many rail tracks leading to the station and at the station itself - and they all are used. They are all needed. And now we will have way less tracks. I don't expect that that will help in any way.
"Large cities in Germany"
"Limburg an der Lahn"
As a user, I can confirm that I chose my trips taking care to stick within the HSR lines. for example the ICE between Hamburg and Cologne is never in time. it has no chance to have less than 15 mins delay it is always stuck behind a slower train, that´s the consequence of mixed traffic. As I know it, I never take any connection smaller than 25 mins, but I see so much people missing connections and asking for refund ... On the other hand on the train hamburg to frankfurt hamburg to Freiburg/Basel i rarely have more than 10 mins delay now that the line between Hannovre and gottingen is rehabilitated.
I really appreciate the high speed train in germany, it is quite quick, comfortable and affordable.
You really notice the 40 ‰ (Permil) grade when you take the Frankfurt to Cologne line. Like on an airplane or a car up a mountain you notice the change in airpressure and how much you are pressed in the seat.
that's due to the tunnel not change in elevation
I'm glad you mentioned the schedule of the trains, the combination of different speeds on same tracks and so on.
It is indeed one of the most interesting subjects of the railway world. I'm very much looking forward to that video.
The map of France includes half of Belgium like more than 200 years ago.
Thank you, came for this !
Non, pas exactement. La France du premier empire n'a JAMAIS eu possesion de RIEN que la Wallonie, mais bien de tout ce qui devint après le Bénélux (Belgique, Pays-Bas [Nederland] & Luxembourg) ! Or, le territoire en bleu à 2 : 00 min correspond + ou - à la France métropolitaine avec rien que la Wallonie.
It is so disappointing that the Berlin - Rhein-Ruhr corridor is still one of the most frequent _plane_ routes.
Also a bit wondering, how comfortable is that Frankfurt to Cologne route?
Pretty comfortable actually. 4% is not actually that much, so little in fact, that I did not notice it at all when I rode the track back in September. The ICE is pretty quiet and the only uncomfortable thing I can think of is the pressure differences inside the tunnels.
You don't feel the curves, but you really do feel the elevation changes. When it's going up, you're pressed into your seat a bit
A main HS line is needed in the east-west direction probably.
@ They are planning new highspeed lines on the Rhein/Ruhr-Berlin Corridor. But it'll take decades to finish them all :_
Although it's been ages ago that I took that train, it's very comfortable. When riding on the Thalys/TGV, sometimes I felt a little tick of some sort, indicating how fast we were going. In the ICE3, it felt like we were doing perhaps 120 km/h, and only the display in the train revealed that we were, in fact, doing 300 km/h.
As an American, I'm supremely envious of Germany's High Speed Rail network. Absolutely wish we had something similar here that wasn't stuck in development hell like most proposed High Speed lines
Well... as you can see, the German projects are also mired by the same delays. I mean almost 30 years for one of the lines, that's hardly better than the delays we have in this country. By comparison California High Speed Rail is moving at light speed!
I think this is more a product of our political systems. These are very large projects impacting a lot of people and since they have the right to object and delay these projects, well, they do. It is good that they can! That's the goal of a democracy, to let its citizens have their voices heard. I think we need to just accept that the politics of mega projects generate costly delays. And delays are literally the most expensive thing you can have in construction, especially when there is a large megaproject with an enormous schedule prone to cascading effects of even the smallest delay.
As a German American I can tell you the main issue the USA struggles with it ours settlement plans. Germany has highly regulated settlement areas therefore building rail is super easy. You have a whole bunch of points you can connect with rail and other then those hard set living areas the rest is open country. What this means is that its easy to plan effecient rail lines and so long as you have the money you can easily build the rail. This isnt the case in the USA. The ACELA line betwen Washington and Boston is actually used heavily and the New England corridor with its dense population would be great for a high speed line. But because you can place a house whereever you please in the USA building rail is a bitch because a requirement for highspeed rail is long straight sections and if anyone has built a house in the path of the proposed tracks and refuses to move you may as well scrap the idea. This is also a reason why californian forest fires have gotten so bad. Because California can't let the fires just burn themselves out because there are people living now in said forests.
@@TohaBgood2 It's good that everyone is heard, but the process can't be used to delay projects indefinitely. They have to plan something, that then gets presented, then everyone can have a voice and the problems have to be fixed within a year. After that, the project is finalized and can be build. No more endless delay because people can revision court orders multiple times.
2:00 My Belgian little hearth skipped a beat!
haha, no bad intentions! :)
I didn't even notice at first, now mine is also not really beating normally anymore
As someone who takes train weekly from Berlin to Baden Wurttemberg...the trains RARELY if ever accelerate above 200 kmh. The potential of the line means absolutely nothing due to the shared tracks and constant construction. Watching this video vs. France, Italy, Switzerland, Spain makes me realize how absolutely backwards Germany's system is
I find it incredible that Germany, a technical giant has the slowest trains in the EU.
The average commercial speed is less than 140km/h and the top for a segment is 178km/h.
Italy: Milan Rome non stop 190km/h
Spain: Madrid Barcelona 208km/h
France: Paris Lyon 240km/h.
As travelling times by train in Germany decrease, it is also noticeable that driving on autobahns is not as fast as it used to be. There are far more cars on the road leading to more traffic jams. Also the increase in traffic wears out the road surface quicker, meaning more road works and hold ups. Munich to Frankfurt used to be a easy four hour drive including a rest stop. Now you have to allow five hours at least. Also Munich to Berlin coukd be done in six hours. Now you're lucky if you can do it in eight hours. The train is the best option!
I agree with you about the Autobahn. It is unfortunate that Germany is in the middle of Europe with lot of traffic between western and eastern as well as northern and southern Europe.
It is not the cars wearing out the Autobahn. The Autobahn is - by a lightyear - the best engineered and best maintained ultra high speed freeway which at the same time faces insane continental scale traffic.
The Autobahn is damaged and worn out by trucks. Even the - compared to any other freeway - totally overengineered Autobahn cannot handle millions and millions of 40 tonne trucks per year which simple did not exist 20 years ago. The majority of Autobahn traffic is not domestic traffic by German citizens, it is through-traffic by foreign cars and foreign trucks going East-West, West-East, South-North and North-South ...through Germany.
Die NBS Wendlingen - Ulm wird in einem Jahr zum Fahrplanwechsel im Dezember 2022 bereits eröffnet. Es fährt dann ein ICE pro Stunde und Richtung darüber + ein Regionalzug mit Halt in Merklingen.
12:46 Hamburg-Berlin is actually a line with speeds GREATER than 200kph.
"The most expensive European railway project with costs of more that 10 billion euros"
Cries in English
Doesnt your government Plan for highspeedtracks too? I thought i heard something about that not that long ago. Of course sorting that out can take its Time Especially.... after the whole brexit thing.....
Ha, yeah they plan to remove people from their homes and get them to sell for cheap because of their plans to build a high speed railway which won't even be that more effective which costed more than double of that only for them to be decide not to connect the north and the south which was kinda the whole point of it and cut the line in half; but it still retains the bloated costs.
Edit: I got the cost wrong. It's predicted to now cost 107 billion pounds in 2020 which is 126 billion euros.
@@somerandompersonidk2272 by Not that much more effective you mean what exactly? Capacity? Speed?
Well sadly you need to remove some from their homes always for such big infastructure builds.
@@KeVIn-pm7pu Although the line itself is faster, it is not directly connected to the overall rail grid, especially in London as it won't be connected to king's cross. As such, it means that you've got to have another journey to then get to King's cross which essentially mitigates the slight speed advantage of the line. Plus, the line isn't all that fast in reality compared to other major lines with it having a maximum speed of 360 km/h compared to it costing 126 billion euros (estimated) in 2020. - Gotta love British inefficiency.
Which yeah, I'm aware that you've gotta knock down homes which truth be told I'd be in support of (Britain really needs a high speed rail) but the issue is that the government decided to cut the line short so that it only connects 2 of the major cities and that this was after people had been made to sell their houses. Plus, the original plan didn't even go through Scotland! It is a mess of a project.
ICE Trains definitely enjoy their actual operating speed when running abroad, especially to France (beside they enjoyed it on smaller section of high speed rail line or few dedicated high speed rail on domestic lines).
The new Central Station in Stuttgart ist soo sad. They realized just now that it doesnt have enough tracks, so they want to build a second station now :(
One thing I greatly appreciate about German trains is the frequency.
I arrived at 3 a.m. in Munich and there was a train to the center !
Also I arrived at 4 a.m. in Frankfurt and there was a train for Mainz !
I was really impressed, and also the stations are open and feel safe at every hour.
I didn't get the chance to try the longer routes cause if you don't book I advance it can be quite expensive .
But overall I had a great impression of the transport system. Although for longer trips, I wish they would upgrade/separate at least some strategic routes.
Here in Italy I love taking high speed trains and also regionals are not bad on most cases, but the lack of travel choice late at night even in big cities is a shame.
The only train I took late at night was an intercity notte from Rome to Venice at 22.50. Even when I was in Milan I was shocked that the Metro stopped so early !
2:09 I'm not saying ot won't be one day reality, but Belgium has not yet exploded and hasn't therefore been partly absorbed by France ^^
4:30 it's not TGV Atlantique but TGV Est (years 2010)
I do not think that high speed rail in Germany is generally upopular, but that we currently lack a general crisis of nimbys. Also the decision to not separate cargo and passenger service was not a good one.
The NIMBYs, they're literally everywhere these days! Price of doing business in a democracy. Sad but true.
Thank you so much for making such comprehensive, informative videos. I've personally been waiting for this one for a long time. Exceeded my expectations!! Heading to Patreon now, thank you so much again for all of the excellent work you do.
Thank you very much Nathan, we are glad you like it. Welcome to our Patreon club 😊
The comparison with France is really interesting. In France you have non-stop services bypassing cities offering ultra short travel times. In Germany on the other hand trains tend to stop a lot, thereby increasing travel time, but leading to a terrific choice of departures even in small cities like Göttingen or Ingolstadt.
Centralised State vs. Federal State.
Paris is the more or less undisputed center of France, while Germany has a lot of more local centers.
That's also the reason why France uses duplex railway cars and Germany doesn't.
@@cdev2117 Quite right; France is indeed extremely Paris-centered. But even so, there seems to be a difference in timetable strategy, if that's the word. I once went from Paris to Montpellier by TGV. First stop was Nimes after some 700km; we were even bypassing Lyon. Great on the one hand, but if the timing doesn't suit you, you have little choice. In contrast, I remember a German intercity ad from the 70s "Nur die Strassenbahn fährt öfter"; only the tram has more departures.
@@featherstone5838 Try to go from Marseilles to Bordeaux. It is a nightmare. As a severely SCNF-traumatised foreigner who in the past had to take non-Paris routes, I can tell you, it is more than a pain in the ass to go between cities in France when one city of your connection is not Paris. In Germany? Dresden-Frankfurt? Nice. Erfurt-Berlin? Nice. Stuttgart-Cologne? Nice. Hannover-Bamberg? Nice. Kassel-Osnabrück? Nice. Berlin-Kiel? Nice.
People who slur against Germany pointing at Japan and France have no idea about the reality of travelling in those countries.
Even when Germany used to be the "good old Germany", when Saxony, Thuringia and Prussia being the leading regions and when a Kaiser or a Reichspräsident ruled, Berlin was the undisputed center of the country yet never as overwhelming as Paris. Remember: France is quite empty compared to Germany. Large areas of France are almost not inhabitated, and Paris is the overboarding center of the country. Japan is essentially a dipole with some later extensions southwards and one extension to Hokkaido. Most of the traffic happens between 2 giant metroplexes which some day will become one. Try to go around there between other cities and the Japanese railway, as nice as it is, is not as efficient and flexible as the German mixed system.
A lot of problems would not exist in Germany if they would invest in 1. dedicating one track of all main lines for freight trains and truck-carrying trains, 2. upgraded all tracks to 230 km/h, 3. standardisation of track speeds to a few fixed values while reducing the variance of train types being used, 4. synchronising local traffic like Switzerland by breaking the country in 6 urban regions with their own tight clock and interconnecting them by 230 km/h, 270 km/h and 300 km/h ICE.
And of course: Germany would have been the absolute daddy had they built a national Transrapid route. It's the best Maglev tech, the most tested, the most reliable and it would demolish 98% of domestic flights. The Transrapid would turn Lufthansa to a purely international airline. But lobbyism won over infrastructure politics and engineering aspirations, and Deutsche Bahn backstabbed the German people by dropping the Transrapid in favor of the ICE, making a promise they never kept to this day.
They are currently evaluating the new route for the Hannover-Bielefeld corridor!
2:01 i didn't know Wallonia is part of France now.
Nice Video, sadly the Munich - Ingolstadt rail has only a small part of 200km/h Maxspeed between Munich and Peterwshausen. The Rest is up to 160km/h, often slower. In the rush hours the ICE-Trains will often come to a crawl on that route or even stop for a few minutes around Pfaffenhofen.
That's largely because they spent a year working on Pfaffenhofen that was having its platform for trains to Munich moved to an additional track. Now the station has 2 tracks, and the entire line will be upgraded to at least 190km/h, possibly 200km/h in the near future with ETCS.
Got to say that the network throughout Germany has a nice mix. Anything from dedicated HSR lines to mixed lines. Some ICE run on partially single track routes and others even serve commuter rail stations which is a rather remarkable aspect.
Of course on mixed tracks they can barely go faster than any other train and they will gain a quicker connection time by skipping the stations in between but I don't have any issues with that.
I had two outstanding ICE train rides, one was from Leipzig to Nuremberg where I happened to board the former MET (Metropolitan Express Train) which now runs as ICE ... it was a way higher standard on the interior design and was super comfortable and nice; I was traveling in 2nd class and thought I ended up in 1st class. The other remarkable trip was from Berlin Central to Stralsund Central: due to construction works on the normal route the train was re-routed and skipped ALL stations in between. Thus all the passengers which would have left the train on any of these stations were on board of other trains and the ICE was traveling for 3 hours non-stop. In my coach there was only one more passenger ... it can barely get any better
It seems to me that France and Italy HSR do some things better. On connections with a HSR the air routes are not in the EU top 30 busiest air routes. People just use the train predominantly. In France only Paris-Nice and Paris-Toulouse make te list. In Italy only to the Islands (obviously). In Germany a number of relative short hauls (400-600km) make the list (HH-Frankfurt , Frankfurt-Berlin Dusseldorf-Munich, Berlin-Munich). Aparently the German HSR is not competitive enough to lure travellers out of the planes, like they are in Italy and France.
The German high speed rail system won’t be finished until the line goes all the way to Konigsberg!
Thank you for sharing this, definitely enjoyed this one
Germany has such a good regional passenger rail, but mixed use with passenger and freight railway on HSR is just stupid. It would be great to travel on dedicated HSR-lines like in France for example. Paris-Bordeaux in 2:04 h is nuts! Of course, you likely would have more stops in Germany over 600 km, but with a similar concept like the french LGVs, it would still be much quicker and more convenient than now, to get from one big city to another.
Woah! Even I as a German did overestimate our ICE HSR network. I always thought that there are way more HSR tracks and that between Munich and Berlin the ICE could at least travel at 230+ km/h consistently. Also from Frankfurt to Hamburg. That this is not the case blows my mind.
Also I somehow thought that the Karlsruhe-Basel HSR line is already there. And many more. That we are still building these and most lines in this country are not at least 230km/h, is really a lack in infrastructure. I hope we can improve that.
Well... the Dutch built a dedicated freight line (Betuweroute) from Rotterdam to the German border. Hugely controversial, delays, billions over budget, the usual. But that line is there, and has been there for at least a decade, it runs, all hunky-dory now. Except that it connects to old infrastructure in Germany. At the earliest, this would be fixed in 2026.
The Dutch also built a high-speed line to the Belgian border (HSL Zuid). Hugely controversial, delays, billions over budget, the usual. But at least, trains are running, often at 300 km/h. However, the high-speed line to Germany (HSL Oost) has been shelved indefinitely. Partly because of the costs of building such a line through the second most densely populated country in the EU, but I can imagine that the somewhat lacklustre interest in Germany for high-speed rail may play a part.
@@SeverityOne Well, at least the exchange with France works really well. Right now I live in Karlsruhe and know that we have TGVs that come from Paris, and also our ICE3s going to Paris. That way, you can get to Paris by train very fast.
One time when there were strikes, we even had TGVs helping out. The ICE I booked did not go, but instead a TGV drove the exact same schedule that that ICE would have served. But more likely that was to get French people to Stuttgart, a line that the ICE3 failed to do that day. And Karlsruhe is just that one stop between France and the destination Stuttgart, so it just happened to take me where I wanted to go that day.
It could be worse, you could live in northern England
You saw the network at the end, the amount of lines in blue (200-230kmh) is huge. Between Berlin and Munich only Berlin-Halle is 200 kmh (not bad for a line not dedicated to HSR only) the rest is at least 250 with large portions 300
2:08 Wallonians cousins, welcome chez vous !
2:07 has anyone noticed that France here also includes Wallonia? Which is the French speaking part of Belgium :D
Germany needs a lot more capacity on the Tracks
At 4:30 is showing the video of the TGV Est between Paris and Strasbourg at a speed of 574.8 Km/h In 2007. The previous record was TGV Atlantique in 1990 at a speed of 515,3 km/h.
The Netherlands may be known as the Low Countries but in terms of government decisionmaking and progress Germany should be known as the Slow Country
I'm surprised that Hamburg isn't connected to any HSR higher than 200 km/h.
Actually the line to Berlin allows 230 km/h for most of the length. That was an error on the map.
Please make a video on HS Rail of Italy ?!
Just FYI, the rail line between Ulm - Friedrichshafen - Lindau was also upgraded and electrified and will become operational on the 12th. Dec 2021.
And please tell us more about the Transrapid 😁
Edit: and I forgot the important information that it was also upgraded for the speed of 160kmph 😅
2:09 Not to my knowledge that France has already invaded Wallonia and the French part of Switzerland.
I'm very late to this one as it's been a mental week because I've had mock exams. Thankfully, they've finished now. Thanks for the great video. The German high speed rail network is very interesting. Keep it up😁
En France en1967, le train "Le Capitole" roulait à 200Km/h sur une ligne classique entre Toulouse et Paris.
Wonderful.
I traveled from Frankfort to Koln in 1990 through Lufthansa Express.
I went to Germany for training on the Bayer's accounting Software.
I still remember German people, they are really amazing.
Just here to point out an error on the graphics. whenever you show show the maps with the speeds of the lines you've used the < symbol to signalize that the max speed along that line ist somwhere below or equal to that number, but for 300 plus it doesnt make much sense to use "
This Comment is so German 😂 and i am saying that as one
2:51 interesting how on an english language map many of the German parts annexed by Poland still have German names
Perfectly researched and presented ! Only one little mistake the ordered ICE1 units were 62 and not 82
Thank you !
Sorry Willy, but I just have to disagree.
If you like, please read my comment I wrote a bit earlier. :-)
To be very precise. Only 60 ICE1 units were ordered and built.
Next Explain about Indonesia Conventional Railroads 😄👍🏻
Thanks for the idea!
What happened to the map of France at 02:05 ???? Looks like french speaking belgium’s Wallonia got annexed, and Savoie disappeared !
With the introduction of the Fehmarn Fixed Link I guess we will also see upgrades Puttgarden - Lübeck - Hamburg, allowing for 200-250km/h all the way from Malmö in Sweden to Hamburg
5:14 You can see my hometown bebra😁. I'm certainly surprised, because Bebra has only 14k inhabitants. However it has still a good railway system for our size.
If it is about Germanys high speed rail developement you need to add the transrapid to, since the ICE and Transrapid were being planned and tested parallely. At least partially. Tracks and lines were being planned up until 2008, the TR06 was even earlier "on the run" than the IC Experimental. It started test operation in Emsland Facility as early as 1983 with speeds up to 412km/h in January 1988. And: It still has the option of bringing transrapid back to official and regular service...
2:10 Did France annex half of Belgium there? :D
Apparently, Germany is a faaar away place of which we know very little. But 06:54 contains a series of very obvious mistakes, as high speed stops were located in six, not three, out of 16 German states. The state of Niedersachsen had three, repeat: 3, stations serving the newly built dedicated high speed lines (in Gottingen, Wolfsburg and Hannover), Wurzburg is of course in Bavaria and Berlin is generally considered a German state too. Slightly bungled, and rather avoidable.
Munich Augsburg is upgraded to atleast 230kph.
und Ulm - Augsburg soll neu gebaut werden
ulm-augsburg is in the plan phase too. So hope the line Stuttgart-Munich will be complete high speed in a not so far future with Wendlingen-Ulm opening next year and stuffgart-wendlingen 2025
Fantastic Video....Thumbs Up👌👍
Best greetings from Switzerland
thank you!
I don't know if the new Vogelflug Linie can be called high speed but its surely up there.
Hamburg Lübeck will still be 160 km/h but they extend Hamburgs S4 line a good way out of the city.
This means that slow local traffic will be seperated from the long distance trains on this line.
A newly build line between Lübeck and the Fehmarn tunnel will be build for 200 km/h.
The old like will be closed so most of the small towns along the route will get a station located outside of the towns.
But a trip from Burg to Lübeck will be reduced with 40 minutes to 49 minutes so this is not all bad news for the locals.
This line also includes a new Fehmarnsund tunnel that will replace the current bridge.
From Fehmarn its 200 km/h all the way to Ringsted 65 kilometres southwest og Copenhagen.
The last part until Copenhagen will be travelled with 250 km/h.
Not a critique of the video but I don't want people to get a wrong impression of the population distribution of Germany:
At around 6:35 it is said that all large cities in Germany were successfully connected highspeed rail. The map shown does not reflect that at all.
Out of the 5 biggest cities (Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, and Frankfurt) only 3 are shown on the map and out of the top 20 cities only 6 are shown. So either the sentence or the map is wrong.
If you consider metropolitan regions instead of single cities it looks a little better (a lot of Germany's biggest cities are kind of close to Cologne, for example). But the big Hamburg, Munich, Bremen, and Leipzig/Dresden/Halle metropolitan areas are blank spots on the map in the video.
@14:00 "
It is late Infomation. Not ONLY ICE 3 can be used fron Cologne to Frankfurt(Main), and also ICE 4!
2:12 Wallonia is part of France? :^p
Rattachement intensifies
For the German settlement structure, it makes more sense to overhaul ***all*** tracks in the entire country to be suitable for 230 km/h, especially the many run-down Imperial tracks from the Kaiser era and the run-down tracks from the Nazi era, than investing in many dedicated high speed routes. And it would have made more sense to build a Transrapid national ring route Berlin-Dresden-Munich-Freiburg/or Strasbourg/or Stuttgart-Cologne-Hamburg-Berlin operating clockwise and counterclockwise on a double track at 450-500 km/h!
Had Germany done that, they could have shut down most of the domestic flights by now.
Deutsche Bahn only makes 10-15% of its total revenue from long distance passengers while most of the money and most of the transportation needs of the majority of the peopled is with local trains between adjacent metroplexes as well as between small villages/small towns and the adjacent big town.
Germany is very densly populated, 10 times denser than the US, with a fantastic village sprawl, and most of the population lives in small settlements and mid size settlements.
Germany also does not have a very one sided settlement structure like France or a concentrated dipole like Japan. Many people have to get to many towns from many towns. A unique challenge France and Japan do not know from their geogrpahy and would not be able to handle any better than the Germans. In France there is only Paris. Try to go from Marseilles to Bordeaux. An absolute nightmare in France.
The real problem of the German railway network today is the thousands of km of old tracks, some more than 120 years hold which have never been updated. Another unique issue in Eastern Germany is the havoc caused by the Soviet Union. Before 1946 the areas of Saxony, Thuringia and Central Prussia were the core of the Empire in every aspect: education, economy, progressive lawmaking and infrastructure. Th East occupation zone which became the Soviet satellite countrys GDR in 1949 had to shoulder more than 95% of all reparations while the Western part did not contribute anything of significance. The Soviet Union took all the German Uranium oxide and built 10,000 nuclear weapons with it, and they took many, many, many tracks. There pictures of routes built in Imperial Germany with 4 tracks per route, and the Soviets took 3 of them away. In many of those areas, the railway network was never restored to 4 tracks after the reunification of West Germany and East Germany. The Soviet Union destroyed the German core regions and absolutely demolished more than 80% of its infrastructure. Today, it would make a huge difference if unified Germany still had those well-sized routes with many tracks to handle trains with different speeds, to handle freight trains, to handle overtaking, stopping, re-routing and so forth.
Explain about Indian Railways.
Please do a Transrapid video. Loved to see that
Would love to see an explained video on South Koreas High-Speed Rail System!
Thanks for the idea!
"In the second wave they decided to connect smaller towns to the highspeed net" - like Hamburg.... yeah...
Could You do one on Poland? And their plans for high speed rail...
Very nice.
Frankfurt to Mannheim would be a very nice high speed rail ride.
You drew Wallonia with France 🤣
Anything below 300 km/h doesn't make sense for high speed railway.
1. It will not be successful at diverting travel by air.
2. It does not cost more than 230 km/h. In fact since trains move faster you need fewer of them and can cut down on total crew costs per pessenger km.
3. And now the combined tracks give another argument in favor of a _pure_ high speed railway system.
Germany has something that England will never have, a excellent rail network.
You forgot to mention that a number of lines are already accommodating speeds of 125 mph or 200 kph prior to 1973.
must be awesome living in such a small country? Train trips of 4000kms are not even close to flying prices.
Why did you include Wallonia with France though at 2:00? 😂
Low key rattachisme :p
We need a direct wilhelmshaven-Hannover connection
Yes, please tell us more of the Trans Rapid 09.
Will you be doing a video on the newly opened China-Laos railway? The stations' architectural designs are incredible!
thank you for suggestion!
15:07 there are some local Politicans that side with the NIMBYs, but DB certainly doesen´t have enough yet. If it was up to them and if they could just ignore the NIMBYS about 5-10 high-speed projects would be under construction right now.
All those new high speed rail will bring no effort until the mistakes of the past (eradicating freight traffic to almost 0, abandon of local and regional lines) are not corrected with an new Bundesverkehrswegeplan
2:10 Minor issue but it's preventable in such a well done video. That is not a map of France but a map of french speaking Europe. It includes half of Belgium and a chunk of Switzerland.
Yep, unintentional editing error!
Interesting to see how similar the Germany experience is to the UK, there is a perception in the UK that trains in Europe all run on brand new dedicated HSR tracks with no mixed freight. Clearly the reality is very different, thanks for sharing. It’s make sense for more densely packed countries like Britain and Germany to look at a mix of upgraded and existing lines. Also the massive cost over runs of recent project show again it’s not just high construction costs in the UK that’s the issue. HSR is expensive and difficult to do especially in dense areas. It’s fairly cheaper by comparison to run empty new lines through flat empty country in France and Spain.
Germany is indeed a bit of an odd one out in this sense, and the approach definitely has its benefits. Though it also depends on what you call HSR in the first place, in Belgium for example certain upgraded lines are also capable of 200 kph, but they're not considered high speed because that is only reserved for the actually dedicated 300 kph sections, similarly to how the UK's 125 mph lines are also not considered in the same category as HS1 and HS2.
Spain is not flat. Quite the opposite.
"to run empty new lines through flat empty country in France and Spain"
You're joking, right ???
France and Spain, just like Italy and Switzerland are far from flat, they are the most mountainous countries of Western Europe...
Italy has a very high population density and has a dedicated backbone high-speed line too, on (real) mountainous and seismic terrain...
Also, Paris has its Eastern high-speed bypass and 4 other high-speed lines stems (with each their high-speed triangular exchange connecting to the bypass) located in Europe's most densely populated agglomeration.
The recent French LGV SEA goes through ultra premium Bordeaux vineyards.
The LGV Est crosses the ultra premium Champagne hills vineyards, runs through the base of the Vosges mountain range and crosses the Nancy, Metz, Thionville, Luxembourg corridor before passing through Alsace vineyards...
The triangular high-speed exchange that connects the LGV Méditerranée and the Montpellier HS branch is at the beginning of Camargue, on the marshlands of the Rhone delta, among a plethora of Roman ruins and dig sites...
The whole length of the LGV's (high-speed lines) South of Lyon to Marseille is built in a populated corridor stuck between two mountain ranges and runs at the base of the Alps, then has to cross the hills and valleys of Provence and through the Avignon-Aix-Marseille conurbation... This part has to be earthquake proof too.
The Lyon Eastern bypass runs through the agglomeration and under the airport, just like Paris Eastern high-speed bypass runs under CDG airport and Disneyland...
Spain also has very challenging terrain, just look at Madrid's elevation altitude, it's located on a high plateau, it's the Denver of Europe.
It is surrounded by valleys and mountains as the whole Iberian peninsula is a giant patch of rough hilly and mountainous terrain.
Barcelona is pinched between the Mediterranean sea and a mountain range, same for Southern end of the country, there are mountains (with ski resorts), the Sierra Nevada range, between the coast and the center of the country (which has more mountains).
Italy also has a very difficult terrain, premium agricultural land, historic buildings, dig sites and a greater population density, the country being a long corridor with mountains bordered by seas... The North Italian conurbation is the tip of the "Blue Banana" and the third most populous agglomeration of the EU after Paris and the Rhine-Ruhr region.
Most of the Italian line is in a very seismic area.
And somehow France, Italy and Spain all managed to build real dedicated high-speed lines, for a fraction of the cost and time compared to Germany and UK...
So no, the density or terrain excuse doesn't fly !
It's the easy go-to of every politician to justify bad planning and overspending.
Neither the "it's more complicated in Germany / UK" excuse : have you seen how politics and projects usually run in France ? It's a trench fight, an expletives festival of burnt cars, riots, lawsuits, etc. It's a shitstorm every time !
And it either is tanked like Nantes new airport or built almost on time and reasonably on budget like LGV SEA (Bordeaux 300km long extension of the same quality rating as HS2 plus numerous environmental amenities for wildlife) or the massive Grand Paris Express which is well underway (some parts will open sooner than planned and others later, which all in all puts the project globally on time).
It all comes down to the political and collective will.
As I said in another reply, France should take example of the German politics. The new coalition was built with serenity and pragmatism and shames the French political endless nightmarish shitshow.
But for building infrastructure like high-speed networks, Latin countries like France and Spain do it better.
They do it to serve the public, not to line the pockets of everyone involved.
There's even dirt cheap low-cost services on the French and Spanish high-speed networks which is something I'll be surprised to see in Germany or UK as high speed is a premium service there.
In France and Spain, the TGV and AVE services have completely replaced every other traffic so they can, and have to, offer a range of fares from low-cost to premium, all operated at full speed on high-speed trains.
Only train density, seating, timetables and onboard services vary.
Maybe that's due to a different concept of equality but travel time has been deemed a kind of "public right" in those countries. The speed is the same for all fares, only certain schedules can offer more or less low-cost or premium seats.
In those countries they dedicated the high-speed network to passengers with high density trains, like in Japan, leaving the regular network to regional and freight services.
And frankly I don't understand how the HS2 has such a high pricetag. That it may cost reasonably more than the recent LGV SEA, I can understand. But that it ballooned to such crazy amounts is simply shocking and uncalled for.
There are far too convenient and way too much used excuses that can't stand the comparison to France, Italy or Spain...
There's enough space in Germany, even in the most densely populated areas, to build a fully dedicated network. The population is more evenly spread than in France, Spain or Italy where there are a mix of low and extremely high density.
So enough with the excuses, it's a matter of choice and deep pockets being lined.
Taking a TGV or AVE is like taking an airplane, you reach cruise speed and stays there until your final deceleration to either stop and get off at an "online" station or exit the line and take the upgraded track branch to your "offline" destination. It is the "arterial model".
On the German network it feels like a regional train on steroids, having to slow down or stop at every station because the line crosses city centers instead of working on the "arterial model" and bypassing centers.
It such a pity, the ICE 3 is a great train and the only place it can really run at its full potential is in France on the LGV Est...
@@KyrilPG "France and Spain, just like Italy and Switzerland are far from flat, they are the most mountainous countries of Western Europe..." I'd agree with Switzerland, but I'd rather choose Austria and Norway as example instead of Spain, Italy or France :D
Large scale projects are indeed super difficult in Germany, especially due to reluctance among the population on many different levels; Just like all the protests in e.g. Stuttgart, or when new highways are supposed to be built through a forest, or the Munich airport expansion, deepening of the Elbe river etc; And even if most of the population is okay with it, you'll always find that small group of wildlife protection fanactics which find that one tiny special animal or plant which deserves to be protected in that area
@@EnjoyFirefighting That's why I wrote Western Europe, Austria is Central Europe and Norway Northern Europe and none have (true) high-speed.
Furthermore I only listed Switzerland for their extensive rail network in ultra mountainous terrain but it's a tiny population, like Austria compared to France, Germany, Italy, Spain or UK.
The protests in Stuttgart are quite understandable, 20 years of lag is a mockery of the public !
But have a look at the shitshow in France : Notre-Dame des Landes, Nantes new airport project that was tanked due to riots, land occupation by black blocks and ecowarriors, etc.
Do people get killed in protest and policemen burnt on the third degree by incendiary devices thrown at them by protesters in Germany ? It happens in France every now and then.
But when a project is well explained, well prepared and well budgeted it gets lit and done quite quickly for a fraction of the price of Germany or UK.
For the LGV-SEA (the extension to Bordeaux) they managed to satisfy environmentalists with 300 wildlife ducts, bridges and ponds along the line. So much it's now the most important spot of wildlife of the terrain it crosses.
So it's manageable and without being a money pit !
I can't find your shinkansen rolling stock evolution video
Make a video about Albanias railway and the projects of restoration and new durres pristina railway
I would like to see a video on UAE's railway project
Why are you showing the TGV speed record from 2007 @4:22 when talking about the speed record from 1989? Doesn't make much sense.
In other Words: Decision of mixed traffic was a desaster. Own experience and family / friends shows highly unreliable timetable, mixed with poor service and high drug related criminal activities and homeless people at train stations (Hamburg and Frankfurt / Main really bad). I avoid using Railway network in my homecountry whenever possible, its so sad.
Nürnberg-Bamberg und Stuttgart-Ulm sind noch im Bau, Ulm-Augsburg in Planung
6:50 Würzburg is in Bavaria.
I would like an to see a video on about the plans for HSR in Mexico
„Heute leider 50 Minuten verspätet.“
..und von Gleis 3 - direkt gegenüber
50 min delayed is 10 min too early for others !
@@wkaemena „Heute leider 70 Minuten verspätet“
@@itryen7632 70 min sind für manche nur 10 min zu spät wegen des Stundentakts und außerdem gibt es 25% vom Fahrpreis zurück
Unfortunately Amsterdam to Berlin does not use ICE from Hanover to Berlin.
Wondering if any new track was laid for the relatively new ICE route Frankfurt-Fulda-Eisenach-Erfurt-Leipzig-Lutherstadt Wittemberg-Berlin, or if it just repurposed existing lines?
2:04 When did Wallonia succeed from Belgium and join France?
2:02 Wallonia is France now???
I can report that they started drilling a bunch of pilot holes in Offenburg. God knows how many decades it will take for that tunnel to be finished.
Dear Railways Explained, it would be interesting to produce a Sweden Railways (SJ) episode, with a study of their high-speed rail system,
Thanks for your work,
Best regards
It is on our to do list. So, stay tuned.