Travelling by German train

During my recent visit to Germany, my friend and I decided to use the train as much as we possibly could as it would work out economical and also could see the country from a close vantage point.

Our first trip was by ICE (Inter City Express) from Frankfurt Airport to Duisburg. Well we had reservation and people helped us to locate the coach of the train on the platform. My first impression was the outward look of the train. Well….it is not like any train that I had seen before. It looked like one of those trains that I read about as ‘bullet trains’.


I was taken aback by German train punctuality. They are absolutely on the dot. After we got in, it is nothing but absolute amazement. It is clean, quiet, comfortable and fast. It didn’t take very long for it to catch speed. At one point it was running at about 280 KM/ hour. It was going so fast I couldn’t even take pictures from the train. It was only an hour and a half journey and we had to pass Cologne and Dusseldorf before disembarking at Duisburg.

As it was the first time for my friend and I to travel in Germany, we wanted to be careful not to make any mistakes. We were asking people before we did anything. It looked like there were few people on the train travelling without reservation and that reminded me of trains in India.