Rail transport: Deutsche Bahn rejuvenates train fleet

Berlin. Too old, too prone to breakdowns, too few seats: Deutsche Bahn's long-distance fleet is to be rejuvenated, with the average age of ICE and IC trains set to drop from 18 years to 12 years by 2030. A building block for greater reliability on the railways.

But the passenger association Pro Bahn fears that too many old trains are being retired and replaced with new ones too slowly. Federal board member Lukas Iffländer warns of reduced train service on some routes.

The modernization of the German railway's fleet is in full swing. The last of a total of 137 new ICE 4 trains from Siemens Mobility was delivered to the railway in March of last year. It is the first long-distance train with bicycle parking spaces.

Otherwise, the vehicles have at least 444 seats per train and can reach speeds of up to 265 kilometers per hour. They now form the backbone of the federally owned company's ICE fleet. With them, the number of ICE trains has increased from around 270 in 2017 to around 400 today.

Delivery of the ICE 3 Neo, a new version of the existing ICE 3 series, has also been underway for several years. Ninety of these trains are scheduled to be in service by 2028. Fifteen ICE 3 Neo trains will be added this year, and 16 next year, according to Deutsche Bahn's statement. Among other features, they feature frequency-permeable windows for better cell phone reception.

The Neo is currently used on the high-speed lines between North Rhine-Westphalia and Munich via Frankfurt and Stuttgart, as well as on international connections from Frankfurt to Amsterdam and Brussels.

However, there are delivery problems with another new order: the ICE L from the Spanish manufacturer Talgo. The railway has ordered 79 trains. The first were originally supposed to be on the road last fall. Now, delivery is expected to take place in the second half of this year at the earliest. Four of the trains could arrive in 2025, the railway announced. Visually, the vehicles are more reminiscent of Intercity trains than ICE trains.

A carriage of the new model is on display at the presentation of the new ICE L by Deutsche Bahn at the Grunewald railway depot.

Source: Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa

"DB Fernverkehr's fleet strategy has the clear goal of rejuvenating and modernizing the fleet in order to stabilize operations," the company emphasized. This is working. The availability of the ICE 4 and ICE 3 Neo trains is significantly higher than that of older series. Improved maintenance concepts have reduced the proportion of traction failures by 58 percent between 2019 and 2024.

However, the new trains have not yet led to increased punctuality. More than a third of all long-distance trains are still delayed.

The passenger association Pro Bahn is also unconvinced by the railway's figures. "Overall, the rolling stock strategy seems highly chaotic to us," said board member Iffländer. He cites, in particular, the retirement of older trains. "We will have fewer seats on many routes, at least temporarily, until the new trains arrive at some point."

Particularly affected are the east-west connections Wiesbaden-Frankfurt-Leipzig-Dresden and Hamburg-North Rhine-Westphalia-Bonn-Frankfurt-Nuremberg-Vienna, where the second train section will often be missing in the future. "For us passengers, this means, in short: It will be crowded and crowded. Transport turnaround – no, thank you," said Iffländer.

Cologne Central Station

Source: Christoph Hardt

Specifically, in April of this year, the railway company took 14 older ICE 3 trains of the 406 series out of service. Ten other trains of the 415 series – the so-called ICE T – are also considered prone to failure and require intensive maintenance and are scheduled to be gradually retired by the end of the year.

In addition, there are around three dozen ICE 2 trains that have been in service since 1996. They are scheduled to be gradually phased out of service by the end of 2027. Finally, the railway recently sold 17 double-decker "Intercity 2 KISS" trains to the Austrian Federal Railways. The railway had only acquired the trains second-hand in 2019 "to bridge delivery problems with other vehicles," it said. These have since been resolved.

It's questionable whether the discontinued trains can be replaced quickly enough by the partially delayed new arrivals, Iffländer emphasized. The consequences are already visible. "The early morning train from Leipzig will be discontinued at the timetable change because it is currently operated with a five-car ICE T, which will be retired at the timetable change," he said.

Deutsche Bahn acknowledges that the number of ICE fleets will fluctuate slightly in the coming years due to the retirement of existing trains and the arrival of new ones. However, in the medium term, the number will remain "at a comparable level with increasing seating capacity."

Iffländer is skeptical about this, too. "On paper, seating capacity will theoretically increase by 2029, but in practice it will decrease due to poor fleet availability, as even new vehicles are now often found in front of the factories with defects," he said.

While Deutsche Bahn's fleet is getting younger but not necessarily larger, competitor Flixtrain recently announced a major train offensive: The company has ordered around 30 new express trains. There is also an option for 35 more trains, according to Flixtrain. Including maintenance, the package will cost up to €2.4 billion. Flix has also ordered the trains from the Spanish manufacturer Talgo. It is unclear when they are scheduled for delivery.

RND/dpa