Unterwegs mit dem Zug: Fahrplan 2027: Was sich für Bahnreisende ändert

Starting December 13th, the crisis-stricken Deutsche Bahn will offer passengers more international connections and a new high-speed Sprinter line. By December 13th, the state-owned company will be offering over 320 international trips daily, including routes to France, Italy, or Austria. Between Hamburg and Munich, there will be a particularly fast connection with a travel time of 5.20 hours.

Deutsche Bahn's head of long-distance traffic, Michael Peterson, stated that in times of expensive fuel, trains remain a good and affordable alternative to cars and planes.

The overall train schedule will remain unchanged, with some connections potentially unavailable due to construction work. Tickets for the new schedule can be purchased starting October 14th (14 October), with prices remaining the same. In April, Bahn CEO Evelyn Palla had announced that passengers would be spared from fare increases in long-distance travel until May 2027.

A new Sprinter connection between Hamburg and Munich, with two stops, promises a 20-minute time-saving, offering three daily trips in both directions. The existing Sprinter line between Berlin and Stuttgart will be expanded to run three times daily instead of once, with a travel time of 4.45 hours. Since last year, Germany-wide, nearly 70 Sprinter trips run daily on key routes.

International long-distance travel is booming, and the state-owned company will continue expanding its European network with the new timetable. Over 320 trips will soon be daily to cities outside Germany or coming from there, 20 more than currently and roughly 20 percent more than five years ago. More than 200 cities in 14 countries will be directly reachable from Germany. Over 10,000 European destinations are already bookable in the DB Navigator, including tickets from Austrian Bundesbahn, Trenitalia, or Eurostar.

In the future, more trains will travel to Italy, France, Austria, and Denmark. The Hamburg-Copenhagen connection will run seven times daily starting March, approximately every two hours. Currently, there are five daily connections. From Stuttgart to Paris, two more trips will run daily (12 instead of 10), as will the Frankfurt-Wien connection (14 instead of 12).

A new direct connection between Munich, Milan, and Rome will be introduced in summer (travel time to Milan: 6.30 hours, to Rome: 8.30 hours), in cooperation with Italian Trenitalia and Austrian Bundesbahn. More changes are expected soon: high-speed ICE trains will again run directly from Westphalia (such as Hamm and Paderborn) to Würzburg, Nuremberg, and Munich.

Direct ICE service will return between Jena and Berlin, and from Bonn, trains will travel almost year-round directly to Berlin, every two hours. Some construction work is already planned, and passengers can expect ongoing maintenance and delays.