As a densely populated country in a central location in Europe and with a developed economy, Germany has a dense transport infrastructure.
The Deutsche Bahn AG is the national railway company of Germany, and a state-owned enterprise under the control of the German government. Headquartered in the Bahntower in Berlin, it is a joint-stock company (AG).
Intercity Express is a high-speed rail system in Germany. It also serves destinations in Austria, France, Belgium, Switzerland and the Netherlands as part of cross-border services. It is the flagship of the German state railway, Deutsche Bahn. ICE fares are fixed for station-to-station connections, on the grounds that the trains have a higher level of comfort. Travelling at speeds up to 320 km/h (200 mph), they are aimed at business travellers and long-distance commuters and marketed by Deutsche Bahn as an alternative to flights.
As of 2021, Germany had a railway network of 33,399 kilometres (20,753 mi), of which 20,540 kilometres (12,760 mi) were electrified and 18,556 kilometres (11,530 mi) were double track. Germany is a member of the International Union of Railways (UIC). The UIC Country Code for Germany is 80.
Frankfurt Airport is Germany's main international airport by passenger numbers and is located in Frankfurt, the fifth-largest city of Germany and one of the world's leading financial centres. It is operated by Fraport and serves as the main hub for Lufthansa, including Lufthansa CityLine and Lufthansa Cargo as well as Condor and AeroLogic. The airport covers an area of 2,300 hectares of land and features two passenger terminals with capacity for approximately 65 million passengers per year; four runways; and extensive logistics and maintenance facilities.
Frankfurt am Main Airport long-distance station is a railway station at Frankfurt Airport in Frankfurt, Germany. It is served by long-distance trains, mostly ICE services running on the Cologne–Frankfurt high-speed rail line. It is the largest railway station serving an airport in Germany with about 23,000 passengers each day. The station is served by 210 long-distance trains daily, of which 185 are Intercity-Expresses. It and Limburg Süd station are the only railway stations in Germany that are served exclusively by long-distance trains.
DB Fernverkehr AG is a semi-independent division of Deutsche Bahn that operates long-distance passenger trains in Germany. It was founded in 1999 in the second stage of the privatisation of Deutsche Bahn, under the name of DB Reise&Touristik and was renamed in 2003.
The Cologne–Frankfurt high-speed rail line is a 180-kilometre-long (110 mi) railway line in Germany, connecting the cities of Cologne and Frankfurt. Its route follows the Bundesautobahn 3 for the greater part, and currently the travel time is about 62 minutes. The line's grades of up to four percent require trains with a high power-to-weight ratio which is currently only met by third-generation and fourth-generation Intercity-Express trains, with the latter operating at reduced speeds. It was constructed between 1995 and 2002 at a total cost of six billion Euro according to Deutsche Bahn.
Köln Messe/Deutz station is an important railway junction for long-distance rail and local services in the Cologne district of Deutz in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is situated close to the eastern bank of the Rhine and connected via the Hohenzollern Bridge to Köln Hauptbahnhof, the city's main station, which is just a few hundred metres away. The Cologne Trade Fair grounds are directly north of the station, hence the Messe in the station's name. The Stadtbahn station of Deutz/Messe is nearby and connected by a pedestrian tunnel.
The approximately 5,400 railway stations in Germany that are owned and operated by the Deutsche Bahn subsidiary DB Station&Service are divided into seven categories, denoting the service level available at the station.
Siegburg/Bonn station, in the town of Siegburg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, is on the Cologne–Frankfurt high-speed rail line and the Sieg Railway. It was rebuilt for the high-speed line and is connected to Bonn by the Siegburg line of the Bonn Stadtbahn. It is in the network area of the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Sieg.
The DB Class 403 was a series of three electric multiple units commissioned by the Deutsche Bundesbahn in the 1970s, an early predecessor of the Intercity-Express as a high-speed train. The units were mainly used for InterCity services and again by the Lufthansa airline in the 1980s. Due to the distinctive design of its front section, the unit was nicknamed the "Donald Duck". They were designed for operational speeds of up to 220 km/h, a speed which was also attained in extensive test drives, but they were limited to 200 km/h in regular DB service.
Cologne/Bonn Airport is a station at Cologne Bonn Airport in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It was built as part of the Cologne–Frankfurt high-speed rail line and opened in June 2004 on an approximately 15 kilometre-long airport loop. It is served by Intercity-Express (ICE), Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn and regional services.
Mannheim–Frankfurt railway is a German standard gauge, electrified railway line and runs in southern Hesse and northern Baden-Württemberg between Frankfurt and Mannheim. It is also called the Riedbahn. The line runs through an area called the Hessische Ried, hence the name. The term Riedbahn was originally used for the Darmstadt–Worms railway and the two lines share the central section between Groß-Gerau and Biblis.
Frankfurt (Main) Airport regional station is an underground railway station at Frankfurt Airport in Frankfurt, Germany. It provides local S-Bahn and Regionalbahn services to the city and the Frankfurt/Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region. The station opened on 14 March 1972 together with a new passenger terminal. At the time it was only the second railway station serving an airport in Germany.
Rapid transit in Germany consists of four U-Bahn systems and fourteen S-Bahn systems. The U-Bahn commonly understood to stand for Untergrundbahn are conventional rapid transit systems that run mostly underground, while the S-Bahn or Stadtschnellbahn are commuter rail services, that may run underground in the city center and have metro-like characteristics in Munich, Hamburg and Berlin which they only have to a lesser extent in other cities. There are also over a dozen premetro or Stadtbahn systems that are rapid transit in the city center and light rail outside.
Frankfurt am Main Stadion station is a junction railway station in Frankfurt, Germany.
Intercity (IC) is the second-highest train classification in Germany, after the Intercity Express (ICE). Intercity services are loco-hauled express train services, usually over long-distances. There are Intercity routes throughout Germany, and routes generally operate with a two-hour frequency, with multiple routes giving a more frequent service on core routes. Intercity services are operated by the DB Fernverkehr sector of Deutsche Bahn.
Locomore was a German railway company that operated a higher-speed inter-city rail open access service between four of the most populous German metropolitan areas in 2016-2017 i.e. the Stuttgart Metropolitan Region, Rhine-Neckar, Frankfurt Rhine-Main and Berlin-Brandenburg. The service stopped at 18 railway stations, including the major German cities of Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Hanover and Berlin. It operated at a top speed of 200 km/h (124 mph).
