The old equipment, which was built in the late 1990s, suffered from many defects. As a result, travelers complained a lot about cancellations and overcrowded trains. Moreover, only a handful of these trains were suitable for Dutch rail, making it not possible to run coupled trains more often and thus add extra capacity.
With the arrival of the ICE3neo, many more train sets are suitable for Dutch rail and these problems should be a thing of the past. The trains may seem familiar to those who have ever traveled to London with the Eurostar: they are basically of the same type (the Siemens Velaro). But of course they have been completely adapted to the wishes of Deutsche Bahn.
The arrival of the new equipment will not change the travel time and route: in the Netherlands, the ICE stops in Amsterdam, Utrecht and Arnhem and in Germany in Oberhausen, Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Cologne, Frankfurt Airport and Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof. Until July 15, a train will continue to run to Basel in Switzerland once a day, but after that the connection will be discontinued.
The first class. In total there is room for 439 passengers on the train, of which 340 in the second class and 99 in the first. All travelers can use electrical outlets. You can read more about the ICE3neo in the July edition of Luchtvaartnieuws Magazine, which will be published in the middle of next month.