While I like the idea and will probably try it out in January, I think this article takes it bit too easy. The price of the cheapest ticket maybe €22, but by that measure, I was also able to do the same journey for €14.25 with Deutsche Bahn this year. They are mostly cheaper but not that much as the those tickets are for particular trains which are also cheaper on DB. And other admenities like Wifi will also finally come to ICE this year, there are already family zones. Besides maybe the seat gurantee, the other features sound more like gimmiks to me, nice on the first look but not really world changing. I like the croudfunding aspect though.
Way more interesting than this is the upcoming plan to liberalize rail transport across the entire EU. This should allow effectively anybody (meeting certain standards) to operate services on common infrastructure, introducing actual competition to the passenger rail market.<p><a href="http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/20160420IPR24132/agreement-on-opening-up-of-the-eu-passenger-railway-market" rel="nofollow">http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/20160420IPR2...</a>
I think there's a market for a one route alternative "experience" train where the train isn't only the means to get from A to B but the journey itself provides value. I still vividly remember travelling to a Chaos Communication Congress on a privately operated "hack train". Must have been around 2000. Not the fastest connection but loads of fun :)
I think this is more of a statement to how bad DB is. In Germany traveling with blablacar or mitfahrtgelegenheit is still very very popular, because trains are slow and incredibly expensive. Even if in my own country (Italy) people love to say that everything in Germany is better, but it's incredible to see how much worse trains are, and for 3x the price!
It's really nice to see a project like this crop up after the rail privatisation. In the EU countries that have gone through that transition the situation for the passenger hasn't improved much and since there usually still only is a single provider for most routes the prices tend to only go up without much for it in return. That's not to say it would necessarily have been better to keep it public, just that the promise of privatisation hasn't really delivered, in my experience.<p>This might not be groundbreaking, it might not even work but I'm really happy to see someone try something new(ish) in this arena.<p>Also, trains are the best. Choo-choo!
"speed or price? A new, crowdfunded entrant in Germany’s passenger rail scene is betting on the former, offering low-price but slightly slower than average"<p>Betting ON the former or Betting AGAINST the former?
It kind of baffles me that the only long distance trains that are still being done on European scale are prestigious high speed trains (usually connecting Brussels to X) that are much more expensive than plane tickets or anything else really.<p>I wouldn't mind to take a trip to Paris from Amsterdam in a slower train for 20-30 euro, but this is really impossible unless you spend almost a day piecing badly connecting trains together.<p>Especially when it's slightly more entertaining with draft beer, coffee, wi-fi and such.
I was wondering how they crowdfunded this and expected some sort of ticket prepurchase kickstarter. It seems that you can actually loan them money instead (over five years):
1500 Euro: 3,45% (6,9% if you take tickets not cash)
2500 Euro: 3,75% (7,3%)
5000 Euro: 4,15% (8,3%)<p>Max. of 100k
I think the bus vs train analysis is missing an important dimension: travelling on the bus is unpleasant. You can't stand, your kids feel sick. The same amount of time on a train is vastly preferable.
I do the Berlin-Stuttgart train journey regularly to visit my parents and quite like taking the train as it gives me a block of uninterupted time to read, work and just plain relax that I usually take for myself.<p>So this sounds like an excellent way of making this even more enjoyable. I think I will give this a try next time I'm travelling south.
The idea of having "zones" for people with different interests sounds good. Given the sort of amenities on offer and the unusual founding route, not to mention its Eastern endpoint, it would have been more accurate to refer to this as "zones for hipsters with different interests" though. :-)<p>Piss-taking aside, I think it's nicely representative of a certain "Germanness" trait which is perhaps not so well-known outside the country, where the stereotype of a population of humourless engineers still prevails.
"Runs entirely on green electricity" - so is Deutsche Bahn at times, as Germany has been reported to produce more renewable electricity than they can consume.
The 'idea' is not new, it recalls me Polish trains: old and slow but so cheap that everybody can afford them. Few years ago you could travel 500km for 15€. Despite that, there were still massive discounts (50%) for students and elders. Who cares if the trains are the fast/most comfortable if you can't afford to use them regularly.
More competition might help DB to address some of its problems, but as a commuter one of the most frustrating problems with public transport is the chaotic pricing.<p>Others have explained why DB's own pricing is a mess, but on a communal level public transport is even more of a mess[0]. You might think getting a "BahnCard 100" (a 100% discount card that costs ~€400/month) might be worth it if you travel a lot but if you routinely travel by train you'll also likely have to rely on public transport at your destination but bus and tram are often not part of the deal (i.e. no discount is applied whatsoever).<p>I live in Cologne in NRW. If I only moved around within Cologne, I could get a monthly ticket for all tram and bus transport (for ~€100/month) in Cologne from the KVB (the city's privatised transport agency). If I want to go beyond that, I could instead get a monthly ticket for the regional railway from the VRS (the regional privatised transport alliance that includes the KVB).<p>But although I generally stay within NRW I regularly commute to a city that's not within the boundaries of the VRS (or its parent alliance, the NVR). It's actually part of another alliance, the NWL. So I would need a ticket to move within the VRS region and then another to move within the NWL region.<p>But there are actually three such alliances in NRW and I need to cross the region of the third alliance to get from one to the other, which is the VRR. So I would need a ticket for the VRS, another for the VRR and then another for NWL.<p>But that's obviously silly, so there's also the NRW-ticket which covers the regions of all three alliances as a yearly subscription (which works out to ~€300/month).<p>But of course that's only for NRW (one of the sixteen states/counties in Germany) and only for busses, trams and regional rail. If you want to use the intercity or ICE trains, even within NRW, you still need an extra ticket at the full price. Likewise if you ever need to cross the borders of NRW.<p>As for the joys of actually using and validating the various tickets you might have to buy in addition to whichever subscription you end up with, that's what the article I linked to is about.<p>[0]: <a href="http://www.wiwo.de/unternehmen/dienstleister/werner-knallhart-das-ticket-chaos-bei-bus-und-bahn-macht-arm-und-krank/9984412.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.wiwo.de/unternehmen/dienstleister/werner-knallhar...</a> (German)
I don't know if this is still a thing in German trains in general, but the main selling point for me would be the fact that it looks like the train has coupes. A coupe is so much nice than a big open carriage.
I love the idea of having a car specifically for children to play. I'd pay extra for my kids (5 and 2) to have a place to play. Just a carpeted car with basic toys like many airports have.
Weird train rides in Germany?<p>I guess you could give this a try:
<a href="http://www.un-verschaemt.de/" rel="nofollow">http://www.un-verschaemt.de/</a>
I own a Bahncard 100 which is a rail pass for the entire country. Unfortunately due to wtf, I cannot use it on this train. There's still a lot to be done.
AFAIK it is not just Germany trains that are a mess (regarding fares), it is the same all over the world.<p>What I really hate is that every time I take a train (in Italy) I can be sure that:<p>1) the lady in front of me payed 30% less than me (OK, she is elderly and some discount may be fine)<p>2) the guy on my right payed 25% less than me (OK, he is a student, and has one of those cards)<p>3) the girl on my left has payed 45% less than me (OK, she has a special discount as a woman and booked the ticket in large advance)<p>4) the guy in businessman suit on the seat on the other side of the aisle has paid anyething between 50%, 80% or 100% less than me (OK, because he is an employee of the railway or of the government)<p>5) etc.<p>Simplified, I am the only one that is paying the full fare.
Yeah, let's waste energy operate trains from the 1970's (or buses) and pretend it's a good thing because "look it's cheaper and you get organic food inside".