Getting There By Rail
Deutsche Bahn – DB (tel: 11861 or (0800) 150 7090 or (01805) 194 195; website: www.bahn.de) is the national railway provider. The network is modern, extensive and highly efficient. Services include high-speed InterCityExpress (ICE) trains (between major cities in Germany), InterCity (IC) and EuroCity (EC) trains (serving German and European cities respectively), and InterRegio (IR) and InterRegio Express (IRE) trains (linking different regions of the country).
The Hauptbahnhof (main railway station), Am Hauptbahnhof Strasse (tel: (069) 2653 4581), is the busiest in Germany and a major junction on the network, with 350,000 passengers using the station every day. Facilities at the station include tourist information, a bank, ATMs, a chemist and many other shops and eating outlets.
Rail services: There are IC and EC services to destinations throughout Germany and abroad, while ICE trains travel to a number cities, including Basel, Bonn, Dresden, Düsseldorf, Hanover, Munich, Hamburg and Berlin. The ICE Cologne-Frankfurt link is the fastest on the network, at just 70 minutes (58 minutes to Frankfurt Flughafen). There are also night trains on some routes, including the CityNightLine service (tel: (01805) 121 244; website: www.citynightline.ch) from Vienna West, Basel and Zurich. IR, IRE, RE (Regional Express) RB (Regional Bahn) and S-Bahn trains serve regional and city destinations.
Frankfurt airport has its own long-distance train station in the AIRail Terminal, with regular direct ICE services to Basel, Hanover, Amsterdam, Stuttgart and Munich.
|
