EXPLAINED: What you need to know about Germany's new long-distance rail timetable

From Sunday onwards, rail customers between Berlin and Hamburg will experience the biggest milestone of Germany's new nationwide train table.

During the day, ICE, Intercity and Eurocity trains will now run there every half hour on average between 6am and 10pm.

Sixty instead of 45 trains will travel daily between Germany's two largest cities.

"I am pleased about this good starting signal," Federal Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) said in advance about Germany’s new train time table, which goes into effect on Sunday December 13th.

READ ALSO: Trains to travel between major German cities every 30 minutes

The changes are part of a broader 'Deutschlandtakt' plan, which over the next years will see train services in Germany made more efficient, expansive and punctual, according to Deutsche Bahn.

What are the biggest changes in the new timetable?

There will be 14 new direct connections between Berlin and the former federal capital Bonn - a route on which many government officials still prefer to fly. In future, the Bahn aims to reduce the journey from nearly five to four hours.

The ICE4 now also runs between Cologne and Berlin, which means more seats than before, plus a bicycle compartment.

More and faster connections are available between Munich and Zurich (12 times per day) with trains operated by Swiss Federal Railways. An additional daily ICE journey Hamburg-Munich train should also bring better connections for passengers from Lüneburg, Uelzen, Celle and Augsburg.

Yet there's a downside as the prices are going up slightly: on average, long-distance tickets will be one percent more expensive from Sunday, and local tickets 1.5 per cent more expensive.

Super-Sparpreise (Super Savings) and Sparpreise, however, will remain unchanged, as will the prices for Bahncards 25 and 50, which respectively give customers a 25 and 50 discount.

However, customers are still saving money overall: travelling by train became ten percent cheaper in 2020, with the reduction in value-added tax (VAT) at the beginning of the year.

Photo: DPA

Part of a larger plan

So what is the "Deutschlandtakt" all about? The new timetable model is supposed to make travelling by train easier and faster. Plans have been fine-tuned for years. 

Here's the idea: trains arrive at important transfer stations at roughly the same time and depart again shortly afterwards. Long transfer times of half an hour and more should then no longer exist.

The role model for the plan is Switzerland, where a fixed-interval timetable has been in place for decades. By 2030, Deutsche Bahn aims to extend the half-hourly service to other large cities, dreaming of a "metropolis-connecting S-Bahn".

But there is still a lot of work to be done. Although there were only a few passengers, every fifth long-distance train was late in November, according to Deutsche Bahn data.

The fact that four long-distance trains now run between Hamburg and Berlin in two hours instead of the previous three is only one building block for the Deutschlandtakt.

Future changes

Deutsche Bahn, however, says it will be a few years before the next plans are implemented.

When the new Wendlingen-Ulm line and the new Stuttgart station are in operation, Stuttgart and Munich as well as Stuttgart and Frankfurt will be connected every half hour from the end of 2025, as will Frankfurt-Cologne and Frankfurt-Hamburg.

There is no date yet for Berlin-Cologne, for which the section between Hanover and Bielefeld must first be upgraded.