Frankfurt to Paris trains arrive after six-year delay

Frankfurt to Paris trains arrive after six-year delay
By Tony Paterson in Berlin
Published: 26 May 2007
Independent UK

The event was billed as a "milestone in European rail history", but the sleek French TGV and German ICE high-speed trains that pulled into Paris yesterday arrived six years late because of farcical rows about plastic crockery, exploding cap bombs and seats for criminals.

The two trains set off from the German cities of Frankfurt and Stuttgart shortly after 8am and completed the 370-mile trip to Paris in just over four hours, achieving record speeds of up to 199mph and shaving two hours off the time of all previous rail journeys on the same route.

Hartmut Mehdorn, the chief executive of Deutsche Bahn AG, described the inauguration of the train link as "an historic day for the train and a milestone in European rail history". A regular service will begin between Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Paris on 10 June.

The French-German cooperation is seen as the beginning of a Barcelona to Budapest high-speed dream that has been taking shape in Europe for years. The trains will be a cheaper, cleaner, and more environmentally-friendly alternative to flying.

However, the project has been dogged by such intense Franco-German bickering between the rail bureaucrats of Deutsche Bahn and SNCF, that many doubted whether it would get off the ground at all.

The idea was born in 2001 when Deutsche Bahn first gave permission to allow French TGVs to operate on German track on the Paris to Stuttgart route.

However, before the French trains were to be allowed in, the Germans insisted, with Teutonic thoroughness, they be fitted with stronger brakes, drinking water in the lavatories and proper porcelain rather than plastic crockery in the dining cars.

Injured Gallic pride countered with a list of alterations that had to be made to German ICE trains to meet French regulations. They also slapped an extra €8m on the cost of each ICE plying the route.

The alterations included the installation of special seats equipped with steel rings to which the police could handcuff criminals, and compulsory French lessons and an exam for 30 German train drivers. Separate electrical systems had to be installed to make the German trains compatible with five different fuse systems and four different types of power supply, while additional emergency communication cords also had to be installed.

The French also insisted the German trains be equipped with undercarriage "spoilers" to prevent flying gravel and carry steam-age flares, flags and emergency cap bombs. "The cap bombs are placed on the rails and are detonated when an approaching train runs over them. That way the driver is warned of an emergency," an SNCF official explained yesterday.

However, the biggest and still only partially resolved problem was caused by French ticket collectors' outright refusal to serve first class passengers food and drink in their seats. The practice is normal for German rail employees, but the French rail trade unions won't allow it.

What looked like a shaky compromise was also reached yesterday on the divisive issue of porcelain or plastic dining car plates. "Porcelain-like hard plastic" was the material used for the crockery on the specially-revamped German ICE that reached Paris.

However, the French controlleurs were digging in their heels over waiter service, leaving their German colleagues to get on with it on their own. "We have no problem with this arrangement," Andreas Fuhrmann, a spokesman for Deutsche Bahn, insisted.