Published on Wednesday, September 28, 2011

High-speed rail services to Germany to start in 2013

Following a successful test run through the Channel Tunnel to the Eurostar terminal at London St Pancras, German rail operator Deutsche Bahn (DB) plans to start a full inter-continental service in 2013.

Using Brussels as the connecting point, high-speed srvices will be provided to Rotterdam/Amsterdam and also Cologne/Frankfurt.

The chairman of the DB Management Board, Dr Rutiger Grube, said, “By making full use of the opportunities afforded by the liberalisation of the European rail transport market we are able to offer our customers genuine alternatives to air travel.”

Travel time from Cologne and Amsterdam to London is expected to be under four hours and from Frankfurt just over five hours.

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More subsidies for the rich

All we want is affordable journeys on the routes we need to use everyday. What do we get? A plan to spend billions on ferrying a few rich folk on journeys between cities already well served by massively subsidised intercity services. Just how many people want to go Germany by rail on an ordinary day. I suspect it's not even thousands, just a few hundred - and at what cost to the taxpayer? Get real and start investing more in the services we actually want and need. It seems to me that those campaigning against HS2 are brave enough to stand up to our vain glorious politicians. Good luck to them

By Mark Susan, Thursday, September 29, 2011
Just so long as...

...the "STOP HS2" campaigners don't have a German chapter. Or maybe the German public have rather more sense than to take any notice of them. If you want to get an idea of the kind of nonsense that these Luddites are spouting, how about this (from their website listing of reasons why the line should nt be built): "...Journey times between our major cities are faster than our European competitors. We already have an extensive fast rail network...." I'd like to see a few examples of this plethora of high-speed British intercity links that put other European countries' networks to shame. Our railways are pretty good - but we are not presently in the forefront of high-speed rail technology - nor will we be so whilst the Luddites hold sway.

By Richard English, Wednesday, September 28, 2011