Change of timetable: The XXL-ICE will soon be rolling through Bavaria – Nuremberg

The new ICE-4 has been on the road since autumn 2016. With the new timetable, the XXL version with 13 cars will also be put on the rails.

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The corona crisis also hits long-haul Deutsche Bahn with all its might. During the first wave of pandemics in spring and early summer, demand practically came to a standstill due to the extensive exit and travel restrictions.

With the easing, the number of passengers in the ICE and IC then recovered, in the meantime they have at least been back to 75 percent of the actually usual level. But things have long since been on the downside, at the end of October the utilization was only 30 to 35 percent in some cases and is now likely to have fallen even further due to the partial lockdown.

New Sprinter connection

Nevertheless, DB is sticking to maintaining the full range of services and expanding it with the timetable change on December 13, 2020. On the three years ago Munich – Nuremberg – Berlin race track inaugurated with a lot of fanfare All five Sprinter connections are then also available at the weekend.

In particular, with the early connection at 5.56 a.m. from Munich (7.01 a.m. from Nuremberg), you can also reach the federal capital at 10 a.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. The travel time from the Pegnitz to the Spree is less than three hours.

In addition, ICE trains run every hour with stops in Leipzig, Erlangen, Bamberg or Coburg. For the north-south connections, Augsburg and Treuchtlingen in particular benefit from an additional direct connection from Hamburg to Munich.

Also on other long-distance routes such as between Nuremberg – Würzburg – Frankfurt or from Munich via Stuttgart, Augsburg and Frankfurt, capacities are to increase in the course of next year thanks to new trains, the railway speaks of 13,000 additional seats daily in the long-distance network.

Clear the way for XXL-ICE

This is made possible above all by the new backbone of the ICE fleet. More and more trains of the 4th generation, which were officially presented in September 2016, are running. The DB has already accepted 50. By 2025, the ICE 4 fleet will have grown to 137 trains.

The ICE-4 is available in three different versions. 37 trains with seven cars have been ordered from Siemens and will be delivered from 2023. The 50 vehicles with twelve cars are already in operation and with the new timetable the first of the 50 trains in the XXL version with 13 cars are to be used.

They offer a record-breaking 918 seats and are to be used on routes between North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria from September 2021. The new ICE plant in Nuremberg, which DB intends to build in Nuremberg with an investment of 400 million euros by 2028, will also be responsible for their maintenance. which, however, has already called nature conservationists and residents on the scene.