ICE TD - Service History

Service History

In 2001, all 20 units were commissioned for Deutsche Bahn, who took them as class 605. After pilot runs, the trains entered regular service on ICE line 17 between Dresden and Munich on 10 June 2001. Later, the trains were also used between Munich and Zurich.

The service life of the class 605 was rather ill-fated. The ICE TD units were plagued by technical problems from the start.

After the breaking of an axle on 2 December 2002, all remaining 19 units (one fell off a working platform) were grounded. Even though one year later the trains were admitted to service again, DB judged their operation to be overly expensive. DB must pay full diesel tax for the fuel.

The trains were re-activated in anticipation of extra traffic during the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany. From 2006, they were used for charter and relief trains.

Starting end of 2007, the class 605 is used in regular service on the Berlin-Hamburg-Copenhagen route, as a replacement for the Danish IC3 trains in Hamburg-Copenhagen service (these should long ago been replaced by the IC4 trains, but due to technical problems those have not been commissioned yet by DSB). The ten class 605 used in these services were equipped with the Danish ATC safety system. From 2008, the Denmark-compatible 605 are also used for Berlin-Hamburg-Aarhus services (previously, IC3 was used on the Flensburg-Aarhus route, and regional trains on the Hamburg-Flensburg relation). From mid-2009, three more ICE-TD units are to be used in Germany-Denmark service, allowing DSB to free up more IC3 trains for domestic service.