In its quest for market share, Deutsche Bahn has forgotten about technology and service on their Frankfurt-Brussels route

The Intercity-Express (ICE) connecting Brussels with Frankfurt/Main via Köln is probably the least reliable train I’ve ever experienced. The catalogue of problems I have had with this service stretches back years, right from when the service was first introduced. I do at least 4 return journeys a year on the ICE between Brussels and Köln, and sometimes as far as Frankfurt, and the problems are so common so as to have become a pattern.

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The Intercity-Express (ICE) connecting Brussels with Frankfurt/Main via Köln is probably the least reliable train I've ever experienced. The catalogue of problems I have had with this service stretches back years, right from when the service was first introduced. I do at least 4 return journeys a year on the ICE between Brussels and Köln, and sometimes as far as Frankfurt, and the problems are so common so as to have become a pattern. Today we departed from Frankfurt on a series 403 ICE that can't operate under Belgian 3kv DC current, so we had to cross platforms at Düren onto a waiting series 406 train that has waited 20 minutes before departing. The reason for this - as so often for this route - is presumably technical problems with the series 406 trains, with a 406 doing Brussels-Düren-Brussels and a 403 Frankfurt-Düren-Frankfurt. The problem today was hence known right from departure in Frankfurt/Main (and @DB_bahn confirmed it to me on Twitter), but no announcement was made until after Köln - essentially the train manager was telling untruths about the destination until then... The first rule of transport customer service is to inform people what is going on - in the train DB failed to do that. More generally, in the past I've had trains cancelled completely (and without warning, and without any alternative transport means provided), trains that stop at Aachen while the driver has to re-boot some computer systems and a warning voice blares out "Störung, Störung, Störung", trains that have been re-routed onto the old lines in Belgium, and - at the very least - nagging delays of between 5 and 20 minutes. I do not currently recall the last time I took the ICE on this route and completed the journey without some sort of problem. As if to compound matters, DB increased its service on the route from 3 to 4 trains a day at the end of 2010. Essentially it strikes me that the service is part of DB's attempts to gain market share on the route, preparing the ground for through services to London from December 2013. Cheap tickets on the route are surely part of that strategy too. At least through services to London will use the new series 407 trains, but for the moment persistent technological problems have not been solved, and today and past experience shows there is also scant attention to customer service. Seriously DB, if you're going to be a serious rival to Eurostar, you're going to have to do better than this.

Topic 1 for NL-UK dialogue: rail tickets (London-Bruxelles-Rotterdam)

I’m lucky enough to have received an invite to The Apeldoorn Conference on UK-Netherlands dialogue, taking place 6-8 March in Rotterdam. An easy and high speed train journey – perfect!

The route is Eurostar to Bruxelles Midi, then Thalys on the new HSL-Zuid to Rotterdam Centraal. Total journey time is just over 4 hours, making it comparable to the plane from London to Schipol and then the train to Rotterdam. It’s a journey that anyone should be willing to contemplate.

So how do you book?

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Some lessons learnt from Europe’s travel chaos (and some tips to help you get home)

DB 115 - CC / Flickr

5 days into the volcano mess and the finger pointing is starting, some of it more and some of it less well argued. Charlemagne has an elegantly penned argument of why he will not comment, while EUObserver has a summary of the rants of Europe’s politicians. Alejandro meanwhile has a go at interpreting everything according to bureaucratic meltdown.

I’m not going to try to wade into the debate about whether (or not) to open or close airspace. I haven’t got the faintest clue about the pros and cons of all that (although I fear an irrational approach to the risk that something scary might happen is behind it).

No, instead I am going to return to a common theme of this blog – what the railways of Europe ought to be doing to help get people out of this mess. I was on a train from Berlin to Brussels yesterday and those hours gave me some time to think…

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[caption id="attachment_3346" align="alignright" width="288" caption="DB 115 - CC / Flickr"][/caption] 5 days into the volcano mess and the finger pointing is starting, some of it more and some of it less well argued. Charlemagne has an elegantly penned argument of why he will not comment, while EUObserver has a summary of the rants of Europe's politicians. Alejandro meanwhile has a go at interpreting everything according to bureaucratic meltdown. I'm not going to try to wade into the debate about whether (or not) to open or close airspace. I haven't got the faintest clue about the pros and cons of all that (although I fear an irrational approach to the risk that something scary might happen is behind it). No, instead I am going to return to a common theme of this blog - what the railways of Europe ought to be doing to help get people out of this mess. I was on a train from Berlin to Brussels yesterday and those hours gave me some time to think... Firstly, large (ex-)state-run operators are going to do a better job to get people home that smaller, private ones. Deutsche Bahn has a whole bunch of extra locomotives and 200 km/h capable carriages hanging around that can be put into action swiftly (Class 115s in operation in Köln yesterday for example). Equally SNCB could use all its extra P trains and locomotives. Smaller, private operators just do not have this legacy capacity - although eventually short notice leasing (Dispolok etc.) might help in this regard. Splitting of goods and passenger businesses may also not have helped here - could freight locos be commissioned as easily as a decade ago? Of course the caveat to this is SNCF whose staff have been on strike for the past few days making routes through France very complicated... Secondly, if your train is on a dedicated high speed line, or is reservation only, you're more likely to have problems. SNCF and Thalys are the prime examples here. Investment has been in high speed trains on dedicated lines, to the detriment of investment elsewhere, and with the rapid expansion of the network there are few spare train sets. Plus as these trains are compulsory reservation you can't easily stand in the trains either. The German hybrid model - ICEs and ICs on most new lines - can cope better in times of exceptional demand. Also the little signs in ICEs telling you what seats are reserved when really helps fill a train efficiently. Thirdly, if you're on an international route it's even more hopeless, especially if that's served by a high speed line (for example Köln-Brussels, Brussels-Paris). There will be a lack of train sets and the problem will be additionally compounded by a lack of multi-voltage locomotives that could run replacement trains. SNCB Class 16s could be pushed into service, but that of course would require cooperation of SNCB and DB... hmmm. Fourth, all of this is compounded by a national approach and a lack of proactivity on the part of the railways. Eurostar is an exception here, having laid on extra trains and made tickets available at a special price, but the railways never seem to be able to give the impression of flexibility and proactivity. I'm convinced that passengers would all be ready to get to their destination more slowly if only everyone was to be able to get there in reasonable circumstances - I'm not convinced the railways always bear this in mind. Could better planning for exceptional circumstances be better legislated for? So then, in summary, you're stuck somewhere in Europe and you want to get home. What should you do? Go through Germany rather than France - no compulsory reservations, no strikes, extra trains, and even when no extra trains then buses. Use Deutsche Bahn's rail planner - reiseauskunft.bahn.de - to plan your trip and for some journeys you can even get online tickets. You can also search for connections not involving any high speed trains. Get on Twitter and Facebook and ask for some help. I'm happy to assist via Twitter (and to friends via Facebook). Last of all - if you have managed to get to the end of this post - head over to RailRights.eu and help me and fellow bloggers to keep an eye on Europe's railways and improve matters for passengers!

The hypocrisy of Europe’s railways: some observations after a journey from Brussels to Germany

DB Mobil spread - pic by Jon Worth
In the January edition of ‘Mobil’, the magazine of Deutsche Bahn there’s a picture of Guillaume Pépy (head of SNCF), Rüdiger Grübe (chair of the board of Deutsche Bahn) and Yoshio Ishida (president of UIC) beaming at Gare du Midi, Bruxelles, in front of the Climate Express, a special day long train organised in December to transport climate conscious politicians to the UN climate summit in Copenhagen.

The train was even organised by Deutsche Bahn Charter and wow, what a wonderful bit of publicity for the railways! Look at how green everyone can be by taking the train!

Stop. Just stop. The shameful double standards here are laughable, and not least because Ishida works for East Japan Railway Company and probably flew to Brussels to be in the picture…

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In the January edition of ‘Mobil’, the magazine of Deutsche Bahn there’s a picture of Guillaume Pépy (head of SNCF), Rüdiger Grübe (chair of the board of Deutsche Bahn) and Yoshio Ishida (president of UIC) beaming at Gare du Midi, Bruxelles, in front of the Climate Express, a special day long train organised in December to transport climate conscious politicians to the UN climate summit in Copenhagen. The train was even organised by Deutsche Bahn Charter and wow, what a wonderful bit of publicity for the railways! Look at how green everyone can be by taking the train! Stop. Just stop. The shameful double standards here are laughable, and not least because Ishida works for East Japan Railway Company and probably flew to Brussels to be in the picture… No, the real shame is that this special is about the only genuinely long distance service to leave from Brussels. Try getting to Copenhagen on a regular service and it needs a change in Köln and in Hamburg, and a boat from Puttgarden to Rødby. Longer journeys are better overnight, but apart from an irregular ski train for a few months a year there are no night trains from Belgium at all – nothing since the very same Deutsche Bahn stopped running the Paris – Berlin / Hamburg train through Belgium in December 2008. The reason then was a dispute between DB and the Belgian SNCB about rates for access to the Belgian network, a dispute that does not look like it has been resolved. Try the daytime trains and it’s a little better, at least just into Germany. Here there are at least some services – 8 Thalys services a day from Paris Nord to Köln via Bruxelles Midi, and 3 ICE services from Bruxelles Midi to Frankfurt/Main Hbf via Köln. Apart from 30km or so between Aachen and Düren the high speed line between Bruxelles and Köln is now more or less complete. So it’s all fine? Of course not. The Thalys PBKA railsets, essentially TGVs designed by Alstom, are allowed to operate at 300km/h in Belgium, but only 200km/h in Germany, and have no clearance at all for the Köln-Frankfurt HSL. For the Siemens made ICE3s it’s the inverse – max 250km/h in Belgium (SNCB cites the danger of flying ballast and downforce), 250km/h on Köln-Aachen and 300km/h on Köln-Frankfurt. Seriously, what the hell is all of that about? OK, when things work the service is reasonable, but how much government money has been invested in those lines which no train can used to maximum speed along its whole length? Then try it when things go wrong – as they have quite a lot recently – and things get even more laughable. I turned up at Gare du Midi to take the 0725 ICE to Köln on Saturday 16th January. I get to the station and I’m told the train is cancelled. No ICEs to Belgium at all for the first two weeks of January due to bad weather the guy informs me at the ticket office, although by 16th January most snow had gone in Belgium. “Deutsche Bahn doesn’t have enough trainsets at the moment, so they are keeping the ICEs in Germany” he told me – not sure if this is the true reason but it’s illustrative that a SNCB employee even says it. If this is true, is it profit driven – DB makes more cash from domestic services – or it’s that they are more fearful of reputation damage of FAZ or Süddeutsche has a go at them than if Le Soir does? Interesting and annoying in any case. Anyway, what else can I do I ask the guy? “Well you should have checked your train was running before you left home” he says, typical Belgian approach to customer service. Hold on, I booked via the net, DB has my e-mail address, has known for 10 days my train will not run… yet no communication. Eurostar revisited. So then what? You’re lucky the guy tells me, there’s a Thalys in half an hour, and this time you will be allowed to board it. This time I’ll be allowed to board it? Yes, there are some free seats he tells me, normally you would have to take an IC to Liège, a regional train to Aachen, and then a regional train to Köln. What a prospect! Yet Thalys and DB are both members of Railteam, a get-together of 6 high speed rail companies that are supposed to together promote high speed rail. DB cannot get its act together to organise a replacement train, even from Aachen (powered at 3kv DC, so open to Belgian locomotives – why not redirect a 200km/h Eupen bound IC train with Class 13 locomotive to Aachen..?), and Thalys is refusing to take DB passengers as a matter of course. Seriously, what is the point of Railteam then? Strikes me it’s more like Railmutiny. Compare that with DB’s approach to replacement trains in Germany – 200km/h ICs replace ICEs – and it all looks highly negligent. To cap it all there was a major signalling problem at Aachen on the day I travelled, so the Thalys only managed to get to Welkenraedt and from there someone (DB? SNCB? Thalys?) managed to hire a couple of city buses to take us on towards Köln. Of course it took 30 minutes before the buses left, we were all on foot for 80km or so in a city bus on the German autobahn, and the promised destination – Köln – was not Köln, but Horrem, a suburb with a S-Bahn station. Rather unsurprisingly the Thalys employees had scarpered off the buses faster than their trains can run, so I actually was the one who directed passengers to the trains – as a responsible trilingual rail nerd I worked out fastest which RegionalExpress would get us swiftly to Köln… Yet again this is Eurostar revisited – if there is a problem, what are the procedures? No-one seemed to know, and for sure no-one wanted to inform the passengers what was going on or take responsibility for anything. They had even told us to get off the Thalys at Liège, only to then tell us to get back on again and go as far as Welkenraedt. I suspect there’s even more to this whole saga than the rudimentary stuff I can determine here through persistence and logical thinking, and somehow it strikes me that the whole liberalisation of European railways into the next decade is going to inevitably just lead to a big scrap between SNCF and DB, just as airline liberalisation has forced consolidation of the airlines. Is not as if passengers were served especially well by the old monopolies when it came to international travel but we have some way to go until a new, and hopefully better, equilibrium is established. Last but not least, the Community of European Railways (CER) is looking for a communications officer for its Brussels Office. Shall I make an application? ;-)

Jon Worth

At the intersection of the EU, UK politics and tech

Tag Archives: Deutsche Bahn

In its quest for market share, Deutsche Bahn has forgotten about technology and service on their Frankfurt-Brussels route

Topic 1 for NL-UK dialogue: rail tickets (London-Bruxelles-Rotterdam)

Some lessons learnt from Europe’s travel chaos (and some tips to help you get home)

The hypocrisy of Europe’s railways: some observations after a journey from Brussels to Germany