Dinner. Deutsche Bahn seems to be slowly putting its traditional DB Autozug on the back burner: the railroaders recently moved the headquarters of DB Autozug from Dortmund to Frankfurt in order to merge the subsidiary with DB fernverkehrs AG. And so the auto train has almost completely left north rhine-Westphalia: hardly anyone will remember cologne-deutz or munster, the last auto train left dortmund in 2006 and the troisdorf terminal was closed in 2008. Remaining is dusseldorf. And the bahn wants to reduce further throughout germany. From may 2014, there will be no more traffic in berlin-wannsee.
It would be a pity for the good old car train. How great the anticipation of the upcoming trip was every time I rolled onto the upper or lower deck of the two-story car train with a loud rumble in the dusseldorf terminal! I take only one bag for the night with me in the compartment, the suitcase remains in the car. Not all berths in the couchette are occupied; it would be even more undisturbed in the sleeper car, where free wine and a private washbasin don’t necessarily make up for the price difference, but solo dreams and the exclusion of uninvited snoopers are worth the luxury for some travelers.
A free breakfast
first vacation feeling around 2 p.m., on the way to alessandria in the middle of piedmont, between milan, turin and genoa. Many motorcyclists in full assembly, who don’t like to race through germany and switzerland in wind and weather, create an atmosphere on board, families open the compartment table for games and meals. Plenty of drinks and snacks are brought by the conductor, who also helps to make beds in the couchette cars.
Around eight o’clock in the morning, we have another free breakfast, and around nine o’clock we arrive in alessandria. After 20 minutes the car cars are uncoupled, the rested drivers board cars and bikes.
The car train is a bit old-fashioned
Admittedly, if you can’t get hold of a 99 euro bargain per person/car/route (and you usually can’t get hold of one of these bargains), you’re right!), for whom the trip to the family vacation is not so insanely cheap. Example: from dusseldorf to alessandria. We pay the normal price. And the price for five people for exclusive use of the couchette compartment is 469 euros per leg of the journey, or 938 euros in total. A lot of money, but there’s a bit of a trade-off. Because in addition to fuel, you would actually have to calculate the wear and tear costs of the car when you drive it yourself. And depending on the length of the route – and the stamina of the children – the family might even plan an overnight stay in a hotel. With the DB Autozug, a whole vacation day is saved, making a total of two days including the return trip. It also saves the stress of traffic jams on the autobahn, the kids can run around and have fun. Not bad, but it will cost a bit of money.
Not enough – this is apparently how the german railroads see it now. "the group’s executive board has not yet made a decision on further plans, but "basically, traffic with car trains is very difficult to organize economically because there are extreme seasonal fluctuations in demand," says a railroad spokeswoman. The routes are too unprofitable, the car transporters too old. And unfortunately you are right, the DB Autozug really does look a bit old-fashioned. Full of tradition and history it is, only the car train got stuck there somewhere at a red signal. No wonder: the former subsidiary of DB fernverkehrs AG should be self-supporting and earn its modernization itself. It never worked, now it’s been merged. The beginning of the end?
Time and nerves saved
The DB Autozug still runs in winter from dusseldorf to munich, innsbruck, alessandria and narbonne, and in summer to villach, bolzano, alessandria and narbonne. There are now a total of twelve loading terminals in Germany, Austria, France and Italy, not including the sylt shuttle with loading in niebull and westerland.
The car train at the beginning as a mood-setter and at the end as a relaxed finale extended the vacation, saved time and spared nerves. Except once, when my exhaust fell off in the middle of the upper deck on arrival in dusseldorf and, after it had been patched up in a makeshift job, I was so excited that I couldn’t find the car key anymore. the klaxophony of about twenty slowed down drivers, who finally wanted to roll off the train after me, reverberated for a long time.