More and more people are using the train to travel abroad. International long-distance rail transport grew by 30 percent last year compared to the previous record year of 2019, the state-owned Deutsche Bahn announced on Tuesday. More than 21 million people crossed the border by train. Between 2019 and 2022, the share of international travel in the Group's total long-distance traffic increased by 3 percentage points to 16 percent. In the first quarter of this year, Deutsche Bahn recorded 4.4 million passengers abroad.

"International long-distance transport is thus not only central to Deutsche Bahn, the strong popularity also stands for the growing together of Europe on the railways," said Deutsche Bahn CEO Richard Lutz. Around 200 destinations in other European countries can now be reached directly from Germany.

Most of the trips go to neighboring countries, especially to France and Austria. "In absolute terms, the routes Frankfurt/Stuttgart-Paris, Frankfurt-Brussels and Frankfurt-Amsterdam are the strongest," says Deutsche Bahn.

There is still a lot of catching up to do when it comes to rail services across several European borders. For example, if you want to travel from Germany via France to Spain and Portugal or Eastern Europe, you still have a hard time by train. The timetables are not coordinated, the tickets have to be booked with the respective train providers in the countries.

Things look a little better in the direction of Italy. The Austrian Federal Railways also offers night train lines from Germany. In addition, there are nightly direct connections from Berlin via Hamburg to Stockholm, which are offered by Swedish railway companies.

As a rule, Deutsche Bahn cooperates with foreign railway companies when travelling abroad. For example, both ICE and TGV trains are used in german-French high-speed services.