German train service cuts back, under pressure from cheap flights and buses
Train operators across Europe have been under intense pressure from both low-cost flights and budget bus service in recent years. Cheap flights between European destinations have been very easy to come by for nearly two decades now, since the European low-budget airline craze took off in the 1990s.
More recently, Germany started loosening rules on how bus companies could operate, resulting in incredibly cheap fares for international bus travel. The latest development here happened just weeks ago, when two of the country’s big budget bus companies announced they were merging together.
So how is Germany’s national railway, the Deutsche Bahn (DB), reacting to the current travel landscape? What does this mean for the other rail operators in Germany? And what does this mean for your upcoming travel plans?
Unfortunately, it mostly means cuts to service. Read on…
Good Night, Nachtzug
Germany’s night train service, the “Nachtzug,” saw dramatic cuts in the new train schedules which went into effect last December. DB no longer offers overnight trains from Germany to Paris, Copenhagen, or Vienna, and decreased overnight service to Amsterdam.
The company has also reduced their Autozug offerings, which allow passengers to travel with their car to their vacation destination without driving it there.
The company claims that these routes have been losing millions of euros for years, despite the apparent popularity of certain routes (I’m looking at you, Berlin-Paris sleeper train!). However, the rising costs of right-of-way, the company’s lack of high-speed, long-distance locomotives (which required expensive rentals from the French and Danish), and the unwillingness to invest in improving their aging fleet of sleeper cars are among the reasons DB cites for the decision. They’ve promised to reexamine the issue for travel in 2016 and beyond.
Passengers’ rights and environmental groups see this development as a major setback and are looking into ways to support cooperation between rail companies and the growth of investment in European-wide night train networks as a carbon-friendly alternative to flying.
One bright development, as reported last week by hidden europe: Russian Railways (RZD) plans to begin operating a Paris-Berlin service this June.
Bye Bye, InterConnex
The December schedule change ushered out another familiar train route: the InterConnex ran its last trains between Leipzig, Berlin, and Rostock. The independent carrier rode the eastern German rails for more than a decade, offering steeply discounted train tickets on its dedicated routes and schedules. A subsidiary of the larger transportation company Veolia, InterConnex was the first private long-distance competitor of the near-monopolistic DB.
In its announcement that it was ceasing service, InterConnex explained that it was squeezed between the market pressures of the DB, whose control of the railways allows it to demand increasingly high prices from its competitors for access, and new low-cost bus services. When forced only to compete with DB, InterConnex carved out a discount segment that was quite successful. Yet, the overhead of running a train (even a version as slimmed-down as theirs) was so much higher than a bus that it simply could no longer compete.
Hamburg-Cologne Express cuts back
Germany’s other independent long-distance rail operator, HKX (Hamburg-Cologne Express), has also suffered under the new financial pressures and responded with a two-fold strategy. First, it decreased long-distance service to once per day per direction in order to function primarily as a regional connector (thereby increasing its eligibility for German state funds).
Secondly, it’s cooperating with the former enemy, allowing passengers with DB tickets to travel on its trains, as well as allowing DB to sell HKX-branded tickets at a higher price directly to its passengers.
The Thalys is safe
Perhaps the best-known private rail service in Germany is the international Thalys train, which runs between Cologne, Brussels, (Amsterdam) and Paris. The Thalys, however, is a brand unlikely to be negatively impacted by the same pressures outlined above.
Why? A high-speed train like an ICE or TGV, the Thalys offers a higher quality of service between these European capitals. The majority of its European business passengers are unlikely to switch to lower-cost international bus services, even as these services develop between the same destinations.
About the author
