Flixtrain

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
FlixTrain

logo
legal form GmbH
founding 2017
Seat Munich, GermanyGermanyGermany 
management André Schwämmlein, Matthias Kuhn, Matthias Müller
Website www.flixtrain.de

Flixtrain at the entrance over the Hohenzollern Bridge into Cologne Central Station
Flixtrain in Hamburg-Altona

The Flixtrain GmbH is a German railway company of Flixmobility . It has been offering long-distance rail passenger transport across Germany since 2017 and competes with Deutsche Bahn .

history

In August 2017, Flixtrain, a wholly owned subsidiary of Flixmobility founded two months earlier, received a license as a rail transport company. At the same time, the Czech railway company Leo Express took over the train path rights for the Berlin – Stuttgart line from the railway company Locomore , which went bankrupt in 2017, and resumed operations on the line in partnership with Flixmobility. The trains ran via Hanover until December 2019, and since then via Halle (Saale).

After the Hamburg-Köln-Express was discontinued in autumn 2017, the operator Bahnouristikexpress initially cooperated with Flixmobility on a trial basis. For this purpose, traffic on the Hamburg-Cologne connection was resumed from December 22, 2017 to January 2, 2018. The train has been running daily again since March 24, 2018.

The former Locomore and Hamburg-Köln-Express lines have been marketed under the Flixtrain brand since April 2018. The parent company Flixmobility takes on the marketing and price management under the Flixtrain brand, similar to long-distance bus transport. Flixmobility also offers tickets for a night train with sleeping , couchette and seating cars from Lörrach via Freiburg and Hanover to Hamburg. In 2018 the company sold around 750,000 tickets. The average occupancy was 70%. The connection between Berlin and Cologne was established on May 23, 2019. Initially, only one pair of trains ran there, and the range was expanded over the course of the year.

offer

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany , the company temporarily ceased operations on March 19, 2020. During this time, Flixtrain tickets could be used in long-distance Deutsche Bahn services. During the COVID-19 pandemic occurred between Flixtrain and the partner track Touristik Express also negotiating new contract terms. However, there was no agreement, so the contract between the two companies was terminated.

On July 23, 2020, Flixtrain resumed operations on the FLX 20 and FLX 30 lines. Initially, the FLX 30 line only runs between Cologne and Berlin and only stops in Bielefeld in the direction of Berlin. The new operator of the FLX 20 line is the International Society for Railway Transport IGE. The line FLX 30 has been operated by the SVG rail transport company since the resumption .

current offer

line route frequency Remarks
FLX 10 Berlin Hbf  - Berlin Südkreuz - Halle (Saale)  - Erfurt - Gotha  - Eisenach  - Fulda  - Frankfurt South - Darmstadt  - Weinheim  - Heidelberg  - Stuttgart 1–2 train pairs / day formerly Locomore, operated by LEO Express
ceased March 20, 2020
FLX 20 Hamburg  - Hamburg-Harburg  - Osnabrück  - Munster  - Gelsenkirchen  - Essen  - Duisburg  - Düsseldorf  - Cologne 2–3 train pairs / day operated by IGE
FLX 30 Leipzig  - Lutherstadt Wittenberg  - Berlin Südkreuz  - Berlin Hbf  - Berlin-Spandau  - Hanover  - Bielefeld  - Dortmund  - Essen  - Duisburg  - Düsseldorf  - Cologne  - Aachen 1–2 train pairs / day operated by SVG , since 23 July 2020 only operates between Berlin Südkreuz and Köln Hbf, from / to Aachen Hbf only from Friday to Sunday

In Austria Flixtrain tickets sold for between Vienna and Salzburg circulating Western Railway .

Former lines

line route frequency Remarks
FLX Night Hamburg-Altona  - Hamburg  - Hanover  - Karlsruhe  - Freiburg  - Lörrach Autozug 1–3 train pairs / week operated by Bahnouristikexpress
ceased March 20, 2020, contract with BTE terminated

Planned lines

Before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were plans to set up the new Hamburg – Stuttgart line (as FLX 15) from spring 2020, which should run via Hanover, Göttingen, Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe, Fulda, Frankfurt, Darmstadt and Heidelberg. Three departures per day and direction should be offered by summer 2020. This should be operated by the rail transport company (SVG). At the beginning of July 2020, no news was known about this.

Expansion plans to other European countries

At the end of 2019, Flixtrain planned to start operating in Sweden with trains between Stockholm and Gothenburg as well as Stockholm and Malmö in the first half of 2020. Operations had not started at the beginning of July 2020.

In France, in June 2019, the company applied to the Arafer railway supervisory authority as part of the market liberalization from 2021 onwards, train path rights for five lines on the Paris-North - Brussels-North , Paris-Bercy - Lyon-Perrache , Paris- Bercy - Nice (night train) routes , Paris-Bercy– Toulouse-Matabiau , and Paris-Austerlitz - Bordeaux-Saint-Jean . In April 2020, the company announced plans to discontinue the SNCF Réseau due to the high train path fees .

fleet

Flixtrain does not have its own passenger coaches or locomotives . Instead, Flixtrain commissions private railway companies to provide the train crew as well as the vehicles . Most of the trains used are still in the Flixtrain corporate design.

  • Locomotives: Locomotives of the series 182 (Siemens ES64U2) and 193 (Vectron) are used on the Flixtrain lines, which are leased at MRCE and Railpool from Bahnouristikexpress, one of the operators of Flixtrain .
  • Car: From the resumption of operations planned for the end of July 2020 [obsolete] , Flixtrain plans to use open-plan cars with 100 seats each. The open seating area is more tightly seated than previously in long-distance rail transport, but should (due to the space-saving seats) also offer sufficient space for tall travelers. A total of 135 cars are to be converted by Talbot Services and maintained and repaired for 15 years. These are former interregional cars that have been completely gutted and converted into open-plan cars (Bmmz 264 and Bmmdz 268 ). In contrast to Deutsche Bahn, Flixtrain does not differentiate between car classes , but offers some comfort seats with more legroom for a surcharge.
  • Wagons (previously): Until spring 2020, predominantly former interregional wagons that were previously used by Deutsche Bahn were used. In these cars there were seats in compartments and spacious seating areas. Some of these were subsequently equipped with sockets and WiFi for Flixtrain. Flixtrain took over eight passenger coaches from Locomore based on former express train coaches of the Federal Railroad . These were compartment and air-conditioned open-plan cars. In addition, non-air-conditioned compartment cars with eleven 6-seat compartments each were used. These were cars of different types (Bom 024 and Bomz 236 ) that were built for the Deutsche Reichsbahn in the 1980s and 1990s. Finally, couchette cars of the types Bvcmz 248 and Bvcmbz 249 (in daytime position without bed linen), which had become vacant when the City Night Line was discontinued at the end of 2016, also ran. Some of these wagons have been used in the RDC's Alpen-Sylt-Nachtexpress since 2020 .
  • Flixtrain car (until spring 2020)

  • former interregional car

  • Open seating car (formerly Locomore)

  • in a compartment car (Bomz 236 )

  • Wheelchair-friendly seating area

Web links

Commons : Flixtrain  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Herrmann hands over railway license for FlixTrain , press release of 23 August 2017
  2. ↑ Pierre Daniel Bertholdt: New business models for long-distance passenger rail transport based on the platform concept, Freie Universität Berlin 2018 . Ed .: Free University of Berlin. Berlin July 2018.
  3. ↑ a b c 2020 timetable with four Flixtrain lines . In: The Railway Engineer . tape 70 , no. December 12 , 2019, p. 53 .
  4. ↑ FlixBus expands its offer for the Christmas season: HKX is running again. Press release. Flixmobility, November 2, 2017, accessed October 28, 2019 .
  5. ↑ The FlixTrain is coming - green trains and mobility for everyone. Press release. Flixmobility, March 6, 2018, accessed October 28, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Night trains from FlixTrain: Reach your destination cheaply in a sleeping car. In: flixtrain.de. FlixTrain, accessed on September 17, 2018 .
  7. ↑ Flixtrain Berlin - Cologne is coming in May . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International . No. 4 , April 2019, p. 217 .
  8. ↑ a b Peter Neumann: New route: Flixtrain starts operating from Berlin to Cologne. March 26, 2019, accessed March 28, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Update COVID-19 - Information for our passengers. In: flixtrain.de. Flixmobility, March 2020, accessed on March 22, 2020 .
  10. ↑ FlixTrain: Is the end of the green long-distance trains threatened? - drivest.de. Retrieved April 24, 2020 .
  11. ↑ We have been able to welcome you back to the FlixTrain on July 23, 2020! Flixtrain, July 2020, accessed on July 25, 2020 .
  12. ↑ New partner, even more convenience: FlixTrain makes train travel green and affordable again. Press release. Flixmobility, July 23, 2020, accessed on July 25, 2020 .
  13. ^ Keith Fender: Railroad Development Corp pulls out of FlixTrain partnership. In: International Railway Journal. April 20, 2020, accessed on April 20, 2020 .
  14. ↑ Flixtrain is heading for new stops in East Germany. In: Spiegel Online . October 9, 2019, accessed October 10, 2019 .
  15. ↑ FlixTrain expands to Europe. Press release. Flixmobility, October 9, 2019, accessed on October 28, 2019 .
  16. ↑ Les Échos: FlixTrain prêt à concurrencer la SNCF sur cinq liaisons longue distance , June 17, 2019 (French)
  17. ↑ Notification SFLO 2019-002. (PDF) Arafer, June 2019, accessed on June 18, 2019 (French).
  18. ↑ FlixTrain halts plans to launch open access service in France. In: Railway Gazette International. April 15, 2020, accessed on April 15, 2020 .
  19. ↑ Flixtrain major order for Talbot , local time contribution (video), June 30, 2020
  20. ↑ Flixtrain builds on Aachen Talbot: Darn good job with a green future , Aachener Zeitung , June 30, 2020
  21. ↑ Forum contribution with a screenshot from the Flixtrain booking mask for a Bmmz car