New Daytime pan-European Rail Routes for 2025

The rail companies and networks co-ordinate their annual major timetable updates so that the new schedules are in place from the second Sunday in December; Though because of how the calendar fell in 2024, the new timetables commenced from Sunday December 15th.
These were the key changes which occurred from December 2023.

The fact that the pan-European rail timetables changes in mid-December, also provides an opportunity for major construction work, which will impact on long-distance rail services, to commence from the date of the schedule change.

Fom December 15th until June 27th the route in Austria that links Salzburg with Villach, is to be closed between Bad Gastein and Spittall, with buses substituting for daytime rail services.
The daytime long-distance services which typically come this way are on these routes:

• Wien Hbf - St Polten - Linz - Salzburg ↔ Bischofshofen - Bad Gastein - Spittal-Millstätter - Villach - Klagenfurt
• (Dortmund - Cologne - Wiesbaden) - Frankfurt (Main) - Stuttgart - München Hbf - Salzburg ↔ Bischofshofen - Bad Gastein - Spittal-Millstätter - Villach - Klagenfurt (these trains typically connect in Villach with trains taking a Villach ↔ Lesce-Beld - Ljubljana - Zidane Most - Zagreb - Vinkovici route).
  While the work is ongoing the trains from Germany will be turning round in Schwarzach St Veit or Bad Gastein, with bus connections on to Spittal and Villach.

Temporary cancellation of Germany ↔ Italy night trains

Though the route is also taken by these international night trains, which are being temporarily cancelled completely while the work is carried out:

• Stuttgart - München - Salzburg ↔ Udine - Venice
• München ↔ Verona - Milano Rogoredo - Genova - La Spezia
• München ↔ Firenze - Roma
  Note that all of the night trains which typically connect Germany and Italy will be impacted.

The night trains on these routes are to be re-routed via Graz:

• Stuttgart - München - Salzburg ↔ Ljubljana - Zagreb
• Zurich - Buchs - Feldkirch - Salzburg ↔ Ljubljana - Zagreb.

From early July until December 15th, the main rail route to the south of Frankfurt (Main), between the city and Mannheim, was closed due to construction work.

Now that it has reopened, the usual schedule has been restored on these routes which link Germany with Switzerland via Freiburg

• Hamburg - Hannover - Kassel - Frankfurt (Main) ↔ Mannheim - Karlsruhe - Freiburg - Basel - Zurich - Chur by ICE trains
• Berlin - Braunschweig - Kassel - Frankfurt (Main) ↔ Mannheim - Karlsruhe - Freiburg - Basel - Bern - Thun - Interlaken by ICE trains
• Hamburg - Bremen - Dortmund - Koln - Bonn - Mainz ↔ Mannheim - Karlsruhe - Freiburg - Basel - Zurich by the daily IC / EC train
• Hamburg - Bremen - Dortmund - Koln - Bonn - Mainz ↔ Mannheim - Karlsruhe - Freiburg - Basel - Bern - Thun - Interlaken by the daily IC / EC train
• Hamburg - Bremen - Dortmund - Koln - Frankfurt Flughafen ↔ Mannheim - Karlsruhe - Freiburg - Basel by ICE trains

Also, in September, the Frankfurt (Main) ↔ Milano service was restored, but on a new route in both directions; Frankfurt (Main) - Mannheim - Karlsruhe - Freiburg - Basel - Zurich ↔ Zug - Bellinzona - Lugano - Chiasso - Como - Milano Centrale.

The regular service pattern has also been restored on these ICE routes within Germany:

• Hamburg - Hannover - Kassel - Frankfurt (Main) - Frankfurt Flughafen ↔ Mannheim - Stuttgart
• Berlin - Leipzig - Erfurt - Frankfurt (Main) ↔ Mannheim - Stuttgart - Ulm - Augsburg - München
• Dortmund - Koln - Frankfurt Flughafen ↔ Mannheim - Stuttgart - Ulm - Augsburg - München

Below is the summary of the key alterations and innovations to long-distance international rail services on the timetable, which will be in place until the second Sunday in December 2025, with some comparatively minor alterations during the summer.

From the opening of the high-speed lines to the north and south of Rotterdam, travellers taking trains between Bruxelles and both Rotterdam and Amsterdam had a choice between:

1. taking a high speed train, which are now all branded as Eurostar services, or
2. taking a regular train, that were operated as InterCity services.
   The InterCity trains were inevitably slower - and they also diverted off the direct route to serve Breda.

However, they also had some advantages over the high-speed trains:

• They called at Bruxelles-Central and Bruxelles-Nord stations.
• They called at Bruxelles-Airport station, hence they provided a direct rail link between the airports in Bruxelles and Amsterdam.
• When booking last minute tickets at the station they were cheaper.

The key negative of the InterCity trains is their comparatively basic on-board experience - Older trains had to restored to service more than a decade ago, when the first attempt at replacing them ended in failure.

New trains...

A second attempt by the Dutch national rail operator NS at introducing new trains, capable of taking advantage of the high-speed route in The Netherlands, has thus far been eminently more successful
The new generation InterCity trains have proved to be a winner on the Amsterdam ↔ Rotterdam high speed route - So now they are also travelling along the cross border high-speed line which connects Rotterdam with Antwerpen.
However, they have not replaced the InterCity services, instead they are providing an additional service on a new route - and are branded as ECD services!

...a new service pattern

The pattern of rail services between Bruxelles and the Netherlands is

1. A Eurostar service in most hours calling at Bruxelles-Midi - Antwerpen-Centraal* - Rotterdam-Centraal - Schiphol Airport - Amsterdam-Centraal (*= trains to/from London don't call in Antwerpen).
2. An hourly ECD service calling at Bruxelles-Midi - Antwerpen-Centraal - Rotterdam-Centraal - Schiphol Airport - Amsterdam Zuid - (Almere Centrum - Almere Buiten - Lelystad Centrum).
3. An hourly EC service calling at Bruxelles-Midi - Bruxelles-Central - Bruxelles-Nord - Brussels Airport-Zaventem - Mechelen - Antwerpen-Berchem - Antwerpen-Centraal - Noorderkempen - Breda - Rotterdam-Centraal.
   This EC service uses what what had been the IC trains.

Summary of the impact of the service changes
As with any major change to a long-standing rail timetable, the new service pattern delivers a mix of positives and negatives; In summary they are:

• A 30%+ increase in the number of Bruxelles-Midi ↔ Rotterdam services.
• More fast services Bruxelles-Midi ↔ Schiphol Airport.
• A new direct Bruxelles-Midi and Antwerpen ↔ Amsterdam Zuid rail link; Amsterdam Zuid station is located in the city's business district and has Metro services to the city centre.
• The rapidly developing cities of Almere and Lelystad will have a direct rail link to/from Bruxelles and Antwerpen.
• Easy connections will be available in Lelystad with trains to/from Groningen, Leeuwarden and Zwolle.
• Eurostar services are now the only direct trains between the main stations in Brussels (Bruxelles-Mid) and Amsterdam (Amsterdam-Centraal)
• Bruxelles-Centraal and Bruxelles-Nord stations have lost their direct rail link to and from Amsterdam.
• There is no longer be a direct rail service between the airports in Brussels and Amsterdam.

There is now, once again a choice of train services when travelling between Paris and Brussels / Bruxelles, because the French low-cost rail operator, Ouigo, has introduced direct trains between the French and Belgian capital cities.

The trade off for the cheaper ticket prices is that Ouigo is using its 'Classique' trains instead of its high-speed trains, so its trains have a journey time that's more than twice that of the Eurostar services between Paris and Bruxelles - trains which used to be branded as Thalys services.

There are three daily departures from Paris and from Bruxelles.

The capital cities of France and Germany are now linked by a daytime rail service!

Heading east a daily ICE train typically follows this schedule:

• Paris Gare de l'Est, depart at 09:55
• Strasbourg, depart at 11:46
• Karlsruhe Hbf, arrive at 12:34
• Frankfurt (Main) Süd, arrive at 14:04
• Berlin-Spandau, arrive at 17:46 - connect for Berlin Zoologischer Garten station in West Berlin
• Berlin Hbf, arrive at 18:03
• Berlin-Ost, arrive at 18:16
  All station calls have been included, as this train will in effect be operating as a 'Sprinter' service in Germany.

Connections are available in Strasbourg with trains from Lille, Colmar and Mulhouse.
The scheduled arrival time in Berlin Hbf enables connections on to Dresden, Leipzig and Prague.

Heading west a daily ICE train typically follows this schedule:

• Berlin-Ost, depart at 11:41
• Berlin Hbf, depart at 11:54
• Berlin-Spandau, depart at 12:12
• Frankfurt (Main) Süd, depart at 15:53
• Karlsruhe Hbf, depart at 17:07
• Strasbourg, arrive at 17:36
• Paris Gare de l'Est, arrive at 19:59.

Connections are available at Berlin Hbf with trains from Dresden, Krakow, Leipzig, Prague and Wroclaw
Conveniently timed connections are available in Strasbourg with trains on to Colmar, Metz and Mulhouse.

Note that the trains on this route do not call at Frankfurt's central station, Frankfurt (Main) Hbf - By stopping instead at Frankfurt (Main) Sud, the end-to-end journey time in both directions, is at least 20 minutes faster.
Frankfurt (Main) Sud is linked to the city centre by frequent local S-Bahn trains.
There are also multiple Paris Est ↔ Frankfurt (Main) Hbf trains available daily.

A new ICE train service is taking a Amsterdam ↔ München / Munich route, thereby providing these new direct daytime rail connections: Amsterdam + Utrecht + Arnhem ↔ Mannheim + Stuttgart + Ulm + Augsburg + München / Munich.

Heading south the departure from Amsterdam Centraal is shortly after 08:30 with a scheduled arrival into München Hbf shortly before 15:30.
Connections are typically available at München Hbf into trains on to Budapest, Graz, Innsbruck, Linz, Salzburg and Wien/Vienna.

Heading north the train will typically depart München Hbf shortly before 16:30, with scheduled arrivals into

• Arnhem Centraal, arriving shortly before 22:30
• Utrecht Centraal, arriving shortly before 23:00
• Amsterdam Centraal, arriving shortly before 23:30.

Connections arel usually available in München Hbf with trains from Bad Gastein, Bologna, Bolzano, Budapest, Innsbruck, Linz, Klagenfurt*, Salzburg, Verona, Villach* and Wien/Vienna
*= not until June 28th.
Despite the late in the day arrival into Utrecht, connections are typically available with trains on to Den Haag, Gouda, Eindhoven, Rotterdam and Zwolle.

Though in effect this Amsterdam ↔ München / Munich service replaces the long-standing Amsterdam ↔ Basel ICE train, which was permanently withdrawn in 2024.

The Czech rail operator CD has opened up a new daily international route in eastern Europe with the launch of Baltic Express services.
Four daily trains in each direction are now taking a Praha - Pardubice - Lichkov ↔ Wroclaw - Poznan - Bydgoszcz - Gdansk - Sopot - Gdniya route (not all station calls have been included in this summary).
The Czech capital has therefore gained new direct rail links to and from six Polish cities!
Wroclaw has also gained additional direct connections with the the Polish resort destinations on the Baltic Coast.

Departures from Praha hln are typically at 06:51; 10:51; 14:50 and 18:51
Journey times will be:

• to / from Wroclaw = around 3hr 55 min
• to / from Poznan = around 5hr 40 min
• to / from Gdansk = around 8hr 40 min
• to / from Gdynia = around 9hr 5 min

The Swedish national rail operator, SJ, has withdrawn its long-standing service of Snabbtåg trains between Copenhagen ↔ Stockholm, hence connections are now required in Malmo if you want to take Snabbtåg trains to and from Stockholm.
Though independent rail operator, Snalltaget, has now launched a daily direct train in each direction between the Swedish and Danish capitals.

These are the key alterations and innovations to long-distance national rail services with the key source of information being the European Rail Timetable.

In recent years rail travel in Germany has been impacted by multiple major construction sites on the routes taken by the express ICE train.
However, now that this phase of railway enhancements has been completed, opportunities have been seized to introduce new routes to be taken by ICE trains - while others have been improved.

The German national rail operator DB has also increased the volume of its ICE-Sprinter services - the services which are either non-stop between cities, or make fewer station calls than the regular ICE services.

Berlin ↔ Frankfurt (Main)

One route which has seen a significant rise in its volume of 'Sprinter' services is Frankfurt (Main) ↔ Berlin; There are 3 x non stop Monday to Fridays trains in each direction on a route to Berlin Ost - and a faster service in most hours.

Hamburg ↔ Dresden

Dresden is to gain an ICE service taking a Hamburg - Berlin ↔ Dresden route.
The train will depart daily from Dresden Hbf at 07:00 and from Dresden-Neustadt at 07:07; In the opposite direction it will depart Hamburg Hbf around 16:50.

Wiesbaden has gained additional direct rail links

The direct services which link the cities of the Rhine-Ruhr area with Austria are altered on the current timetable, which may be due to the route between Cologne and Bonn being impacted by construction work for much of 2025. -
The trains on these routes:

• Munster - Duisburg - Dusseldorf - Köln → Salzburg - Bad Gastein - Villach - Klagenfurt
• Dortmund - Wuppertal - Köln → Friedrichshafen - Lindau - Bregenz - Feldkirch - Landeck-Zams - Innsbruck
• Klagenfurt - Villach - Bad Gastein - Salzburg → Köln - Dusseldorf - Duisburg - Essen - Dortmund
• Innsbruck - Landeck-Zams - Feldkirch - Bregenz - Lindau - Friedrichshafen → Köln - Wuppertal - Dortmund
  are taking a different route between Köln and Mainz on the current timetable - Taking advantage of the fact they have become ICE services.
  Instead of calling at Bonn and Koblenz, they are calling at Seigburg/Bonn and Wiesbaden, travelling on the high-speed line between the two stations.
  Wiesbaden has therefore gained direct ICE services with multiple locations including Augsburg, Innsbruck, Lindau, München, Salzburg and Ulm.
  These trains are also calling at Köln-Messe/Deutz instead of at Köln Hbf.

Leeds ↔ Manchester

UK rail operator, TransPennine Express (TPE) has introduced a long-planned enhanced timetable.
It's current regular timetable has hourly express trains on these four routes which link Leeds and Manchester:

• Hull - Leeds - Huddersfield ↔ Manchester Victoria - Liverpool Lime Street
• Newcastle - Durham - Darlington - York - Leeds - Huddersfield ↔ Manchester Victoria - Liverpool Lime Street
• Redcar - Middlesbrough - York - Leeds - Huddersfield ↔ Manchester Victoria - Manchester Oxford Road - Manchester Piccadilly - Manchester Airport
• Scarborough - York - Leeds - Huddersfield ↔ Manchester Victoria
  (not all station calls have been included in this summary)

The new pattern doubles the number of fast trains per hour in each direction between Leeds and Manchester Victoria stations.
Manchester Victoria is therefore the city's dominant station for travel to and from Leeds.
The existing Hull - Leeds - Huddersfield ↔ Manchester Piccadilly stopping service has become a Huddersfield ↔ Manchester Piccadilly service.

London ↔ Chester and Liverpool

Rail operator, Avanti West Coast, has new introduced its full fleet of brand new Evero trains which has enabled the London ↔ Chester route to have an hourly service on Monday to Friday.
On these weekdays the new trains will provide three additional journeys per day on the London ↔ Liverpool route.

Edinburgh ↔ Cardiff

Rail operator, CrossCountry, has introduced a new daily direct train on an Edinburgh ↔ Cardiff route, which it has named as the 'Three Countries Service'.
It will be typically scheduled to depart from Edinburgh shortly after 13:00; and from Cardiff at 09:45.
This train also provides new direct rail links between Cardiff and multiple other cities including Sheffield, Leeds, York and Newcastle.

The timetable and rail routes in the French speaking area of western Switzerland have been revised - in order to exploit enhanced capacity to the west of Lausanne.

In particular, the changes make the most of extensive upgrade of Renens VD station, which has become a major connecting hub on the Swiss rail network.

The changes to local (RER) and Regio-Express (RE) services include:

• Two trains per hour on the Neuchatel ↔ Fribourg route.
• 4 x trains per hour between Geneve and Coppet.
• An hourly RER (R7) service which will take the stunning Vevey ↔ Palézieux route - So by connecting in Vevey and Palézieux, the Riviera, Chablais and Valais regions will be linked to Fribourg/Freiburg and Bern, without the need to pass through Lausanne.
• A new hourly RE service which will take a Chêne-Bourg - Geneve - Nyon - Morges - Renens VD - Lausanne - Vevey - Montreux - Aigle - Bex - St Maurice - Martigny route.
  As a consequence, there will be 4 x trains per hour providing an approximate every 15 mins service on the Geneve - Nyon - Morges - Renens VD - Lausanne axis; Plus Aigle, Bex, St Maurice and Martigny will all gain an additional hourly connection with both Lausanne and Geneve.

A change to the long-distance service to and from Genève

The key change to long-distance services is that the IC5 route in Switzerland now only operates only to and from Lausanne - So it will no longer serve Genève / Geneva.
There are still two IC5 services per hour, but they are operating on these routes:

1. Lausanne - Renens VD - Yverdon-les-Bains - Neuchâtel - Biel/Bienne - Olten - Aarau - Zürich HB - Zurich Airport - Winterthur - St Gallen - Rorschach
2. Lausanne - Renens VD - Yverdon-les-Bains - Neuchâtel - Biel/Bienne - Grenchen Süd - Solothurn - Oensingen - Olten - Zürich HB (extended every other hour to/from Zurich Airport - Winterthur - St Gallen)

As a result connections are required at the newly reconstructed and enhanced Renens VD station, when travelling between Genève and multiple locations including Yverdon-les-Bains, Neuchâtel and Biel/Bienne.
Trains on the IC1 Genève - Lausanne - Bern - Zurich - St Gallen route - and one of the two IR trains per hour on the Genève ↔ Visp - Brig route, are also now calling at Renens VD station.

Service summary to and from Genève
The long-distance SBB services to and from Genève / Geneva are now the trains on these three routes (not all calls are shown below):

1. The IC1 route: Genève Aeroport - Genève - Renens VD - Lausanne - Fribourg - Bern - Zürich HB - Zurich Airport - Winterthur - St Gallen
2. Genève Aeroport - Genève - Lausanne - Fribourg - Bern - Luzern (IR services)
3. Genève Aeroport - Genève - Renens VD - Lausanne - Montreux - Sion - Visp - Brig (IR services)

When travelling Genève ↔ Basel, connections will now typically be required in Bern and not Biel/Bienne.

The international rail services between Genève / Geneva and Lyon, Milano and Paris are unaffected.

On the new timetable, NS has made significant changes to its InterCity Direct services which use the high-speed lines between Amsterdam and Rotterdam; and between Rotterdam and Breda / the Dutch border.

The new service pattern is:

• Amersfoort - Amsterdam Zuid - Schiphol Airport - Rotterdam - Breda; 2 x trains per hour
• Lelystad - Almere - Amsterdam Zuid - Schiphol Airport - Rotterdam; 1 x train per hour
• (Lelystad - Almere) - Amsterdam Zuid - Schiphol Airport - Rotterdam - Antwerp - Bruxelles; 1 x ECD train per hour

Note that these InterCity Direct (ICD) services no longer operate on the Amsterdam Centraal ↔ Rotterdam route.

Though due to the relatively recent opening of the line M52 of Amsterdam Metro, the journey time between central Amsterdam, at Vijzelgracht metro station, and Rotterdam is now faster when connecting at Amsterdam Zuid instead of at Amsterdam Centraal.