German railway company Deutsche Bahn today announced an ambitious expansion plan for its ICE high-speed train fleet, which will result in the largest train supply contract with Spanish Talgo (Tren Articulado Ligero Goicoechea Oriol) in its 80 years of history: 56 new trainsets for an amount of about 1,400 million euros. This new order is part of the framework contract signed in 2019 together with a first firm order for 23 trains. Adding both orders, Talgo’s ICE train fleet for Germany will reach 79 units.
The trains, belonging to the Talgo 230 technology platform, will be operated by Deutsche Bahn throughout Germany under the trademark ICE L, which designates long-distance and high-speed services that will also have low floor and platform level in all their cars. (Intercity-Express Low-Floor) and will therefore be completely accessible, a feature that only the Spanish company has within the global rail industry.
The 56 new ICE L units will be identical to the 23 currently in production and will gradually come into operation from autumn 2024: they are state-of-the-art trains, with more space and a high level of comfort, made up of a locomotive that drives the composition of 17 passenger cars, of which the last one incorporates a driver’s cab to make operations more flexible, in a configuration unknown in Spain but quite common in Germany.
Designed to operate international routes
The locomotive, fully developed by Talgo, is multi-system and therefore completely interoperable, which will allow ICE L trains to travel not only within Germany, but also on international services connecting Berlin with Amsterdam quickly and without stopping at the border. The composition will also be compatible with locomotives from other manufacturers to be operated, for example, on non-electrified lines.
Each train offers a total of 562 seats, 85 of them in first class and 477 in second, including a bistro/cafeteria car and another exclusively for people with reduced mobility (PRM), and incorporates a new interior design scheme characterised by combining functionality and durability with the lightness and warmth of the materials. Its new coaches also incorporate for the first time a new type of window designed to improve telephone and mobile data coverage on board the train.