「经济学人」Closely watched trains

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Closely watched trains A Prague-Berlin train loses its old-world dining cars The looming end of the Knödelexpress In recent years the tardy and loss-making operations of Deutsche Bahn have become a symbol of the woes of the German economy. In contrast, Ceske Drahy (CD), the Czech Republic’s profitable and (mostly) punctual national railway, is going from strength to strength. In 2023 it carried 164m passengers, 7m more than in 2022, and invested almost 11bn koruna ($454m) in new trains. One popular route runs every two hours from Prague to Dresden and Berlin via the glorious peaks, forests and medieval towns of the Elbe valley. In 2024 CD started replacing the route’s EuroCity trains with faster “ComfortJet” models (maximum speed 230km per hour, or 143mph). The new trains boast wireless mobile-phone chargers in first class, better wheelchair access and haptic buttons for the blind. Sadly, they do away with the old-world dining cars that led Germans to call the EuroCity trains ………………………………