Germany - General Information

Country Name

Germany (Deutschland)

National Railway System

Deutsche Bahn AG (DB).

National Railway Operator

The principal operating divisions of DB are:

• DB Reise & Touristik - Long distance passenger services
• DB Regio - Local passenger services
• DB Station & Service - Operates passenger stations
• DB Cargo - Freight
• DB Holding & Gesellschaften - Other activities

The following have been, or are being, set up as DB subsidiary train operating companies:

• DB Autozüg GmbH
• DB-Zug-Bus Nordrhein Holding GmbH
• DB-Zug-Bus Regionalverkehr Alb-Bodensee GmbH
• DB-Zug-Bus Westfalen Holding GmbH
• Metropolitan GmbH
• S-Bahn Berlin GmbH
• S-Bahn Hamburg GmbH
• Usedomer Bäderbahn GmbH [UBB]
• Zug-Bus Schleswig-Holstein GmbH

Language

German

Currency

Euro

UIC codes

• Deutsche Bahn AG: numeric 80, alpha DB.
• Ahaus Alstätter Eisenbahn GmbH and Bentheimer Eisenbahn AG: numeric 68, alpha AAE.
• The former Deutsche Reichsbahn code was 50, but this will now be seen only on withdrawn or museum vehicles.

Timetable

Journey Planner

• PC: reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en
• Mobile Phone: DB Navigator (for iPhone, Blackberry, Android etc.)

Downloadable Timetable

kursbuch.bahn.de/hafas/kbview.exe/d.&rt=1&mainframe=tab_main

This gives options to search by:

• Bahnhof/Halt (Station/Halt)
• Liniennummer (Line Number. Note this is not the table number, but the S-Bahn line number)
• Kursbuchstreckennummer (Timetable table number)
• Zugnummer (Train number e.g. IC 1234)

Alternatively, click on "Tabellenübersichten" in the left hand column. This contains further sections:

• Regionaltabellen (In spite of its name, a complete table list)
• Bustabellen (Bus services)
• Schifffahrtstabellen (Shipping services)
• Bergbahnen (Mountain railways)
• Museums- und Nostalgiebahnen (Preserved railways)

from which one can select the desired table number.

The downloadable Journey Planner will be discontinued at the December 2014 timetable change.

Printed Timetable

DB no longer provides a hard-copy national timetable. The 2007-8 Kursbuch was the last one available for general sale. Some Länder have continued to sponsor the production of printed timetable books in Kursbuch format, but only for those tables traversing the relevant Land.

Engineering Information

bauarbeiten.bahn.de in German only.

The rather quaintly titled Information on inconveniences for City Night Line customers provides useful information on changes to CNL services.

The DB Bahn website now offers an Alternative train connections service: "Detour recommended: Now you know which connection will get you to your destination in the event of delays or disruptions".

Maps

Printed Maps

• Eisenbahnatlas Deutschland (ISBN 978-3-89494-136-9), published by Verlag Schweers + Wall GmbH (website in German, English and Italian) shows railways at 1:300.000 scale, with enlargements for the Ruhr and principal cities. Single and double-track lines, electrified and freight-only railways are distinguished. Private lines are identified and named, DB lines used by other passenger train operators are marked and the gauge of narrow-gauge lines is stated. Lines out of use and those entirely closed are also shown. Details can be confused in congested areas, particularly because parallel lines are used to show railways with more than two tracks. Rivers, canals and forests are marked.
• DB's Offizielle Streckenkarte der Deutschen Bahnen, which is widely available, shows all German railways on a sheet map at a scale of 1:750.000, with a 1:375.000 enlargement of the Ruhr area. This distinguishes single and double track lines, narrow gauge and electrified railways. Depiction of complex areas can be confusing, particularly because four-track railways are marked as two adjacent double track lines. Colouring indicates lines used by express trains and the frequency of service. Rivers, canals and autobahnen are marked, with shading to indicate hills and mountains.
• Fahrplankarte für Bus und Bahn Deutschland published by Verkehrsclub Deutschland is a geographically-representative network diagram at a scale of 1:750.000, with enlargements for various city areas. Colour is used to indicate the nature of a service along a railway, and the thickness of the line indicates service frequency. Railways used by several different services are depicted by a parallel line for each. Use of pale green to indicate S-Bahn services means that these are hardly visible. Non-passenger lines are not marked, but inter-urban bus routes are. Rivers, canals and relief are shown.
• European Railway Atlas: Denmark, Germany, Austria, Switzerland by M.G. Ball (1993) (ISBN 0-7110-2116-3)
• European Railway Atlas by M.G. Ball (2008 onwards)
• RV Verlag road maps and atlases at 1:200.000 scale show railways generally comprehensively and accurately. Closed railways may remain marked for some time after track has been lifted. RV Verlag publications are widely available in Germany, including at station bookshops.

Web-based Maps

• Sporenplan has a series of on-line maps and schematic track diagrams. Click on "Sporenplannen" on the left hand side for a map showing the countries covered.
• Thorsten Büker's Map of Germany, with enlargements of Hamburg, Berlin, the Rhein-Ruhr area and the Main-Neckar area.
• Maps and Plans - Germany
• DB Network diagrams show lines with regular local passenger service in each federal state. The graphical style and level of detail varies slightly from state to state; S-Bahn services and local services by other train operators are often shown with less detail. Lines used only by long-distance trains are usually omitted.
• The DB Netz Infrastructure Register. It is based around an interactive map which, although a good source for junction names and line numbers, can be misleading at small scales due to extreme stylization. Each named Bahnhof is shown as a point even though it may be geographically extensive relative to nearby lines, so if for example two corners of a triangular junction are signaled as part of the same Bahnhof the interactive map will show it as two parallel lines with no indication that they connect to the Bahnhof in different directions. The interactive map does lead to more accurate track diagrams for most larger stations, though. Double-clicking on one of the small circles with the "Selektion" tool opens a list of further links, in which the "Serviceeinrichtungen" link, if present, leads to a PDF containing a track diagram on one of the last pages. The "Detailplan" link will show an SVG diagram which is often garbled and of little use. The Infrastukturregister contains a third set of track diagrams under the TEN Spurpläne heading. These are also in SVG format, but less likely to be garbled than the ones accessible from the interactive map. On the other hand, many larger stations are split into multiple named parts each with a separate diagram, and it can be difficult to figure out how they fit together without crossreferencing with the Serviceeinrichtungen diagram for the entire station. As such they are most useful for figuring out where in the station a particular named part is.

Ticketing

DB offers its own network tickets, which give much better value than the standard One Country passes.

Among the most useful tickets is the Schönes Wochenende Ticket, which gives unlimited travel for up to five people travelling together on all local trains (S-Bahn, RB, RE and IRE) on a Saturday or Sunday. The ticket is also valid on many tram, U-Bahn and bus services.

Länder Tickets give unlimited travel for up to five people for one day throughout the Land (and in some cases a neighbouring Land as well) concerned on local trains. Most Länder also offer a cheaper ticket for one person. Länder Tickets are occasionally valid on some express services. Official validity information is best obtained from the TBFE website, the website of the German train operating companies.

Bargain tickets include Sparpreise and SuperSparpreise which are roughly equivalent to British Savers and SuperSavers, and subject to similar restrictions.

Special fares are payable on ICE services; if purchasing a ticket for a route on which ICE trains operate it is important to specify which type of train it is intended to use.

Since 1 February 2015 DB ICE,C and EC tickets are valid on HKX long distance services. Quer-durchs-Land and Schönes-Wochenende tickets are also valid between Hamburg and Köln or the Ruhr. See DB-Ticket im HKX.

Infrastructure

Infrastructure Authority

DB Netz AG, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn AG, is responsible for track and infrastructure.

The Eisenbahn-Bundesamt (EBA) is a government agency tasked with regulatory oversight of safety and some other matters, independent of DB.

Network Statement

DB Netz AG > Network Statement 2014

Gauge

Standard. There are various narrow-gauge private lines. DB operates a metre-gauge line on the island of Wangerooge. The train ferry terminal at Sassnitz Fährhafen (Mukran) has 1524 mm gauge tracks to receive and despatch wagons from and to Klaipeda, in addition to the standard gauge tracks. The funicular section Obstfelderschmiede - Lichtenhain is 1800 mm gauge.

Electrification

15kV 16.7Hz. The Berlin S-Bahn is 800V dc third rail, and the Hamburg S-Bahn is 1200V dc third rail. Obstfelderschmiede to Cursdorf is 500V dc overhead and Blankenburg (Harz) to Königshütte is 25kV 50Hz (This line is out of use between Königshütte and Elbingerode).

Rule of the road

Right. A short piece of the Aachen - Liège main line has left hand running between the west end of the Busch Tunnel and the Belgian border.

Distances

The Schweers + Wall Eisenbahnatlas Deutschland (ISBN 978-3-89494-136-9) is the best source of distance information.

Other Railways

See separate document.

Tourist lines

Very few tourist lines run frequently - fortnightly during the summer is quite common, although some operate only two or three times a year. In many cases these are weekend operations over private freight lines. Whilst many tourist trains are steam-worked, numerous preserved railbuses and diesel locomotives are also used. A German language site Eisenbahn Vereinskarte Deutschland comprises an interactive map of Germany showing most preserved railways. An English language site gives an overview map split by Lander, with a list of many lines in alphabetical order in each Lander section. Both give direct links to the various railways' homepages/timetables. The DB website gives timetables for a number of preserved lines in its Museums- und Nostalgiebahnen section, sometimes in a more easily intelligible form than the railways’ own websites. Printed timetable and other information about tourist lines are published annually in "Kursbuch der Deutschen Museums-Eisenbahn" (Verlag Uhle & Kleinmann, Postfach 15 43, 32295 Lübbecke: fax +49 5741 90224). Owing to the very large number of tourist lines in Germany, no one source appears to give a comprehensive list of every operation, so it is suggested that each of the above sources is consulted.

A special category are Parkeisenbahnen, which are complex miniature railways where operations closely follow the prototype. A comprehensive list of these is given in Wikipedia.

Rail cycling ('Draisinenfahrten') is possible on a number of lines; see the IG Draisinenfahrten website. Click on 'Deutschland' to obtain a list of operations in geographical order with some useful information. Click on 'International', followed by 'Draisinenlinks' to obtain website details.

Metro

Berlin, Hamburg, München, Nürnberg. A number of other cities have underground tram routes, known as U-Bahn or Stadtbahn, including Bielefeld, Bochum, Bonn, Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Essen, Frankfurt am Main, Gelsenkirchen, Hannover, Kassel, Köln, Ludwigshafen, Mannheim, Mühlheim (Ruhr) and Stuttgart.

Track plans for most or all metro and tram systems in Germany are available on the Gleisplanweb site.

Trams

Augsburg, Bad Schandau, Berlin, Bielefeld, Bochum, Bonn, Brandenburg, Braunschweig, Bremen, Chemnitz, Cottbus, Darmstadt, Dessau, Dortmund, Dresden, Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Erfurt, Essen, Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt am Oder, Freiburg (Breisgau), Gelsenkirchen, Gera, Görlitz, Gotha, Halberstadt, Halle (Saale), Hannover, Heidelberg, Jena, Karlsruhe, Kassel, Köln, Krefeld, Leipzig, Ludwigshafen, Magdeburg, Mainz, Mannheim, Mülheim (Ruhr), München, Nordhausen, Nürnberg, Plauen, Potsdam, Rostock, Rüdersdorf, Schwerin, Strausberg, Stuttgart, Ulm, Woltersdorf, Würzburg, Zwickau. Many neighbouring systems are interlinked. It is possible to travel entirely by tram, changing cars and gauge several times, all the way from Benrath (south of Düsseldorf) to Witten (east of Bochum). This is reputed to be the longest possible journey by tram anywhere in the world.

Track plans for most or all tram systems in Germany are available on the Gleisplanweb site. Track plans for a number of systems are available on the doprava.unas.cz site.

See also Tram services over obscure routes - Germany

Recent and Future Changes

General

In recent years DB has been re-organised on a divisional basis, as a prelude to privatisation, but with strong central control. Plans to float parts of DB, particularly the Reise and Touristik long-distance business, have been disrupted because forecast profits have not been made. DB as a whole is suffering unexpectedly high losses, principally due to overspending on major infrastructure projects. Notwithstanding this, DB is acquiring interests abroad (for example, in UK alone: English, Welsh & Scottish Railways; Chiltern Railways; London Overground; Tyne & Wear Metro; Arriva).

The funding of local transport, including railways, now rests with the Länder (Provinces) and in some areas responsibility has been devolved to the Kreis (Districts). Western Länder are generally supportive of rail. Baden-Württemberg and Rheinland-Pfalz, in particular, have been active in promoting rail re-openings. The German railways were never entirely nationalised, with various independent lines surviving, particularly in Baden-Württemberg. Now Länder are tendering the operation of local passenger services, and many independent operators have won tenders in competition with DB. In some cases these are long-established, local railway companies, expanding out of their own network. Some operators are entirely new and foreign companies have taken responsibility for some services.

Open access long-distance passenger and freight operation is possible in Germany. Increasing numbers of open access freight operations are starting, but there has been limited success with passenger services. Georg Verkehrs (of Germany) and SJ (of Sweden) have operated overnight trains between Berlin and Malmö since 2000, but others have come (and some have gone), such as Eurobahn, Connex and Veolia. DB Netz has been ordered to charge independent operators the same prices for track access as the train-operating divisions of DB, which had received substantial discounts. Hamburg-Köln-Express (HKX) launched a new Köln - Hamburg service on 23 July 2012.

Openings

Forthcoming Openings

Meinerzhagen - Brügge will reopen to passengers on 10 December 2017; the hourly RB25 service from Köln will then be extended to Lüdenscheid.

A short link between the Gera - Saalfeld and Gera - Weischlitz lines near Wolfsgefarth will open in December 2016. See 'Closures' below.

(Alsdorf Poststrasse -) Eschweiler-St.Jöris - Stolberg(Rheinl) Hbf was expected to open in December 2012. Eschweiler-St.Jöris opened in June 2014 but the extension to Stolberg, originally planned for December 2014, has been postponed to December 2015 due to lack of funding. As the line is due to be electrified in 2017 the trackbed under the Aachen - Cologne main line has to be lowered to provide adequate clearance.

Tracklaying is complete on the high speed lines between Halle/Leipzig and Erfurt and between Erfurt and Ebensfeld, north of Bamberg. Overhead wiring is complete, except through Erfurt itself. Useful information in English is available on the VDE 8.2 New line Erfurt - Leipzig/Halle website. It is unlikely that any other lines will be built for some time, on environmental and financial grounds.

The new Berlin Brandenburg Airport (Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg Willy Brandt), a southward expansion of the existing Schönefeld airport, was scheduled to open on 3 June 2012. However, this was postponed indefinitely owing to delays in commissioning the fire safety system. The new terminal is to the south of the runways. A new east-west line, underneath the terminal complex and parallel to the existing Berliner Außenring, was completed in 2011. At its eastern end it uses part of the former Berlin-Schöneweide (Abzw Grünau) – Berlin ILA-Bahnhof (Schönefeld Flughafen Süd) line. At its western end it curves northwards towards the Außenring, which it joins by means of a triangular junction, with curves facing both east and west. The east curve will carry only S-Bahn services, an extension of lines S9 and S45 from the existing Schönefeld-Flughafen station, which will terminate at the new station. The west curve and the line eastwards to Abzw Grünau will handle IC, ICE, RE and RB services to a variety of destinations. It was announced in December 2014 that the airport will be completed by March 2016 and is to open in the second half of 2017.

Projected Developments

Rebuilding of Ducherow – Świnoujście (Poland) and Barth – Zingst (and possibly to Prerow) are now included in the Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan.

The Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Development Plan now includes extension of the Mecklenburg Bäderbahn (Bad Doberan – Kühlungsborn West) westwards to Rerik and eastwards to Warnemünde.

Actual Openings

2014

247	Dolni Poustevna ČD - Sebnitz	5 July
305	Uelzen W750 - Uelzen W23 (Veerßer Kurve)	15 April
482	Alsdorf Poststraße - Eschweiler-St.Jöris	15 June
680	Heimbach (Nahe) – Baumholder	14 December

2013

485	Lindern – Heinsberg (Rheinl)	15 December
501	Leipzig Nord/Leipzig-Gohlis – Leipzig Hbf (tief) – Leipzig-Stötteritz/Leipzig-Connewitz	15 December
501.1	Leipzig Stötteritz – Leipzig Engelsdorf	15 December
710.41	Heilbronn Harmonie - Neckarsulm	15 December
756?	[Ulm] - Senden - Weißenhorn	15 December

2012

[Müllheim(Baden) -] Neuenburg(Baden) - Mulhouse (France):. [full service in lieu of the former seasonal service]	9 December
Bad Bellingen - Efringen-Kirchen via new Katzenberg tunnel	9 December
Maichingen - Renningen	9 December

2011

Laupheim West south curve	12 June
Bad Saarow - Bad Saarow Klinikum	24 October
(Herzogenrath -) Alsdorf-Annapark - Alsdorf-Mariadorf - Alsdorf-Poststraße	11 December
Darmstadt-Eberstadt - Pfungstadt	11 December
Brilon Wald - Brilon Stadt	11 December

Closures

Hamburg Altona is scheduled to close in 2023 with a replacement main line through station being built roughly on the site of the current Diebsteich S-Bahn station.

A ca 4 km section of the Gera - Weischlitz line between Abzw. Gera Debschwitz and Wolfsgefarth will close in December 2016 owing to the poor condition of a viaduct at Liebschwitz. It will be replaced by a short link to the Gera - Saalfeld line near Wolfsgefarth.

The following lines have been proposed for closure in December 2015:

• 269 Stendal - Tangermünde
• 340 (part) Calbe (Saale) Ost - Bernburg
• 506 (part) Döbeln – Roßwein – Nossen – Meißen Triebischtal
• 551 Weißenfels - Zeitz
• 586 Merseburg - Querfurt

The following line will close on 12 April 2015:

• 337 Klostermansfeld - Wippra

The following line closed on 31 December 2014:

• 218 Pratau – Bad Schmiedeberg Kurzentrum

The Paris - Hamburg/Berlin/München overnight service was withdrawn at the December 2014 timetable change.

The following lines closed on 14 December 2014:

• 517 Cranzahl – Vejprty (Czech Republic)
• 588 Merseburg – Schafstädt

The København - Basel/Amsterdam/Praha overnight service was withdrawn on 1 November 2014

The following line closed on 15 December 2013:

• 519 Pockau-Lengefeld – Marienberg(Sachs)

The following lines closed on 9 December 2012:

• 183 Rostock Hbf – Rostock Seehafen Nord
• 539 Adorf (Vogtl.) – Zwotental

Older Changes

For details of older changes see Germany - Older General Information.

Special notes

DB trains are divided into a number of distinct categories, thus:

• S (S-Bahn): Regular interval local trains in urban areas, generally using segregated tracks
• RB (Regionalbahn): Basic local services.
• RE (RegionalExpress): Regular interval local or semi-fast trains calling at fewer stations than RB services.
• IRE (Inter-RegionalExpress): Long distance semi-fast trains.
• IC (InterCity): Long distance expresses, making limited stops.
• EC (EuroCity): Similar to IC, but for international journeys.
• RJ (Railjet): High speed Austrian Railways trains on the München – Wien - Budapest route.
• ICE (InterCity Express) & ICE Sprinter: High speed, long distance electric trains worked with special rolling stock. Special fares are payable on these trains, and if purchasing a ticket for a route on which ICE trains, operate it is important to specify which type of train it is intended to use. It is usually possible to make a slower but cheaper journey by IC or RE service.
• THA (Thalys): High speed trains on the Köln - Brussels - Paris route, managed by the French and Belgian railways.
• ICN (InterCityNight) and CNL (CityNightLine): Categories of overnight train.
• D-Zug: This designation is derived from Durchgang, the German for corridor. Appropriate trains were designated D-Züge when corridor coaches were first introduced, and the term remained in use until largely replaced by IC and IR. Remaining D-Züge include long distance services not fitting one of the above categories and using older types of rolling stock and international trains not to EC standards (such as the Berlin - Saratov service).

A few services operate only during school term time, or are extensively altered during school holidays. The dates of holidays varies from Land to Land.

A brief Guide to German railway terminology is available.