Deutsche Bahn

Now, the question remains, why to increase the ticket price? This is backed by higher energy costs (apparently the prices there raised by up to 40%) and a better system (probably meaning more and faster connections). I wouldn't start to argue against the increased energy costs, this is something that needs to be passed through of course. I don't understand why a few more connections justify higher prices, though. And as long as delays of 10 minutes are considered normal and connections that used to be fast but because of old tracks are now slow РGerolstein - K̦ln was possible in close to an hour, 15 years later it is now at least 1:39 РI don't buy the 'faster connections' as an argument to rise the price. Oh, and why in hell did the price for reservations done at the counter raised by 16.7%?

Anyhow, I do like to travel with the train, it is far more relaxing then by car and for sure more comfortable than the plane. I also did not (yet?) experience troubles like the one Mela talks about. Of course I have my share of experience with delayed trains and suddenly flipped ordering of waggons, but so far all my contacts with the DB personnel went smooth. From looking up the exact layout of the waggon for finding the seat where I would have the most space for my legs to the uncomplicated payment for a cab when the train was arriced so late in Berlin that I could not get the last connection back to Babelsberg.

But coming back to the improved system: Last weekend I had the luxury to travel with one of the refurbished waggons of the ICE 1. My understanding of the refurbishing was, that they changed the interior design mimic the design of the ICE 3 and that every seat now has a socket for your notebook. Speaking of colour and material choice, I don't care too much about the interior design, the old one was fine, but the new one is fine too. Having a socket is a good idea, so I might be able to work on long trips.

But for this trip I decided against taking the laptop, instead I took a book and my headphones for listening to the audio programme that they have on the trains. Or I should say, used to have. There was no audio console on this new seat! And just one socket for two seats. Plus the seats appear quite fragile. I also had the impression that the seat-spacing used to be larger before the refurbishing. Reading the press announcement, this turns out to be true:

Da die neuen Fahrgastsitze wesentlich schlanker und damit Raumsparender sind, kann der Grundriss angepasst und gleichzeitig die Sitzplatzzahl in den zwölf Wagen um insgesamt 60 Plätze erhöht werden.

The new seat-spacing is now 920mm, the data sheet does not mention the spacing before the refurbishing, but the ICE 2 is to my knowledge similar to the ICE 1 concerning seating and has a spacing of 965mm. Well, at least I can still sit there.

Back to the audio system: This was indeed removed, as one of the conductors told me, they had a survey and most customers opted for having a socket instead of the audio system. Why having both was not an option is not entirely clear to me. This is really a pity, I like the audio system a lot, the classic/jazz channel always has something interesting. When I came back from Stuttgart I actually heard a CD I really liked a lot and hence ordered a couple of days later. But okay, having a socket is probably a good choice, now that I know it, I can just take the laptop and have all my OGG/Vorbis and FLAC files.

While searching for the press notes I came across an interesting one, apparently it is possible to buy the old seats from the ICE 1.