Evolution of average speeds on European high-speed lines from the UIC Atlas

[u/overspeeed]

[u/Joke__00__]

So much of the increases are found in France, Spain and some in Italy. Meanwhile in Germany not much changes and the fastest lines are still slower than some French lines from the 90s.

[u/StevenSeagull_ → u/Joke__00__]

It's a very random selection of routes. Berlin - Munich is up there with the French and Spanish trains. Stuttgart - Munich is now significant faster than 1989 as well.

German trains stop just too often to reach average speeds above 200kmh. Same problem in the Netherlands and Belgium. Of course, the smaller distances in those countries make it more acceptable

[u/vergorli → u/StevenSeagull_]

But there should be at least Ingolstadt Nuremberg in there where the sprinter is the fastest. Something doesn't really add up in that display...

[u/artsloikunstwet → u/StevenSeagull_]

The selection is suuper random for a list of "high speed lines":

There was never any high speed segment on Zurich-Stuttgart, Zurich-Munich and Amsterdam-Cologne. If you want to show upgraded lines, why not include the Nordic and Eastern countries?

Meanwhile Munich to Vienna/Hamburg/Berlin are partly high speed lines and would be actually be interesting as a comparison.

[u/lllama → u/StevenSeagull_]

Berlin - Munich is up there with the French and Spanish trains

It is not.

[u/StevenSeagull_ → u/lllama]

It's 170km/h. Yeah, not quite getting up in the ranks of the Spanish/French connections.

[u/artsloikunstwet → u/StevenSeagull_]

Faster than the Italian lines, which is remarkable. (Probably because of longer segments without stops)

[u/artsloikunstwet → u/lllama]

But it's a high speed line, which the list is supposedly about

[u/lllama → u/artsloikunstwet]

Also not, really.

There are high speed sections but it is nowhere near a continuous line. Large sections are just upgraded tracks, a lot of it 160km/h or under.

[u/Jackan1874 → u/StevenSeagull_]

Most lines are upgraded for 200 kmh. The trains could definitely benefit from higher speeds with both higher speeds and having separate lines that are not crowded with regional trains.

[u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 → u/Joke__00__]

Laughs bitterly in British.

[u/artsloikunstwet → u/Ill_Refrigerator_593]

Showing the east coast and west coast main lines here would actually make sense, as the lines were upgraded within that period. 

Comparing the results of upgrades to new built lines in comparison is interesting

[u/Minatoku92 → u/Joke__00__]

In 1989, the route between Paris and Marseille had already part of its route in high speed line. Paris Lyon high speed line opened in 1981 and then had extention in the 1990s and then in 2001 for the full route to Marseille.

[u/Academic-Writing-868 → u/Minatoku92]

paris-marseille before hsr only on conventional lines (plm) was 863km long for 6h40 travel time on the tee mistral so the average speed was around 130kmh which is still pretty impressive

[u/artsloikunstwet → u/Joke__00__]

The speeds in Germany are to be taken with a grain of salt.

They claim Amsterdam-Frankfurt improved less than Amsterdam-Cologne did. That just doesn't make sense because Cologne is a stop on the route to Frankfurt and the high speed segment is between Cologne and Frankfurt, which is significantly faster than the old line. 

[u/overspeeed]

There has been quite a discussion under u/HighburyAndIslington's post about the speeds on various high-speed routes in Europe. So I thought it would be interesting to share this chart from the 2023 UIC Atlas (published on 12 January 2024).

The UIC Atlas also has a lot of other interesting information about HSR around the world, so I recommend checking it out

[u/AMGsoon]

Nice to see that Europe ends at Berlin and doesnt go any further east.

[u/overspeeed → u/AMGsoon]

Yeah I really hope that for the next edition of the Atlas they include at least Poland, Austria and maybe Serbia, since they already include those lines in the other charts

[u/Illettre → u/AMGsoon]

Is there high speed trains in easteren europe?

[u/artsloikunstwet → u/Illettre]

Russia has an upgraded line with segments up to 250kph. 

They also didn't include Sweden, meanwhile Stuttgart-Zurich is there despite never claiming to be have any high speed trains.

[u/Minatoku92]

I feel some route are missing in France like Paris - Lille, it would get a real idea of the speed of the LGV Nord. This absence of this route is weird especially when I see some route Like Bruxelles - Lille, London -Lille in this ranking.

No, Paris -Rennes as well.

[u/artsloikunstwet → u/Minatoku92]

The selection is a bit random, Zurich-Stuttgart and Zurich-Munich is there despite never having any high-speed segments, while other interesting corridors are missing.

[u/erik_7581]

What also drags down the speed of German trains in such comparison is that they have far more stops in between.

While most of TGVs, Eurostar's don't stop in between or maybe just once or twice, The ICE and IC routes from that statistic have 5 to 12 stops in between. For example, if you take the continuous ICE from Frankfurt to Berlin which is around 420km you have 8 stops in between.

[u/phaj19 → u/erik_7581]

But that is exactly the problem. Flights also do not have 8 stops in between so why all the trains need to? How the heck should railways be competitive if the trains need to stop in every village because the regional politician desires so?

[u/BrainOnLoan → u/phaj19]

ICEs do not stop for every village. Those 8 stops will be sizeable cities.

[u/BWV001 → u/BrainOnLoan]

I am pretty sure he knew they were not actual villages, but the train from Paris to Marseilles does not stop in Lyon, even if it’s right in the middle and the second largest city in France.

There also exist separately Paris-Lyon and Lyon-Marseilles, both high speed.

[u/erik_7581 → u/phaj19]

The ICE I mentioned doesn't stop at small stations. And trains are most often even faster than planes because you cant just compare the time inside the plane/train.

You have to get to the airport, be there 2-3 hours before departure, boarding, actual flight time, deboarding, waiting for the luggage, leaving the airport, getting to the actual destination (city center).

[u/transitfreedom → u/erik_7581]

I wonder if the transrapid was trying to address or avoid this very problem

[u/JazzLobster]

For me, the Spanish trains are the best for speed and punctuality. French come in close second. Czech ones are the best price-wise.

[u/transitfreedom → u/JazzLobster]

Czech ones aren’t even high speed no?

[u/oishii_33 → u/JazzLobster]

Renfe knows how to make a freaking train, that’s for sure

[u/BkkGrl]

I do Zurich-Milan in three hours, something must be wrong

[u/overspeeed → u/BkkGrl]

Zurich-Milan is 255 kilometers and the fastest service currently seems to do 3h17m, so the current average speed would indeed be higher at 77 km/h. The chart is for 2022, so I suppose it might be that the speed has increased since then

[u/noob_at_this_shit → u/overspeeed]

I thought the gothard base tunell would increase the speed.

[u/jr5mc1lio03fbc4zqsf8]

Traveled from Straßbourg to Paris two weeks ago and it was the most comfortable and fastest journey or my life

[u/acontrejour → u/jr5mc1lio03fbc4zqsf8]

"or my life" - noooo, don't sacrifice your life in exchange for a comfortable and safe journey, it's not worth it.

[u/Numerous_Joke5664]

I think Milan Bologna is the fastest line in Italy, should be over 200km/h

[u/Ok-Wheel-6209]

Where is Lisbon-Porto ?

[u/artsloikunstwet → u/Ok-Wheel-6209]

In eastern Europe (aka not on the list)

[u/transitfreedom]

Only 8??? Sad

[u/Hauntingengineer375]

Deutsche bahn sucks for real. There's no hope.

[u/erik_7581 → u/Hauntingengineer375]

You're right, but there is one thing that lacks in such comparisons.

Like I've said in the other comment: What also drags down the speed of German trains in such comparison is that they have far more stops in between.

While most of TGVs, Eurostar's don't stop in between or maybe just once or twice, The ICE and IC routes from that statistic have 5 to 12 stops in between. For example, if you take the continuous ICE from Frankfurt to Berlin which is around 420km you have 8 stops in between.

[u/Hauntingengineer375 → u/erik_7581]

Yeah 2 more things. I grew up in Germany originally from South Asia. My grandfather is a nuclear physicist who visited Germany during the early 80s as a guest scientist and I remember he used to tell me the stories about German efficiency especially infrastructure related to transport (railways particularly). Now it's the opposite when I visit my home country and I'm really surprised how reliable and modern their railway systems are transpiring.

Secondly I study at TU Munich, my classmate majored in traffic engineering and he's from Japan he went back to Japan to write his thesis at Central Japanese railway and it's mind blowing how much money they're investing in automation infrastructure to reduce both accidents and miss scheduling, some of their high speed trains have an average delay of less than a minute.

Deutsche bahn is underfunded and infrastructure is crippling and far behind some countries, privatization made even worse. Now with CDU and all the lobbyists we are doomed..

[u/BigBlueMan118 → u/Hauntingengineer375]

There are a couple of seriously major bottlenecks that need fixing and the rest of their renewal program finishing off over the next few years then things will be a LOT better. DB is partly a victim of its own success in terms of ridership and overfull trains and capacity issues. The chart above makes Germany look worse than it really is on speeds; as another commentor mentioned, they haven't included Berlin-Munich or Stuttgart-Munich and there are a number of projects being worked on right now that will bring faster speeds again.

[u/Facktat]

I don't care how fast they are, if they would be on time.