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

A few good books

 On an informal mission to read one book a week as long as the eyes allow for such ambition. Fiction or non is not important as long as it entertains and /or educates. To that end the past few weeks have brought a bounty in the form of some wonderful and then not so engaging literature. Among the notables are - Non fiction category: 1. Good arguments by Bo Seo (how to handle a dispute or debate the most efficient way possible) 2. Genesis by Eric Schmidt (and former US Secy of State Henry Kissinger, who recently passed) - how AI might affect our lives as we know it 3. One in a billion - Zarna Garg (an autobiographical look at an Indian born American woman with a bindi narrated in a standup format - yes it is at times cliched but still funny) Fiction: 1. Personal by Lee Child (a vigilante story with Jack Reacher the giant, nomad protagonist of Child's novels goes hunting for a sniper) 2. Ramayana unraveled by Ami Ganatra (she might disagree about it being a work of fiction but oh wel...
Post a Comment
Read more

Back in DC

This time for a tech conference in the realm of what else? AI. But applied to an oft neglected space called Knowledge Management. The latter is a community of practice that focuses on analyzing, organizing and making available reams of data that have been gathered over time by various functions within an organization for anyone in the company to utilize. This function or process is ripe for applying AI agents (or agentic AI framework) and optimize for better outcomes. It was informative. More rewarding was getting acquainted with folks who practice this craft as well as learning of what they see in the corporate or public sectors. Since the venue was Washington DC it also afforded me the chance to take evening strolls albeit the weather was trying. With wind chill in the single digit it still is a glamorous place to perambulate through history absorbing what this country has been through since its founding days. I was able to visit the place Lincoln was killed along with his monument t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Costa Rica

 Our first foray into Central America. That elongated isthmus that forms the geographic boundary between two vast continents of North and South America. Specifically landing for NYE 2026 in San Jose, Costa Rica. Capital city for this region that does not have its own army, instead relying on its big bro the Estados Unidos to the north is a metropolis of approx. 500K people. Largely wilderness and with both a Pacific and Carribean/Atlantic coast the country is rich in bio diversity. In Spanish it means the rich coast so named by Columbus landing in early 16th century and being mesmerized by the local tribes sporting gold jewelry.   Our stay included visiting the foothills of a large strato volcano called Arenal and enjoying the naturally heated thermal baths for a while.  Lunching amidst lush forest and watching indigenous species of avian noise makers fly overhead. Toucans, some sort of pea hens, multiple song bird species completed the spectacle. Iguanas and a lonel...
Post a Comment
Read more