Description

This diesel ICE was developed for the line between Dresden and Nuremberg, that is not fully electrified until today, mostly because it lost its original importance after World War II and the split into the German countries. These trains were meant to provide a high-quality long-distance service when being introduced in 2001.

However, the units were so unreliable that they failed to improve the travel time or to attract new passengers. Lots of repairs and improvements were needed, and when an axle broke in December 2002, the units lost the approval to be run on the German network in summer 2003, until the problems with the axles were solved. Deutsche Bahn then decided to take the trains out of service completely.

In 2006 they came back into service as additional capacities were needed on account of the football world championships being held in Germany. At that time the trains finally reached their top speed of 200 kph for the first time in regular service. By 2007 they finally found a proper field of service, travelling between Hamburg and Denmark. These services ended in 2016, and the units were retired once more, this time for real.

In the game one can turn off train breakdowns, which is quite necessary with these trains. With that issue out of the way, the trains are actually quite interesting for long-distance passenger services on non-electrified lines - the main problem here is to actually have such lines left in the network after 80 in-game years.

Images and Screenshots

An ICE TD as four coach consist in the early 2000s.

To get more capacity additional main line coaches can be added to the consist. This is not exactly like how it works for the real train, but creating a double-headed consist seems to be impossible for technical reasons in the game. With four additional coaches the train already struggles to reach top speed.