Photos and Videos: Europe High-Speed Trains

Imagine one day traveling on a high-speed train from Washington to New York in 96 minutes or Los Angeles to San Francisco in 2 hours 38 minutes. As the super sleek bullet-nosed marvel of modern engineering climbs to a top of speed of 220 mph (354 kph) on a dedicated high-speed track, the sensation you feel is of flying on an airplane at 30,000 feet. You look out the window as entire towns pass by in a blink of an eye. As you speed through The Garden State you briefly notice on your left a backlog of planes waiting to take off from Newark International Airport and on your right an epic traffic jam on the New Jersey Turnpike. But before you know it the train is tunneling underneath the Hudson River and gliding into a spacious new railway station as you realize that you left Washington and arrived in New York in the time it would have taken you to drive to the airport and pass through security or reach as far as Baltimore in rush hour gridlock.

High-speed rail in California, the Northeast Corridor and other regions could become reality soon as pundits and politicians debate the merits of investing in 21st century train travel while China and other countries rapidly build extensive high-speed rail networks. With high-speed rail such a hot topic here in America, I wanted to visit a part of the world where fast trains have been a part of the fabric of life for a long time. Riding the rails was the main reason I took a trip to Europe this past summer. My Eurorail pass opened my eyes to a way of life where citizens enjoy timely and efficient city-to-city rail service that is competitive with air and automobile travel.  Here are some photos of the high-speed trains I took followed by video of riding the rails through the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic, France and Spain.

EUROSTAR

DEUTSCHE BAHN

THALYS

TGV

RENFE

Here are more photos of high-speed rail in Europe.

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Green Traveler: Berlin, Germany

July 17-19, 2011 -- Berlin is another European city with great public transportation and bicycling systems. The U-Bahn and S-Bahn rapid transit railway systems get Berliners and visitors to their destinations in Western and Eastern Berlin.

Bikes are big in Berlin. As I was walking towards Brandenburg Gate on Unter den Linden boulevard in the Mitte district on a weekday morning, I saw more bicycle commuters than automobiles. One biker after another rolled by. It was an amazing sight to see.

And there is a unique bike sharing system in many German cities run by Deutsche Bahn. Call a Bike is different than most bike sharing systems because you don't have to check out and return a bike to a fixed station. There is an electronic rear wheel lock and cable lock that allows riders to leave the bike pretty much anywhere. The reason it is called Call a Bike is because the customer calls a phone number to receive a 4-digit authorization code that will unlock the nearest bike. In addition to Berlin, Call a Bike is available in Frankfurt, Cologne, Stuttgart, Munich, Karlsruhe and Saarbrucken.

Berliners like to bike to the new multi-leveled, futuristic-looking Central Train Station, which opened to the public in 2006 on the site of the historic Lehrter Bahnhof railway terminal. This is bicycle parking in front of Hauptbahnhof.

With trains coming and going above you and below you, the railway station feels like something out of the "The Jetsons" or Fox's animation science fiction show "Futurama."

And it is easy to recycle at Berlin Central Train Station with these large recycling containers.

Click here for more observations of Berlin on Josh's Travel Blog.

Here are more photos from Berlin. Click here to see the set on Flickr



And here is video of a U-Bahn subway train arriving at Hallesches Tor station near my hostel:

Riding the Rails: Brussels to Berlin

July 17, 2011 -- I took a Deutsche Bahn InterCity-Express train from Brussels to Berlin with a transfer in Cologne. The train makes intermediate stops at Liege and Aachen before reaching Cologne. From Cologne the train makes intermediate stops at Dusseldorf, Duisburg, Essen, Bochum, Dortmund, Hamm, Gutersloh, Bielefeld, Herford, Hannover, Wolfsburg, Stendal and Berlin-Spandau. DB ICE trains travel at speeds up to 200 mph (322 kph).

The train station at Liege, Belgium is spectacular. It was designed by renowned Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, who also designed the new transit hub at Ground Zero in New York City and the Chords Bridge in Jerusalem.

In typical German fashion, Deutsche Bahn wants you to know exactly how fast and efficient their high-speed trains are. The ICE trains top out at around 200 mph (322 kph) so my train was gaining speed at the time I took this picture. For Americans reading this blog post, that is 155 miles per hour.

As we sped through the German countryside I was expecting to see alpine houses and gothic cathedrals, which I did. However, I also saw gigantic wind farms with enormous wind turbines dotting the landscape. And it seemed as if every other house I saw had solar panels installed on the rooftop. Germany is obviously not the windiest or sunniest country in the world, but the Federal Republic has had a Renewable Energy Act in place since the year 2000, so this is the result of over eleven years of generous incentives for wind and solar power. It is impressive to see so many wind farms and so many citizens powering their homes with the sun.

That evening we arrived at the multi-level, futuristic looking Berlin Central Train Station. Trains are coming and going all the time on different levels, making it look like something out of the Fox animated science fiction show "Futurama." So cool.

Here are photos and video of my high speed train trip from Brussels to Berlin. Click here to see the photo set on Flickr.