TRR-MNH DB Regio – 2nd Class

Operator: DB Regio

Headcode: RE4102

Route:    TRR-MNH

Class:    2^nd Class

Seat:     N/A

Date:     Saturday 7^th January 2023

Day 1 of (Not Quite) All the Small Things was a success with over 600km travelled by train, 4.5 countries covered (England, France (kind of), Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany) with one of those (Luxembourg) being a ‘new’ country for me to tick of my list. As such day 2 of the trip started in the German city of Trier, close to the Luxembourg border. You can catch up with day 1’s journeys and explorations here, here and here.

The first of three planned trains for the day was a DB Regional Express or ‘RE’ service from Trier’s main station, along the Saar valley to the city of Mannheim, located on the main north-south railway corridor. Whilst Trier used to be served by DB’s flagship ‘ICE’ services and the long-distance ‘IC’ services, these were discontinued in 2011 and 2014 respectively, resulting in Trier now only being served by DB Regio ‘RE’ and ‘RB’ trains plus the CFL service to/from Luxembourg.

Whilst not directly connected by long-distance services, Trier is a major hub for the region, with more than 170 daily trains starting, terminating or calling at the station. The station itself first opened in 1878, however underwent a major refurbishment in 2005 to bring it up to the standard of ‘ICE’ stations, including improved passenger facilities, step free access and other accessibility improvements.

Having had an early morning walk through the deserted city, I arrived at the station about 40-minutes before my train was due to depart and so settled down in the station café with a coffee and pastry to pass some time. The café was very pleasant and the pastry even more so, although clearly the wannabe Northerner in me was trying to make himself known as all I could think was “I wish there was a Greggs”…

Having had my breakfast, I made my way to the platform a few minutes before the RE1 service arrived from Koblenz. The RE1 or ‘Südwest-Express’ runs hourly from Koblenz to Saarbrücken with a two-hourly extension to Mannheim and is generally operated with class 429 units. These class 429s are Stadler FLIRT 3 units, the same family of train as the Great Anglia class 745s (read about those here) and are really good trains including, most importantly, low floors for level boarding.

Onboard, the 429s are laid out in the usual mix of ‘airline’ style and table seat, with all of the ‘airline’ seats having a seat back table. Each seat also has a reading light under the luggage racks, with free Wi-Fi available throughout the train. Unfortunately, there are no power sockets (unless they’re hidden in the overhead racks like SNCB’s class 08s) so make sure to take a power bank if you think you’ll need more charge.

Departing Trier towards the south we followed the Moselle River until the town of Konz, where the Moselle is joined by the Saar River and where the lines towards Luxembourg and Thionville split away. Whilst the Moselle turns west at this point, the Saar heads south and we continued to follow the latter with the railway winding its way along the valley to follow the bends of the river.

This railway journey certainly had an interesting mix of views out of the window. Away from the main towns and cities, the railway (and neighbouring road) follows the river, providing views of stunning scenery, including wooded hills and sheer cliffs. In the towns and cities, the railway heads slightly away from the river, into the centres where this region’s industrial heritage is clear to see.

The main intermediate stop on the route is the city of Saarbrücken, the capital of the Saarland province and the industrial capital of the Saar coal basin. Being centre of a coal rich region, Saarbrücken is also home to steel works and other manufacturing facilities, resulting in the station being comparatively compact compared to the adjacent rail yards. I was surprised to see a couple of DB Cargo UK class 66 locomotives, still in their old EWS colours, stabled in one of the sidings clearly on loan to DB Cargo Germany.

The final stretch of the journey between Saarbrücken and Mannheim was much quicker, with the line having been upgraded for the introduction of international ICE and TGV services in 2007. Heading away from the river valley, the scenery became less interesting and so I chilled and caught up on some Netflix until the outskirts of Mannheim meant the journey was coming to an end.

Given this journey was comparable to my journey between Brussels and Luxembourg in length and duration, I found it much more comfortable, with the Stadler FLIRTs generally being a better train than the Siemens Desiros. With these RE trains covering long distances and journey times, it would be good if DB provided some sort of catering but in all honest, that’s pretty much the only negative.

Lounge              0*

Seat/Facilities     3*

Food               0*

Service             5*

Punctuality         5*

Overall Rating      13/25 (read about my rating system here!)