The international timetable of České dráhy for 2024 will extend the range of connections to our neighbouring countries. More connections to Poland are planned, services from Moravia to Vienna will be more frequent, the second pair of trains from Prague to Vienna via Tábor will run more frequently and other changes will affect night services. The first new non-traction ComfortJet units are planned to be deployed in the course of 2024. This will make it possible to withdraw other obsolete passenger carriages from long-distance trains.
“In cooperation with clients ordering our passenger transport services and our foreign partners, we will extend the range of international trains in the 2024 timetable to ensure the development of business relations and to promote international tourism through sustainable and environment-friendly transport. We will add two more trains to Poland via Bohumín, one to Krakow and one to Wroclaw, followed a year later by a further extension of the offer with four pairs of new trains from Prague to Gdynia via Wroclaw, Poland. Our vision is to offer other new services in the future, for example to Copenhagen in Denmark or to the south of Austria to Klagenfurt and Villach, from where it is possible to continue to Italy, Slovenia or Croatia. We will also continue in the renewal of long-distance train sets and we would like to deploy the first ComfortJet units,” says Michal Krapinec, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Director General of České dráhy.
“We would like to deploy the ComfortJet train sets within the framework of a trial operation with passengers at first on the connections between Prague and Ostrava and from Ostrava via Prague to Františkovy Lázně. In the second phase, we plan to operate them on the Berliner services from Prague to Berlin, which could be as early as in the course of 2024. It will depend on the delivery of the necessary number of trains and the necessary approvals by the Siemens – Škoda manufacturing consortium. The ComfortJets will initially be operated in a transitional configuration without control cars and supplemented with conventional dining cars. With the deployment of dozens of brand-new carriages in long-distance transport, we will begin to phase out a larger number of older passenger cars in this segment of transport as well. On fast trains and other long-distance trains, we will replace them with modern, air-conditioned carriages of classical construction with such services as on-board Wi-Fi or electric sockets for the power supply for travel electronics,” says Jiří Ješeta, Member of the Board of Directors and Deputy Director General of ČD for Passenger Transport. Nevertheless, the UIC-Y carriages will still be available as backup rolling stock and for the special-purpose capacity increase of regular trains or for seasonal transport services.
Poland
The offer of services to Poland via Bohumín will be extended with two pairs of new connections. One pair of trains is represented by the EC Danubius train connection (Wien – Břeclav – Bohumín – Krakow) and back, which is to complement the offer of services between Austria and Poland on the main route via Břeclav, Hodonín, Otrokovice, Přerov, Hranice na Moravě and Ostrava. The train will run in the direction to Poland in the afternoon and in the direction to Austria it will run in the morning.
The second pair of the new trains will run on the Bohumín (19:35) – Wroclaw (21:30 / 6:25) – Bohumín (8:25) route and will follow up to the EC Danubius train and will provide a direct carriage service to/from Wroclaw from/to Vienna via Central and Southern Moravia.
On the territory of Poland, the journey times of some train services are reduced by up to tens of minutes. Thanks to this development, the travel time of selected trains between Czech cities and Warsaw, Krakow or Gdansk is being shortened in a significant way.
From the 2025 timetable (which enters into force in December 2024), a further extension of the train connections between the Czech Republic and Poland is being prepared, namely by means of four pairs of EC trains on the Prague – Letohrad – Wroclaw – Gdynia route.
Germany
Due to the rerouting of trains from this year’s diversionary route via Falkenberg/Elster back to the main Dresdnerbahn railway line via Elsterwerda it will be possible to achieve an interesting train journey acceleration between Dresden and Berlin. As a result, journey times between Prague and Berlin will be reduced by 15 and 18 minutes, respectively, and journey times will return to 4 hrs 18 min and 4 hrs 19 min, respectively.
During the 2024 timetable, the first ComfortJet units should be deployed on the Berliner train services in the temporary configuration. The units will be supplemented with a dining car of a classical construction.
From approximately mid-August to the end of the 2024 timetable, the Berlin – Hamburg railway line will be closed due to a major outage and all Berliner train services will terminate their journey in Berlin. For onward travels to Hamburg, Kiel and other locations in the north of Germany, a transfer to DB national services will be necessary in Berlin during this period. The renewal of direct train services to the north of Germany is planned again in the 2025 timetable.
As far as the Western Express / Západní expres (Munich – Prague) train line is concerned, the Munich – Prague/Hof train service between Munich and Schwandorf is being split into two separate Munich – Prague and Munich – Hof trains in the territory of Germany. The split of the two train lines should contribute to increased reliability and regularity of the Munich – Prague train services.
Austria
The EC Danubius (Krakow – Vienna – Krakow) train service complements the offer of direct connections from North and Central Moravia to Vienna and back. In the 2024 timetable, Ostrava and Vienna will already be connected by 5 pairs of daily trains with a journey time between the two agglomerations of under 3 hours. Thanks to the numerous connections from the Vienna Central Station to the Schwechat Airport, Ostrava also gains a high-quality and frequent train connection to air services taking off from the Austrian capital. Thanks to the connection trains in Vienna to a large number of the ÖBB railjet train services, Ostrava also gains fast and frequent train connections to such cities as Graz, Villach, Salzburg, Munich or Zurich with a transfer in the Austrian capital.
The existing operation of the Silva Nortica (Prague – Tábor – Gmünd (NÖ) – Vienna) train service is being extended to include an additional pair of trains on business days, departing from Prague at 7:15 a.m. and arriving at Vienna after 1 p.m., and departing in the opposite direction around 3 p.m. from Vienna and arriving at Prague after 8 p.m. At present, this train only runs at weekends.
Slovakia
In the direction to Slovakia, there are currently no significant changes in the offer of train connections.
Night transport
In cooperation with foreign partners, České dráhy will offer a stable range of night transport in the 2024 timetable. Prague will have direct night connections with Zurich (via Innsbruck as well as Basel), Krakow and Warsaw, northern and eastern Slovakia (e.g., Poprad, Košice), Bratislava and Budapest.
České dráhy will also continue to operate the two most important Central European night transport hubs in Bohumín and Břeclav, where night trains are being reconfigured and direct sleepers and couchette carriages are being reassigned. České dráhy will thus participate in the operation of such trains as Chopin EuroNight (Warsaw – Munich) in the Bohumín – Břeclav section and the Graz – Berlin Nightjet service in the Břeclav – Děčín section, including the operation of various direct carriages, e.g., Warszawa – Budapest or Berlin – Budapest. The Graz – Berlin Nightjet connection will not run via Bohumín and Ostrava in the new timetable, but will now be routed via Brno and Prague. The Chopin EuroNight runs on the new Warsaw – Vienna – Munich route.
National long-distance transport
In national long-distance transport, there are no significant changes in departure and arrival times, journey times, routes or train configuration. The changes are minor and passengers will find out the specific details of their train connections after publication of the final version of the new timetable, e.g., while looking for a connection in the My Train application or on the České dráhy’s website.
The greatest news will be deployment of the ComfortJet units for trial operation with passengers on selected InterCity train connections between Prague and the Ostrava region and on one pair of trains on the Bohumín – Prague – Františkovy Lázně route during 2024. The units will be used in a temporary configuration without a control car. The dining car will be attached to the trainsets and it will be a car of a classical construction from the existing České dráhy’s rolling stock. In connection with the commissioning of dozens of new ComfortJet carriages, the phasing out of older carriages and their replacement with more modern types fitted with air conditioning, Wi-Fi and other equipment will continue as they are released from the lines operated by ComfortJet units.
Changes in long-distance time tables will be minor only and respond to the ongoing railway line upgrades and closures, the completion of some capital expenditure projects and the routing of additional services, including regional trains. For example, the journey times of SC Pendolino trains from Ostrava-Svinov to Praha hl.n. will be slightly reduced by approximately 12 minutes to 3 hours and 1 minute. The journey time between Prague and České Budějovice will be reduced by two or four minutes, respectively, to 1 hour 38 minutes and, conversely, the travel times between Prague and Plzeň will be longer due to the modernisation of other sections of the corridor along the Berounka River. For example, for InterCity trains, this will be by 5 or 8 minutes to 1 hour 23 minutes in both the directions.
As far as larger modifications are concerned, it is possible to mention, for example, the restoring of the morning direct connection between Karlovy Vary and the Ostrava region by means of the SC Pendolino train, which is to depart from Karlovy Vary at 5:48 a.m. and arrive at Ostrava at 12:44 p.m.
Author: Petr Pošta
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