arrival

The journey to Brussels that formed the basis of the previous post was only the first in a long succession of train rides over the last week.  Right after my accidental but not entirely unpleasant stopover in the Belgian capital – three days before the abdication of one king and the coronation of another – I took an ICE to Cologne and a Swiss-liveried EC to Hamburg.  It was deep night already when I hopped onto the last train of the day, a regional service to Kiel, nearly in Denmark and at the heart of sailing in the Baltic Sea.

Over the next few days, I bounced to Hamburg and back and then to Hamburg again and took the ICE down to Munich.  Germans like to think of their country as at the forefront of railroad technology and comfort.  The future happens here, goes the dogma, which has somehow spread far beyond national borders.  Foreigners marvel how German trains are wicked fast and always on time.

Going from Hamburg to Munich I realized for the first time how wrong this is.  The distance is less than 500 miles.  Germany is a small country, yet my train took six hours.  The same distance between Paris and Marseille takes half the time.  Sevilla to Madrid tops out at 200 miles per hour.  When I got on the train, the fastest service possible, there was another one on the opposite platform with a more indirect route that would reach Munich after eight hours.

The reason for the sluggishness is twofold.  Firstly, the nominally fast trains have to share the tracks with regional trains on many routes, which severely curtails the achievable top speed.  Secondly, the trains stop. all. the. time.  Every little town with a politician of some import bargains for regular high-speed access in return for land for the railroad.

Still, it could be worse.  This morning's journey started almost stillborn.  The ICE I was supposed to take to Nuremberg turned out not to stop there at all.  I realized this at the last moment and, well-deserved luck, was shooed two platforms down to another train going in the same direction and stopping where I needed to change.  All looked good until I got on the train that was to take me to Dresden, four hours through the green hills of rural Germany, with few towns but lots of unassuming natural beauty.

The train was a Diesel-powered anachronism, as noisy as an airplane, its engines screaming in pain on every incline.  It was small, crowded and about as comfortable as the tube out to Heathrow.  I was shocked speechless.  Lenin had electrified the railroads in his first five-year plan.  How come in 2013 we're still rattling on by noisily burning Diesel?  The low ticket price had surprised me initially.  Now I know the reason – and also what to avoid when traveling between my sister's and my parents'.  An intercity coach would be more comfortable that what I was on.

But in the end – after a cumulative 27 hours on rails, through bits of England, France and Belgium and the four corners of Germany – I got home, and what can be sweeter than that?