ICE 1
After the experiments with the ICE-V since 1985, the ICE 1 was built as the first ICE generation for revenue service. Since 1990, 60 trainsets were built, they entered regular service in 1991.
Currently, they are in service mostly on north - south lines through Germany, with Bremen, Hamburg and Berlin in the North, Basel and München in the South, plus some trains to Switzerland and a couple more locations. 60 ICE 1 trainsets with 120 power units and 694 coaches have been built. Originally the trains had either 10 or 12 intermediate coaches between the power units, technically anything between 8 and 14 coaches is possible. A train with 12 coaches has 144 seats in 1st class and 501 seats in 2nd class. With the production of additional ICE 2 carriages suitable for the ICE 1, all trains could be reconfigured to 12 coaches. After the accident of June 1998, which was caused by a broken wheel tyre, the ICE 1 cars that had been equipped with rubber-sprung wheels had to be taken out of service and equipped with the original "monobloc" wheels. As there weren't enough wheels on stock and the production of new wheels takes time, a number of ICE 1 trains was temporarily shortened to 8 middle cars. Find out more at http://www.railfaneurope.net/ice/ice1.html |