As of December 16th, Berlin and Paris are directly connected by ICE for the first time. Announced at InnoTrans 2024, the high-speed train will allow passengers to travel between the two cities in approximately eight hours.
Richard Lutz, CEO of Deutsche Bahn (DB), François Delattre, French Ambassador to Germany, Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing, Berlin’s Governing Mayor Kai Wegner and Jean-Baptiste Guenot, Head of the European Markets & International Development Department SNCF Voyageurs, ceremoniously sent the first ICE from Berlin Central Station on its journey to the French capital. The journey time from city center to city center is around eight hours. The trains, operated in cooperation by DB and SNCF Voyageurs, travel via Frankfurt South, Karlsruhe and Strasbourg. This also means that for the first time there is a direct connection during the day between Berlin and the Alsatian metropolis, the headquarters of the European Parliament.
“The good German-French cooperation is the backbone of a united Europe. The new ICE direct connection between Berlin and Paris is a symbol of this. We are thus offering our passengers another highlight in international long-distance transport. This is because it is booming: more and more people are choosing to travel by rail when travelling through Europe thanks to attractive offers. In this way, we are also strengthening our profitability in line with the S3 restructuring programme,” Richard Lutz, CEO of Deutsche Bahn, said.
“The high-speed connection between Paris and Berlin is a milestone in the 17-year-long cooperation between DB and SNCF. It contributes to a common goal of our two countries: more CO₂-free mobility. We are very pleased to be able to offer our mutual customers this new, high-quality service,” Jean-Baptiste Guenot, Head of European Markets & International Development at SNCF Voyageurs, added.
Tickets including seat reservation for the journey from Berlin to Paris are available from 59.99 euros in 2nd class and 69.99 euros in 1st class via bahn.de, the DB Navigator app, and in DB travel centers and DB agencies. DB and SNCF are very satisfied with the demand so far for the new direct connection. Almost three-quarters of the bookings cover the entire route between the two capitals. This underlines the attractiveness of this new European connection.
The ICE departs Berlin Hauptbahnhof at 12.02 and arrives in Paris Est at 19.55 (Frankfurt/Main Süd at 15.52, Karlsruhe Hbf at 17.06 and Strasbourg at 17.53).
It departs the French capital at 9.55 and arrives in Berlin at 18.03 (Strasbourg at 11.40, Karlsruhe Hbf at 12.34, Frankfurt/Main Süd at 14.04).
The train is a class 407 ICE 3, which has already proven itself in high-speed traffic between Germany and France. The train has 444 seats, 111 of which are in first class, and reaches a top speed of 320 kilometers per hour on the French LGV Est high-speed line. As on all German-French high-speed connections, multilingual train attendants from both railways look after passengers on board the train in German, French and English.
Since 2007, SNCF Voyageurs and DB have been working together to offer high-speed ICE and TGV services between Germany and France. Since then, around 33 million travellers have used the international connections Frankfurt/Main–Paris, (Munich–) Stuttgart–Paris and Frankfurt/Main–Marseille. With the direct ICE Berlin–Paris, the number of daily high-speed journeys between Germany and France has increased from 24 to 26. This corresponds to over 320,000 additional seats per year.
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