France has the TGV, Japan has the Shinkansen and Germany has the ICE! Welcome aboard the German flagship train, which in this case connects Berlin Hbf with Interlaken Ost. Our trip today takes us from Basel to Bern, with a stop in Olten on our way. After Olten follows the stretch on the HSL Mattstetten - Rothrist, the first high-speed railway line in Switzerland. The train will quickly accelerate to 200km/h and keep this speed up to only a few kilometers before reaching Bern.
The german ICE serves Switzerland for over 25 years. Today, they connect Hamburg with Chur, Kiel with Zürich and Berlin with Interlaken. The handover between SBB and DB is always in Basel SBB, therefore all ICE's in Switzerland are driven by SBB personnel which are trained on the ICE. It's a partnership between both companies and countries, also to be found on the international lines to Austria (Railjet), France (TGV) and Italy (Astoro/Giruno). On the way to Interlaken, the train changes its direction of travel in Bern, which is why our video ends there.
What you'll see here is the highest regular speed in Switzerland. Why is our top speed "only" 200km/h? Many other railways try to make their trains as fast as possible, while in Switzerland, they go as fast as necessary. The goal behind the integrated schedule in Switzerland is to reduce overall travel time and allow for good connetions in all possible directions, not just raw speed. The NBS (Neubaustrecke, new HSL line Mattstetten - Rothrist, more Info will be displayed during the video) was built so the travel time is reduced under one hour, allowing for perfect connections on the trains that depart hourly or half-hourly. After all, 200km/h is definitely not slow. These speeds with up to 1000 tonnes of steel in the back is still very impressive, even by todays standards.
Locomotive/EMU: ICE 4 (BR 412)
Train stops at:
Basel SBB
Olten
Bern
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