On summer days, the workers in the ICE plant of Deutsche Bahn feel like they are in Death Valley in California. Temperatures under the roof climb up to 50 degrees. The sun heats up from above, the waste heat from the trains from below. And yet the work has to be done: after all, air conditioning and pantographs have to work when a train like this rolls back onto the track after its maintenance on Landsberger Straße.
The ICE has been around for 30 years. On May 29, 1991, the first train started in Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe, and on June 2, the ICE began regular service between Hamburg and Munich. Since then, the trains have also been serviced in Munich, the hall on Landsberger Strasse was gradually expanded and has been fully functional with six maintenance tracks since 1996. 900 people are employed here, the craftsmen work in three shifts and do most of the work at night.
On this Tuesday morning, when you visit the ICE plant, there is comparatively little going on in the 450-meter-long hall in which the trains are processed on several levels. During the night it cooled down somewhat, so that it can also be kept under the roof. According to his own admission, technician Walter Dolzer can handle high temperatures well. The fact that everyone in the workforce has to wear a mask is bearable, he says. He is currently checking the pantographs of an ICE 4, which – unlike most of the trains in the fleet – does not yet have a name. The bridge is cordoned off on the siding, where electricity with a voltage of 15,000 volts flows through the overhead contact line, even approaching it would be life-threatening. One suspects this at the latest when the train on the siding starts up the pantograph and then an electrical crackle can be heard and a few sparks jump.
The maintenance of air conditioning systems is also an important issue, as many rail customers have had painful experiences with overheated trains. But the air conditioning in the old trains reaches its limits at outside temperatures of over 30 degrees, the ICE 4, which has been built since 2016, has more robust technology that can take it up to 45 degrees, explain the DB people.
Walter Dolzer inspects the pantograph.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
Downstairs, in the compartment, computer technicians are working on the IT system. The trains are currently being equipped with better WiFi and new passenger information, which is why they are getting new antennas on the roof. Even so, internet connections often end up in dead spots. Julia Göbel, IT project manager, explains that the Deutsche Bahn is working on improving reception on the train, which is a pretty big effort. But the railway cannot even set up radio masts, that’s up to the mobile phone providers, with whom they are in regular contact, says Göbel.
The ICE plant in Munich is the only plant besides Berlin where all ICE series can be serviced – from the ICE 1 to the latest model, the ICE 4 XXL. Everything can be done here, from security checks and pumping out the toilets to replacing defective coffee machines in the on-board bistro. The entire ICE fleet currently comprises 330 trains. In the next five years there will be 421 trains, and in the long term even 600 are planned.
André Hobusch works on the axles.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
Even after 30 years, the old trains will not be taken out of service, but will be modernized so that they can remain in service for another ten years, explains plant manager Sirko Kellner. The ICE Hanau is such an old model of type 1. It rolled into Munich on Tuesday night, after the inspection and maintenance it rolled off again on Tuesday. You can tell from the train that it still has to go to the car wash. But first the wheelsets have to be exchanged. In the basement of the plant, the railway stores around 180 wheel sets for the various types of ICE, says Kellner. A wheel set like this lasts for around three years, during which time it is driven by up to five centimeters. Every 240,000 to 300,000 kilometers, the wheels are thoroughly checked for possible damage using ultrasound technology.
Since the railway accident in Eschede on June 3, 1998, in which 101 people lost their lives and more than 100 were seriously injured, solid wheels have been used again instead of rubber-sprung wheels. In the accident, a wheel tire on the Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen ICE had come loose and triggered a catastrophic chain reaction. The train had previously been inspected in Munich. It was the biggest train accident in post-war history. The investigations against the Munich stage managers were discontinued, however, as no criminal misconduct was found. Ludwig Schader, Head of Vehicle Technology at the ICE plant, has been working there for 30 years. He knows a lot about the technical development of the ICE, but becomes very monosyllabic when asked about the subject of Eschede. “It was a bad time,” he says simply. And such an accident was not thought possible.
On the 30th anniversary of the ICE, Deutsche Bahn also mentioned the train disaster in addition to all the hymns of praise for its flagship. “The reminder of this is a constant reminder and an obligation that safety must have priority over everything else,” said railway boss Richard Lutz as quoted in a press release. This is exactly what victims’ representatives had long called for. It was only 15 years after the accident that the then railway boss Rüdiger Grube apologized.