At this week's InnoTrans trade fair in Berlin, SNCF Voyageurs and Deutsche Bahn (DB) unveiled their new direct service between Paris and Berlin, operating daily from 16 December. DB will have the privilege of running the service with its ICE 3s, which will offer 444 seats, including 111 in 1era class. For greater comfort on board this very long journeydespite trains travelling at 320 km/h.
It will take around 8 hours to cover the 1140 kilometres separating the two capitals on this line, which will also serve Strasbourg, Karlsruhe and Frankfurt. ICE 9591 will depart from Paris Est station at 9.55am and arrive at Berlin Hauptbahnhof at 6.03pm (via Strasbourg at 11.40am). In the other direction, ICE 9590 will leave Berlin Hbf station at 11:54 for its Paris counterpart at 19:55 (again via Strasbourg at 17:53).
Business customers in the sights of both partners
While SNCF Voyageurs is clearly targeting leisure travellers on this long route, the company is not giving up hope of attracting business passengers interested in all or part of the journey, particularly between Strasbourg and Berlin. The route does not serve than cities with a high level of economic activity and more and more companies are choosing to offer their employees rail travel as an alternative to air travel for environmental reasons, including over long distances.
" We will have business travellers on board as is already the case on longer routesfrom Paris to Barcelona, Toulouse, Luxembourg, Geneva and Lausanne, for example." said Frédéric Laurent-Miel, the SNCF's Director of Corporate Distribution & Agencies, last week. And he added: " The younger generation and certain companies are clearly choosing the train as part of their travel policy in order to reduce their CO2but also for the working environment on board" .
A desire to develop European routes
SNCF Voyageurs and DB have been partners in Alleo since 2007, and have already carried more than 32 million international passengers on the other jointly-operated services, i.e. Paris-Stuttgart/Munich, Paris-Frankfurt and Frankfurt-Marseille. This Paris-Berlin route is part of a strategy to develop rail services in Europe. " SNCF Voyageurs and DB send a strong signal for the development of Europe by rail. The new ICE link will give new impetus to fast-growing international long-distance traffic" confirmed Michael Peterson, member of the Management Board of DB Voyageurs Grandes Lignes. Alain Krakovitch, Director of TGV-Intercités, welcomed the opening, pointing to the SNCF's international ambitions, which already include " in Spain, Italy, the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Austria" .
Return of the Paris-Berlin night train
It should be noted that, since December 2023, Berlin - like Vienna - is also served by night train by the Austrian company ÖBB under its Nightjet brand. Subject to numerous delays due to line works undertaken by SNCF Réseaux, the service has been suspended since 12 August, with its reopening theoretically scheduled for 26 October. It is these problems on the French rail network that have prompted European Sleeper to route its new night train to Venice from Brussels via Rotterdam, Utrecht, Cologne, Munich, Innsbruck, Bolzano and Verona.
