France could well be the perfect place to track the progress of the main battle over the future of travel: trains versus planes. In May 2021, France positioned itself as the frontrunner in a carbon-cutting train renaissance when its government enacted a ban on domestic flights where the journey could be done by train in less than two and a half hours. “We are the first to do it,” Emmanuel Macron said on Twitter, and it was hailed by minister Clément Beaune as a “powerful message” and a “strong symbol”. The European Commission designated 2021 as the “Year of European Rail” and billions of euros have since poured into railway infrastructure across central and eastern Europe.
France and Germany Promise Direct Paris-Berlin Trains From 2024
25.08.2023 - 14:24 / skift.com / Emmanuel Macron / Deutsche Bahn / Edward Russell / Paris
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Sunday unveiled plans for a high-speed train route connecting their respective capitals, Paris and Berlin, beginning next year.
“As a tangible initiative illustrating our will to push forward on decarbonizing our economies and our societies, as well as our cross-border links, we support the deployment of the high-speed train route between Paris and Berlin, as well as the night train liaison, both announced for 2024,” they said in a joint statement. They did not provide additional details, for example which country’s rail operator — France’s SNCF or Germany’s Deutsche Bahn — would operate the planned service.
A direct Paris-Berlin high-speed rail service would eliminate the need for travelers to change trains in either Cologne or Frankfurt. However, as rail blogger Alon Levy noted, without additional infrastructure improvements the new direct service will likely take about the 8 hours in travel, or about the same as the current connecting services.
Flights between Paris and Berlin take roughly 1 hour and 45 minutes, according to Diio by Cirium schedules.
Deutsche Bahn and SNCF operate 24 trains between France and Germany daily, according to the latter’s website. Trains directly connect Paris and other French cities with Frankfurt, Munich, Stuttgart and other German cities.
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