Skip to main content

Chilling on ICE

 Here ICE stands for Inter City Express.

Part of a vast array of transport vehicles operated by the Deutsche Bundesbahn (DB) or German Railway.  

ICE are considered the high speed trains that typically operate between any two large metros /hubs in Germany.

DB is a state run operation that spans the entirety of Germany.  They operate a wide variety of long distance and local train services to create an immense network spanning over 20,000 miles which is almost the length of earth's circumference around the equator.

I happened to get another opportunity to spend a week in Germany, this time in winter and enjoy riding these rails. While it got to a low of 0 deg C or just below 32 deg F on couple days it only snowed during my last couple days of the time I spent there.

Most snow I saw was in fact just across the German / Austrian border in the historic city of Salzburg. Got to walk over the bridge on River Salzac and look at a fort on a hill (Schloss as they are known) that looks very similar to another castle that inspired the setting for 'Where Eagles Dare' with Client Eastwood.


Walking across Salzac River, Austria

Speaking of which the train that took me to Austria from Munich was operated by the Austrian State and their brand is OBB.  That was not an ICE.  

I did use ICE extensively for other trips.

One was to get from say Basel (Switzerland) main station to Freiburg in Germany.  To begin my excursion of the Black Forest or Schwarzwald region in state of Baden Wurttemberg. 


Rhine (at dawn) passing through Basel, Switzerland


Contemplating in bronze, Basel

Having access to 24x7 internet on the phone is a huge blessing since it allowed me to plan my next leg of journey on the fly and optimize based on how much time I wanted to spend in any given locale.


my ICE waiting in Munich to go someplace north



Came out of Liège, Belgium with an ICE


Reaching max speed of 300 kph on leg to Frankfurt

It is an extremely quiet and slick ride with not much trouble getting seat (given it is low travel season) to get between two points expeditiously. 

For the electrical engineering fans out there the system is operating on 15kV AC power for most of the service area in Germany and trains are able to also smoothly migrate across borders with the same standards used by neighboring countries. 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On the go(zay masta) in Japan again

Cool cat the Japanese are Tokyo at dusk  My second visit to this land of the rising sun after almost a decade. Back then clearly I was wet behind the ears product manager and likely didn’t pay attention to all (efficient) things Japanese. But today I did and of course continue to be impressed. It is as much the obvious stuff like on time travel that is both clean and comfortable and all that which makes it possible. The impressive landmark and landscapes that these humans have put together despite their cramped (or because of it) surroundings and precarious geological conditions could amaze a novice architect among us. But it’s also the little things that someone had to think about which have a phenomenal impact on day to day lives that make the Japanese stand apart. Below are few random examples- 1. Providing a very fine machined wooden toothpick in every packet of wooden chopsticks. The said chapsticks are simply set on the To Go counter of any food vendor/ convenience store wher...
Post a Comment
Read more

Presumptive Society

Today's world is hyper connected.  I am not so sure what it means but you hear it a lot.  It is probably hyper but not sure how connected it is.  Sugar (fermented or not) is available in many ways than before and so getting hyper is easy.  It is probably more a threat than cocaine since it is sold legally. And what is this connected stuff?  Most people I encounter seem disconnected from reality.  So going back to this assumption that we are connected there are subtle and no so subtle instances of how brands and companies and middle men try to portray someone - A linkedin profile for somebody working for X years at a place advertises to the connected network that so and so is CELEBRATING X years @ Such and Such Inc. Do we know if (s)he is celebrating or cringing?  Perhaps a better way to portray will be - So and So LASTED X years @ such & such inc. Then it exhorts the readership to go ahead and congratulate them for this lasting effe...
2 comments
Read more

Greasy Dra'ch'ma

With all the furor in the media around Greece for the past couple of years I thought it would be good to list all things Greek that people use in common parlance - 1. Some of us are familiar with Greek history as being where the world's largest organized scam was born - called the Olympics. At the time this courier delivered a message by running a large number of miles and that got converted into a spectator sport. Nobody thought about what this implied? Fedex does not use any of the marathon runners instead relying on bio diesel trucks so not sure where we went from courier delivery to extracting money for tickets to watch people balance themselves on a pommel horse - which by the way is quite different from a Trojan Horse - 2. which brings me to the next invention from Greek mythology that finds use today - except used in the computer virus arena. This innocuos program is accepted by a computer since it looks friendly only to unleash undesirable effects leading to loss of s...
2 comments
Read more