Bicycles, Tandems and Recumbent Trikes on Trains in Germany and Neighbouring Countries Part 3: Long Distance Daytime Services

Accompanied Bicycle, Tandem and Trike Transport on Long Distance Daytime German Trains
 

Rail services in Germany are divided into two groups: Long distance (Fernverkehr) - non subsidized and regional trains (Nahverkehr) - local services provided by an operator and subsidized by a regional transport authority but ultimately by the provincial government. The long distance services are there to make a profit. Both types of service cooperate. Your journey might involve travelling on both long distance and regional services.  Both types of service have in some cases the capacity to carry bicycles and even tandems and trikes.

Deutsche Bahn (DB) Long Distance Services  Deutsche Bahn operates by far the majority of long distance passenger trains in Germany (https://www.bahn.com/en/view/index.shtml). It is a state-owned operator that makes a profit on its long distance routes. Only a small proportion of these services offer bicycle transport. It appears to us that the ideal passenger is seen as someone who carries one credit card (rather than two) and MacBook Air. DB long distance services use two types of train: the high speed Inter City Express (ICE) and the slightly slower and cheaper InterCity/EuroCity  trains (IC/EC). One of the five ICE classes will take a limited number of "normal" bicycles (in a cubby hole) as do many of the IC/EC trains. In the German conditions of carriage we discovered a surprising sentence (translated into English): 

"Special types of bicycles (e.g. tandem, recumbent) are not permitted on all long-distance trains that carry bicycles for reasons of capacity. You can obtain further information from all DB sales outlets." 

Next time we are in Mannheim and the ticket hall on the Hauptbahnhof (Central Station) is not over full, we will chat to the staff to see what this sentence actually means. We will report back here when we have more information. I have checked with the ADFC, the German cycling club, the partner of DB in matters cycle transport, but I have yet to have a reply and I am not holding my breath. 

Basically tandems and special designs (trikes, quads, trailers) are not normally transported by DB, but there is at least one deceitful exception. In the days when I used to commute by train to Frankfurt, I met a family who had a Hase Pino, a tandem which is a cross between a recumbent and an upright. I asked the mother about putting the tandem on an Inter City train and was assured that the wheelbase was short enough to fit the bike in a single bike slot. Railway employees had never noticed it was a tandem. The latest models are demountable and can be divided before transport. A number of other tandem models are sold with couplings allowing dismounting. Whether the divided bike then counts as luggage in the same way as a folding bike? We don't know.

Flix Train (https://www.flixtrain.de/) offers a limited number of daytime connections in both directions between:
Köln (Cologne) - Düsseldorf - Duisburg - Essen - Dortmund - Bielefeld* - Hannover - Berlin Spandau - Berlin Hbf - Berlin Südkreuz
*At present trains only stop in Bielefeld when travelling towards Berlin. 
Köln (Cologne) - Düsseldorf - Duisburg - Essen - Gelsenkirchen - Münster – Osnabrück - Hamburg

These trains are cheaper than the DB trains, but are slower than the high speed ICEs. With their tandem or trike the happy trike or tandem rider is not welcome on these trains. "Normal" bicycles are carried, but to quote the company's conditions of carriage: 

 

"Bicycles must be of a standard size, without additional attachments, and may not exceed 20 kg (45 lbs). We recommend that you book your bicycle slot early due to limited capacity." 

Bicycles, Tandems and Recumbent Trikes on Trains in Germany and Neighbouring Countries Part 2: Joining and Changing Trains

If you wish to travel by train within Germany with your bicycles and/or tricycles and you have a choice of stations you can start from or need to change at, then either check out the station/s beforehand, if you can,  and/or download the Bahnhof live app. In Bahnhof live fill out the name of the station/s and the relevant page/s should appear. Click on Austattung and you will be shown a list of facilities. Look for the green barrier free wheelchair logo (Stufenfreier Zugang)  and Aufzüge (lifts/elevators) to be sure you don't have to carry your steed up or down flights of steps. There can be a lot of stairs, as this photograph of a station in Ludwigshafen shows. Just to explain the lift/elevator was temporarily out of order:

To further illustrate this approach: If you compare Augsburg and Munich (München) HbF - main stations with the app. Augsburg does not have barrier free access, but Munich does. It is much easier to change platforms in Munich. Things should improve in Augsburg in 2024!
It is recommended you should remove the bags before you load the bikes on the train. Don't do it until shortly before your train arrives. Some of the lifts/elevators are very narrow and your bikes with panniers are quite wide, so pop the bikes in these one forward one backward, so each pannier faces a front wheel.

Once on the platform check where the bike carriage (car) will stop. On bigger stations there will be diagrams showing the order of the carriages on a train. More often than not on local and regional trains the bike space is at one end of the train marked by bicycle logos on the side of the carriages. A WORD TO THE WISE (and the UNWISE) DON'T RIDE YOUR BIKE ON THE STATION, ON THE PLATFORM OR THE CONCOURSE. YOU CAN BE FINED 50€ ON THE SPOT. 

Take the bags off the bikes/tandems/trikes shortly before the arrival of the train. Depending on how easy it is to move and fold your trike do it before you pop on the train.  Unless the train is starting at your station, you may only have between two and four minutes to load the bikes/tandems/trikes. When the train arrives there may be a tsunami of people getting off the train. Let them off. If there is also another tsunami of travellers trying to get on the train, then politely but firmly make sure you can get on. Make sure you can get the other bikes in your party on the train and make sure you have got all your bags from the platform. Leaving the bar bag behind with your camera, passports and tickets could quite spoil your day.
Once you are all on the train: If you have booked a slot or slots look for yours and pop the bike in it. If you are on a local or regional train look for the conductor and check that it's OK for you to load your bikes/tandems/trikes. Obviously if you can do this before the train leaves it is better to do so, but if the train is coming from elsewhere you have two or four minutes to get your gear on the train, so after the motto it is easier to get forgiven than get permission, load your bikes. In any case do not block the entrances and exits. A bungee or a strap to keep bicycles from falling over is a good wheeze. It is usual for cyclists to help other cyclists, so muck in and don't let the side down. You may well be asked where you intend to depart the train so that bikes that will be first off are at the outside of the heap.

You should always try to travel outside the weekday rush hours, after nine am and before three in the afternoon. Unfortunately regional trains can also be busy on summer weekends. There are limits to the number of bikes that can be carried. It is the conductor's decision to let you stay on the train, so be polite. You have no rights, no say in the matter. Good Luck! 
We must stress that conductor/guards have the final say. We once chatted to a German conductor/guard in Wissembourg just south of French-German border. He told us that at Wissembourg Station he once had over 50 bicycles in his Diesel two car set with a maximum capacity of 2 x 12 bicycles. It was a Wednesday, a popular day for pensioners from the Ludwigshafen-Mannheim conurbation to cross over into the wine growing areas of the Rhineland-Palatinate and Alsace to cycle or hike. (Why Wednesday? The word is that Dr.'s surgeries are closed in the afternoon and so there is little to do.😎😎) The passengers refused to take their bikes off the train. The service to Neustadt an der Weinstraße is an hourly service and they all wanted to get home for their tea in time. He instructed the driver to leave; rang the railway police in Germany; the train crossed the border; stopped at the first halt and waited until the railway police who are also border guards arrived to reduce the number of bicycles on the train to safe levels.

Reserving tandem and recumbent trike slots on trains in Europe.

I have spent some time recently investigating accompanied recumbent trike transport by train in Germany. Deutsche Bahn (DB) the main long-distance train operator in Germany does not carry these vehicles on their long-distance trains (Fernverkehr). It is possible though I suspect difficult to transport these on some regional and local trains ((Nahverkehr), but reservations are not possible. If one is unlucky and the train is full, that's it you wait for the next one, or the next but one, or…

I contacted all of the companies running long-distance trains in Germany and was overjoyed to receive a positive answer from ÖBB Austrian Railways. The company runs Nightjet sleeper and couchette trains across Europe. One can travel with tandem or trike on the following trains:

• NJ 466 Vienna - Linz - Zurich 
• NJ 467 Zurich - Linz - Vienna
• NJ 490 Vienna - Linz - Hanover - Hamburg
• NJ 491 Hamburg - Hanover - Linz - Vienna
• NJ 40420 Innsbruck - Munich - Hamburg
• NJ 40491 Hamburg - Munich - Innsbruck

"For recumbents, tandems or bicycle trailers, two spaces must be booked. These can only transported  in special luggage compartments." 
(My translation of an email from ÖBB in German.) 

It's not many train pairs but it is a start. It strikes me to charge for two slots is a more sensible solution than a blanket "NO!". I suspect many train operating companies have issues with bicycles.

SPEZI Special Bike Show 2019

SPEZI, the annual Special Bike Show held in the last weekend in April is the world's largest show for recumbents, recumbent tricycles, quadracycles, folding cycles, tandems, family cycles, velomobiles, transporters, electrical bikes, special needs bikes, adult kick scooters, child and load trailers, customised designs and accessories (www.specialbikesshow.com). Fortunately for us it is held in Germersheim, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany about an hour and a half away from home by tram and train. We visited the show for many of the 24 years it has been held including this year.
We always make a point of visiting the Junik-hpv stand (www.junik-hpv.de). This year two items caught our eye: a modified Brompton designed to be ridden by midgets: the Bromptolino 
and a Brompton equipped with a Velospeeder (http://www.velogical-engineering.com/), a friction e-drive that can be used for short periods when support is needed.

The Bromptolino

A few yards away in Hall 2 (or should we write metres) we visited the Sporthopeo stand (www.sporthopeo.fr) offering what could well be a lifesaver for cyclists who due to illness or accident can no longer keep their feet on the pedals. It’s basically a pair of magnets that can be strapped on bicycle or even tricycle pedals to secure the feet to the pedal. A twist of the feet will free the legs in case of need. The system offers more ease of use than conventional click pedals which take some getting used to, in my opinion even on a trike where you are not trying to balance and pedal at the same time.

We popped on to the Voss Stand (German Brompton distributors) and tried to talk a possible customer in to buying a Brompton. Our argument was that the bikes may be expensive but well made. We have had ours for twenty years. We have cycled over the Alps on them and they are in good shape. (I wish I was in such good shape.) One of these days I suspect I will apply to Brompton to pay us a premium😎.
We are seriously interested in buying two trikes. One of my concerns about buying a trike is getting the thing on a train. I know I am going to buy it to cycle and not to take it for trips on the railways, but we would like to travel slightly farther away from home and want to travel fairly quickly without using a car. I popped on to the Hase stand and asked about  the company’s Lepus trike which has been offered in a folding version since 2016. The employee I talked to suggested that folded trikes could be put on DB German Railways regional trains but not on long distance trains. He also said there could be problems with Jobsworths - employees who would love to help you “…but it it’s more than my job’s worth”. The Hase employee had a cargo bike and found it was possible to travel by train with this bike, but from time to time he’d had problems. This was a honest answer.
Our next conversation was with an employee on the HPVelotechnik stand. Delivery times for the Gekko models is about 8 weeks at the moment. This is good news for HPVelotechnik, but it means we will have to wait when we get round to buying a trike.
We were amused to see a further advantage of a recumbent trike on the TRAIX stand (German distributors of KMX trikes): If the self service restaurant is full, take your dinner back to the trike and use the trike as an armchair:

I found the velo spring sprung handlebar grips which are made of nut tree wood an interesting concept (www.velospring.com). Judith was less impressed. Old rubber grips after two or three years use are not things of beauty. These polished walnut grips which are internally sprung will stay good-looking for longer.
There is definitely a lot of interest in e-cargo-bikes and -trikes in view of inner city congestion, lack of car parking spaces and restrictions on diesel and petrol engined vehicles causing air pollution .

Radkutsche Musketier (www.radkutsche.de) - one of many cargo bikes on show.

It could be that growing provision of high speed cycle routes has yielded dividends for the sales of velomobikes - cycle cars - enclosed body work for trike or quad bikes. The ecVelo Challenger (https://www.eurocircuits.com/ec-velo/challenger/) with its rather neat body work on an AZUB TriCon trike caught our eye:

A good looking velomobile

One matter that was of interest was the fact that our local regional paper the Mannheimer Morgen finally noticed after well over 20 or so years that a major cycle event had happened in the area. Unfortunately another velomobile worth 16 000€ was stolen from outside a pub in Germersheim early on Monday morning after the event.

The stolen green velomobile

This theft was reported in the Mannheimer Morgen. I suspect the problem is that the Mannheimer Maimarket, a regional ideal home consumer show starts on the same day as SPEZI, and there is little desire on the part of the Mannheim paper to suggest visitors should attend an event other than the Maimarkt.

The British railway system does it again and helps cyclists!

One of us is a member of what we still call the CTC, the Cyclists' Touring Club, but is now called Cycling  UK. The name was changed because the management of the club decided that the British public could not understand what the purpose of the club was, even though the name had been good enough for over a hundred years through a recession and two world wars. End of rant! We receive the club's magazine every two months which we read and criticise extensively, but only between ourselves*.
A recent edition included a small brochure tucked into its pages about PlusBike, a cooperation between the British organisation, National Rail, the Enabling Innovation Team and the Bicycle Association of Great Britain. Information useful for cyclists is available under PlusBike on the National Rail website and as free of charge iOS and Android apps.
BikePlus offers information on:

• Cycle facilities at stations, along with the number of cycle parking space.
• Cycle-hire at stations or nearby with links directly to them.
• Cycle carriage rules, including taking cycles on train specific to your rail journey.
• Whether a cycle needs to be reserved to take on board. 

Whether the usual British lack of provision for cyclists and their bikes has been solved is not clear from the brochure, but at least you can easily find out whether there is space on the train you intend to take.

*Just as examples, we cannot understand the British fashion for bikes without mudguards (fenders) and luggage racks and stands: 

• Unless you cycle regularly in Arizona or in southern Spain or only on sunny days, lack of mudguards mean that you could end up getting very wet and mucky on a summers day in Wigan. 
• Lack of a luggage rack means carrying your gear in a rucksack (back pack). Welcome to the sweaty back syndrome unless of course you’re in Wigan on a typical summers day and even then the sun does shine there from time to time. 
• Stopping for a break without a bike stand means fiddling about looking for convenient wall whereas with a bike stand you can stand the bike by the side of the road.

Locomore is running trains between Stuttgart and Berlin again

The private train operator Locomore has started up again and is operating in cooperation with Flixbus. You can book your tickets on the Flixbus website: www.flixbus.com. Prices are less than the Deutsche Bahn but the journey is slightly slower than with DB.

Nightjet Overnight Sleeper trains across Europe Part I

The good news is that OeBB, Austrian Railways have taken over the activities of CityNightLine, a DB German Railways subsidiary company and intend to continue offering them. The bad news is that fewer services are offered, but lots more than would have been offered if CityNightLine had stayed in business.
There is now an overnight Zurich Hamburg train which now travels via Basel, Frankfurt am Main and Berlin. The even worse news is that the train does not carry bicycles except between Zurich and Basel. Why bother? Practically every Swiss train takes bikes, but an overnight link between south Germany and Hamburg for me and my bicycle would be a thing of wonder.
Correction 24.02.2017 It turns out or at least it looks like bikes will be carried after Easter. Check bahn.de if you need to travel.  The hair in the soup is that although the northbound trains leave Mannheim at a minute to midnight and get into Hamburg Hauptbahnhof (Central Station) at a sensible eight thirty-one, the southbound trains leave earlier, just before eight pm and get into Mannheim at four forty which is not the most convenient of trains.

Cheaper by train from Stuttgart to Berlin

Deutsche Bahn - DB (German Railways) face little competition in the field of long distance passenger transport. There have been attempts by companies other than Deutsche Bahn to run long distance trains across Germany, but only one has remained and this offers a reduced service in comparison to the start of service: HKX between Köln and Hamburg.

A new service from Stuttgart to Berlin via

• Berlin
• Wolfsburg
• Hannover
• Göttingen
• Kassel
• Fulda
• Hanau
• Frankfurt
• Darmstadt
• Heidelberg
• Vaihingen (Enz)
• Stuttgart

has just started on 15 December 2016: Locomore. This is cheaper than Deutsche Bahn, German Railways. Fares are planned to be under the cost of a standard DB fare with a half price BahnCard 50. Heidelberg - Berlin costs between 20 and 65€. The standard DB fare is 136€ (68€ with a BahnCard 50), though with luck and early planning one can buy a DB ticket for 29€. Locomore tickets can be bought online, per telephone or directly in the train. Tickets bought in the train are the most expensive. The long distance bus fare Heidelberg - Berlin (Flixbus) costs from 19€ but at popular times like Christmas customers are looking at prices above 50€.

The trains are comfortable and reasonably fast: the Heidelberg - Berlin journey with Locomore takes 5h 48m whereas DB ICEs take 5h 15m, The bus takes at least eight hours. The Locomore trains take bikes. Bikes must be reserved in advance.

More information under https://locomore.com/en/. Will it be a success? Who knows? The company has some teething problems at the moment and is only offering a service four days a week until 6 April 2017, but passenger levels appear to be as expected.

Buying tickets for TER trains in Lorraine

We spent the beginning of November checking out cycle routes in the Moselle Valley in Lorraine. Rather than touring from city to city we stopped two nights in Nancy and took a train to Metz. The regional TER trains are operated by SNCF French national railways. As is usual in Europe there are two types of ticket machines on Nancy station: blue ones offering just regional TER tickets and bright yellow ones offering tickets for the whole French railways network, including the high speed TGVs. These machines speak only French, so brushez up votre Français. We found none of the ticket machines on Nancy station would accept either our German credit card or bank card. The machines do not accept notes either. We are not used to this as modern public transport ticket dispensers in Germany accept notes. We needed 14.60 € in coins which we did not have. (If I am cycling I try to carry the smallest number of coins possible to keep down the weight in my pockets.) In the end I joined a queue in the ticket office and managed to buy tickets before our train came in. We spent the day buying items separately to accumulate change. Fortunately smaller stations in France have staffed ticket offices and are often not that busy. We cycled from Metz to Pagny sur Moselle and bought tickets from a person in a ticket office.
There is another problem in buying tickets in general in la belle France. The French do not pronounce  names the way we do. It is useful when buying tickets from a ticket office to write out the name of the station you wish to reach to show the staff on the other side of the counter, because it is unlikely that they will understand your pronounciation. 
If you are buying tickets from a machine then remember that the machines although basically computers are very exact but dumb. Sensibly the TER ticket machines offer a list of major destinations in the region. If you want to travel to a small village you need to key in the first letter of the first name not the first letter of the second name in the case of a station with a double barreled name. We wanted to go  to a village called Avricourt. Its station lies between Avricourt and Igney and so the station is called Igney-Avricourt. It took a while for us to find it. Vive la France!

Changing trains in Augsburg Station and enjoying the odd snack

Augsburg Hauptbahnhof - Central Railway, or if you insist, Train Station has long been a bête noire where we were concerned. It is one of the few major German railway stations without lifts/elevators and so if you are going to change trains here give yourselves plenty of time. You need to walk and carry your plus baggage down a steep flight of steps to the tunnel running under the lines and then up another steep flight to get to the platform you need. If you cycle to Füssen along the Romantic Road, for example and wish to take local trains back to the main lines then Augsburg is one place you can change to a long-distance train. The good news is that lifts/elevators should arrive in 2021 or 2022. Until then it is probably better to travel via Munich.
This is a pity because you will miss a snack bar called URBAN Fu:D in the Augsburg Hauptbahnhof which offers an excellent range of freshly made snacks, muffins, coffee, tea, etc. It is opposite the bookshop in the entrance area of the station.

Things don't always improve

We travelled to Zell on a DB (German Railways) EuroCity train. These trains along with the InterCity trains are the fastest trains in Germany that take bikes. We were on the train for six hours or so and I noticed that DB has replaced the tough grey heavy paper towels formerly used in the toilets/restrooms with much lighter, thinner, smaller, whiter, more absorbent ones. These may well be pleasanter to use and may be do not block the WC vacuum systems when oafs throw them in the WC rather than in the bin provided. However they are nothing like as useful to clean one's bike. 

Folded bikes on German trains

It used to be the case in Germany that when travelling with a folded bike on a German train where there was a charge for bicycle transport that folders needed to be put in a bag. I was once threatened with a bicycle charge for the seven minute journey between Bensheim and Weinheim unless I popped the folded Brompton in its cover. There are Jobsworth everywhere. This is no longer the case and one even sees naked Bromptons on ICEs. Cumbersomes, nonfolding bicycles are an absolute no no these trains.
In many ways the pendulum has now swung too far the other way and full sized folders can be transported free of charge on ICs as long as they are folded. They must however be folded. This is waste of time since some bikes are almost as big folded as unfolded.

Swwn on an IC in souther Germany

Disadvantages of e-bikes

We are both over the biblical age of three score years and ten. We have just  bought a couple of touring bikes. When we announce this, our friends and acquaintances all ask the same question: "An e-bike?". They are often surprised to hear that the answer is, "No, a staid normal touring bike with an eight speed hub gear".
"Why not an e-bike?"
Two answers:

• An e-bike would not fit into our mode of cycling. We often take a train somewhere and then cycle on. It is important to us that we can easily lift our bikes onto trains. An e-bike weighs around 26kg. Our touring bikes weigh 14kg. In the two minutes that Deutsche Bahn allows to get our bikes onto a train the extra weight makes a big difference.
• We store our bikes in our cellar. It is difficult enough carrying a 14kg bike down a tight curving staircase. A 26kg e-bike would be impossible.

If we lived in a hilly area then matters might well be different, but we live on the Rhine plain. This does not rule out hiring an e-bike in a mountainous area in future.

Train travel with bike in Germany

Long distance train travel with a bicycle in Germany normally means changing trains more often than you would do without a bike.  It can be stressful and hard work. Few long distance trains in Germany take bicycles because the "Fat Controllers" of Deutsche Bahn (DB) are worried about the time it takes for cyclists to remove their steeds from ICE - high speed trains and the space bicycles take up. Bicycles are not allowed on these fast trains, which make up the majority of long distance trains in Germany. Some slower long distance trains do take bicycles, as do regional trains. The latter are specified and subsidised by provincial governments who are interested in encouraging cycle touring, so most German regional trains take bikes. When you book your ticket with DB the route seems to be  planned so you travel the maximum distance on DB long distance trains. What this means is that unless you are lucky, a cross country journey will not be the most direct route, but involve hopping from regional to long distance trains and back again. Fortunately DB issues you with a detailed plan of where to change and from what platform. (http://www.bahn.de/i/view/DEU/en/index.shtml) However this list omits to tell you how to get from one platform to the next, usually within five to ten minutes. Obviously if you just have cross from one side of an island platform to the other, it is easy. OK you might have to run from one end of your train to the other end of your connecting train, but see this as a little morning exercise, provided free of charge. If you have to change, say, from platform 1 to platform 3 you will need to cross the lines, i.e. descend to an underpass or climb a bridge. In larger stations there are lifts/elevators, but these can be very narrow and cause long queues of impatient cyclists, pram pushers, wheelchair users. In smaller stations or if the queue is too long the only option to descend to the underpass is via a flight of steps. This can be difficult, if the train was full of other passengers hurrying to catch their connection and the cyclist is not a well trained weight lifter. A laden touring bike is difficult to carry down and up a flight of steps. There is a cure to the problem and German station designers only have to travel to Switzerland to experience this. Swiss railway stations have ramps to the platforms. They are simple and effective and they don't break down. Why few ramps in Germany? Too low tech or maybe they might take up space that could be used for yet another cafe, hamburger joint and  shop selling pots and pans. The next problem comes when the train arrives. You have two minutes to get yourself, bike and baggage on the train. Sometimes other cyclists are descending. Sometimes you need to carry the bike up a flight of steps resembling the Eiger North Wall. It pays to take your panniers off the bike and if you are not on your own, work as a team. Once you get on board, you need to find your bike slot where you might have to hang your bike from a hook or slot the front wheel over a lower hook. Fat MTB tyres can be a problem in both cases.


Although there are some stressful aspects to travel with trains, on the other hand you meet other cyclists who are very helpful in our experience. It is an all hands to the pump situation.  In our experience German Railway employees are also  helpful as well.

Bicycles in ICEs?

The "Mannheimer Morgen" reported today that the next generation of ICEs will have provision for full sized bicycles. It might be a week or two though, before you can pop your bike on an ICE in Hamburg to go to Basel. The first eight train sets are due to be delivered in 2017.

Common sense triumphs, amazing!

It appears to be believed in the upper floors of some railway administrations that as soon as bicycles need to be loaded on and off high speed trains there will be delays and the loss of five or six seats that are replaced by a bicycle compartment will ruin the economics of the trains. On Dutch, German, Italian and Spanish high speed trains bicycles except folders and bagged bikes are verboten. Common sense says that this belief is rubbish. Nobody bans mothers with prams or three children because they find it difficult to get on and off trains or they need room to put their Kinderwagen somewhere. Some of the French TGVs on the newer routes from Paris Gare de l'Est, for example take 8 bikes per train and seem to run profitably and punctually.
Not very often, but occasionally I am amazed that a common sense approach to demands from the travelling public has been taken by the Fat Controllers of railway organisations. Recently the ÖBB, Austrian railways announced that all 51 of their premium railjet trains will modified to include a compartment to take 6 bicycles with plugs allowing e-bike charging while underway. This work will be finished in 2013. More information can be found on http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=b0c3ff3f53e4c6a8be5677245&id=def475c28e.
On the other hand, the new generation of German IC/EC trains, the ICx will offer 8 bike places, less than the dozen or so on offer at the moment. This model will also form the basis of the replacement ICE1 and ICE2 stock by the end of the decade. It could be possible to offer high speed transport for bicycles, but don't hold your breath. I have the feeling that the Fat Controllers believe that only "suits" with brief cases are the proper class of people to travel on ICEs.

Bicycle space on an IC at present.

What a difference 5 km can make.

We are planning to cycle to Basel (Basle, Bâle) as soon as it stops raining. Once we are there we will need return by rail to Viernheim. Basel has three railway stations, belonging to three different organisations: Basel SBB, the Swiss station, Basel Badischer Bahnhof, the German station and Bâle SNCF, the French station. The platforms of the latter two are legally German or French, but the buildings themselves including ticket offices etc. are on Swiss soil. This means if you pay by credit or debit card that the tickets will be slightly more expensive.
However what amazed me was the price difference between travelling from Basel SBB and Basel Bad to Mannheim. As long as you are prepared to travel on regional trains fairly slowly the trip between Basel Bad and Mannheim costs 29 Euro for up to five people plus 4.50 Euro per bike for the bicycles, i.e. 38 Euro in our case. Travelling between Basel SBB and Mannheim via Basel Bad will cost you 63.30 Euro plus ten Euros/bike for an International bicycle ticket, i.e. well over twice as much. The five minute ride from Basel SBB to Basel Bad will cost over 40 Euro.

Is it a wise decision?

We read the SMo (Südhessen Morgen) newspaper every day and I was amused recently to read recently that the popularity of that cycle touring holidays is growing and shortly afterwards that the new double deck long distance trains ordered by German Railways for delivery in 2013 will have capacity for 10 bicycles. The ADFC, the German cycling club pointed out that this less than the 16 places the present generation of single deck InterCity trains offer. One does wonder at times whether German Railway's prejudice against bicycles will not cost them customers in future?

Politicians

I have often thought than if a politician told you the time, you should also check the time on your watch or handy - mobile/cell phone. I don't think politicians lie, but they just wish to tell you what they think you want to hear. This is of course leads to a lack of joined up thinking. At the moment the good citizens of the Bundesrepublik Deutschland or Germany to me and thee have a prime example dangling before their noses. The federal government wishes us all to travel using devices that emit less carbon dioxide, e.g. the railways. Somehow the fact that the number of passenger airports has increased over the last few years and that Frankfurt Airport is to have another runway is ignored, although these changes will automatically lead to more flights and more air pollution - read carbon dioxide.
On the other hand regional public transport is subsidised by the federal government - good. This should lead to it being more attractive. However the federal government is strapped for cash and is now cutting this subsidy down so that in a few years time there will be no subsidy.Thus making regional public transport less attractive and encouraging folk to get in their carbon dioxide spewing monsters to travel about.
The federal government is strapped for cash and wishes to flog off the silver cutlery in the form of 40% of the federally owned railways. The railways have started to make themselves attractive to investors by cutting on useful services such the Intercity trains that take bicycles replacing them by InterCityExpress trains that do not take bicycles. The poor cyclist can take a series of local trains that stop at every halt to travel across the country. If one wants to travel to various areas to enjoy a cycle tour in various parts of the country without taking so long that one is pensionable age before one arrives it necessary to take a motor car.
Joined up thinking?

Putting you and your bikes on public transport in Europe

Although many of us have a dream of cycle touring where we set off from home to end up in Gibraltar via Tromso or go coast to coast across the USA, most of us have limited time to go on holiday. Even we pensioners cannot leave our modest little home in the West for too long, because the lawn needs mowing or the flower beds need weeding, so the first question we need to ask when we are going to do a spot of bicycle touring is how do we get there? In Western Europe the answer to this question is normally the train, although the railways sometime make it difficult to transport cyclists and their accompanying bicycles, not to mention tricycles! We will look at public transport for cyclists and accompanying bicycles in various European countries over the next few editions of this blog.

A very useful starting guide to European railways is www.seat61.com.

Part I Germany

Let’s look at Germany first:

If you are short on time then the basic message that comes out of all this is that long distance travel with a bicycle by train in Germany is possible but choice is very limited and you need book early in order to travel in summer. Regional services up to about 200km with accompanied bicycles however are superb. The German Railways web site is www.bahn.co.uk.

There are very few long distance bus routes in Germany. The government decided to protect the railways in the 1930s and passed legislation so there is a restrictive licensing procedure to open new bus routes. In view of the fact that the present government wishes to sell off part of the railways, it is unlikely that permission will be granted to any possible competitors to open up new bus routes. There are a few bus routes to Berlin, a long distance bus route down from Hamburg to Mannheim and the Romantic Road bus line from Frankfurt am Main to Füssen near Ludwig II’s fairy tale castle via Munich and Oberammergau. As far as we know only the latter has provision to take bikes, but the other buses may well do so if there is room in the luggage compartment. We are only going to look at railways.

Germany’s railways are state owned, at least at present though Deutsche Bahn is to be privatised, but fortunately not in the same meshuga way that the British Government privatised its railway system. The railway is to be split into a track and an operating division. The track is staying under state control and 40% of the operational system will be sold off. It is hoped to raise vast amounts of capital. Unfortunately the fact that railway systems that have been privatised have invariably gone down the pan is being ignored. New Zealand had to renationalise the tracks after a disastrous experience with a privatised railway company and it looks like there is a good chance that the operating railways there will be restored to public ownership, as well. I was amused to find out that even in that home of private railways, the USA, at least one of the commuter lines that feed New York is publicly owned by the Connecticut Department of Transport. End of rant!

At present Deutsche Bahn AG (DB) operates most of the subsidised suburban and regional services. Other organisations, consortia of public authorities with DB, and the private foreign companies like Connex or SBB Swiss Rail run other subsidised services. The subsidy is paid by the provincial governments. DB operates its long distance services without subsidy at a profit. Different types and classes of trains are used in these services.

Long distance express trains:

These trains have a fixed frequency and mostly depart at the same time after the hour every one or two hours from early morning to the evening at least for the core of the journey.

Intercity Express (ICE)

These are the flagships of the DB and are high speed train units travelling at speeds up to 300kph and do not take any bicycles except folding bicycles in a cover. Some of the services to and from France are on TGVs and Thalys (THA). Some of the TGVs take up to 4 bicycles, though this information could not on be found on the otherwise excellent DB web site: www.bahn.co.uk. (Check the French Rail web site: www.voyages-sncf.com.) THA is another high speed train running between Amsterdam, Brussels, Cologne and Paris operated by Thalys an independent company owned by French Rail (SNCF), Belgian Rail (SNCB), Netherlands Rail (NS) and DB. This too does not accept bicycles. except bagged folding bikes. All of these high speed trains only offer services to major cities like Frankfurt, Mannheim, Stuttgart, Ulm, Augsburg and Munich.

Intercity/Eurocity (IC/EC)

These are conventional trains hauled by a locomotive and offer accommodation for up to 16 bicycles. The bicycle compartment is in the end carriage behind the driver’s compartment. ICs run not only between major centres, but also important regional centres in Germany. An IC/EC travelling between Mannheim and Ulm would stop additionally in three smaller towns or cities. ECs are international trains offering the same services in Germany and abroad. They are slightly slower than the ICEs. Tickets for these trains are cheaper than the tickets for the ICE.

The regional trains

All of the regional trains take bicycles. These trains tie in with the ICE and IC/EC trains to service smaller towns and cities. These trains are subsidised. Although one can use DB tickets regional transport authority tickets can also be used. It is possible to travel long distances across Germany on the these trains, but it does involve changing trains more often than we would want.

Interregio Express (IRE) and Regional Express (RE)

These trains do not stop at the smaller stations but do offer a reasonably fast service between regional centres.

Regionalbahn (RB)

These trains stop at every station and are thus slow.

S-Bahn/U-Bahn

Suburban and underground trains stopping at every station near the larger cities. Access to these is often restricted during rush hour.

Night Trains (City Night Line (CNL), D-Nacht, Euronight)

The night trains offer the possibility of travelling long distances with one’s bicycle without having to change frequently.

Where do the IC/EC go, when and how often?

IC/EC are the best way for the cyclist to travel with his bicycle. Unfortunately the DB appears to be phasing many of these out to replace them with ICEs for which it can charge more. The ADFC, the German Cycling Club, has produced a downloadable map showing the long distance services on offer (http://www.adfc.de/645_1). The map is in German but with the help of a dictionary it is easily understood.

Tickets

There are a number of special offers that offer less than half price fares as long as one is prepared to travel outside the high density travel periods of Friday and Sunday afternoon/evenings and travel by a specified train. Check out www.bahn.co.uk for details. If at least two of you are travelling by regional train only, then check out the ‘Schönes Wochende Ticket’ valid at weekends and the ‘Länder’ Tickets valid in each of the provinces during the week and at weekends.

Your bicycle will cost 9€ in the long distance trains within Germany. A trailer costs the same amount. A recumbent or a tandem costs 18€. A bicycle costs 4.50€ in regional trains in some regions, in others it is free. The DB puts out a German language brochure called “Bahn und Bike” with more exact information. If travelling on a long distance train it is necessary to reserve a place for your bicycle. This is what you need to enquire about first. This can be carried out on line. You need to do this part of the booking by telephone. If you wish to to travel in the summer, especially on a Saturday try to make a reservation three months in advance.

International bicycle tickets cost 10€ and include a reservation for a bicycle. These are valid from your starting station to your destination. Again recumbents and tandems cost double.