"Special train" from Hamburg to Koln

From Joe E: "The swoonworthy state-of-the art new train that runs between Hamburg and Köln is offering special tickets: €19.90. You can't book online yet, but, when in Köln... worth checking out, at least walking into one to see the interior. Blonde wood and leather. Gorgeous."

He was right, and it did not save it. The train was the Metropolitan, and it lasted another seventeen months.

It ran from August 1999, Hamburg to Cologne and back, and it was an odd and rather wonderful thing: a first-class-only service run by its own subsidiary of the German railway, two purpose-built seven-car sets doing 220km/h, with the blonde wood and leather Joe E is describing, an at-seat service and a genuine attempt at making a train feel like an airline's business cabin. The €19.90 fare was the problem showing through. Average occupancy sat around thirty per cent, and Deutsche Bahn stopped it in December 2004.

The carriages had a long afterlife on ordinary Intercity and ICE duties, in ordinary livery, until they were retired at the end of 2021 and scrapped a couple of years later when no buyer appeared.

Hamburg to Cologne is now a straightforward ICE, roughly four hours, hourly, no reservation needed if you have a pass. It is a good train. It is not upholstered like that one was.

Posted 18 July 2003 by Ant in Germany, Eurail Stories · updated by Chris