Operator: Deutsche Bahn (DB)
Headcode: IC2270
Route: DRE-BER
Class: 1st Class
Seat: C6 S128
Date: Friday 19th September 2025
Midway through our holiday in Germany, having spent a week based in Dresden and exploring both this fabulous city and some of the surrounding area, it was time to move to the location that would be our base for the second half of the holiday. Getting from Saxony to Lower Saxony would require us to catch two trains, the first of which would take us from Dresden to the German capital, Berlin. And so, around 40 minutes before our train departed, we arrived at Dresden Haupbahnhof (Hbf) for the last time this trip ready to catch the DB Intercity (IC) service towards Berlin.
The train we were catching was the IC2270 Chemitz Hbf to Rostock Hbf service which had departed Chemitz at 0828 and would arrive into the northern city of Rostock more than five hours later at 1337. We would be joining the service at its second stop, and would four intermediate stops on our journey to Berlin Hbf at Dresden Neustadt, Elsterweda, Doberlug-Kirchain & Berlin Südkruz although during my post-trip research it seems that we went on a bit of a diversionary route around southern Berlin, with the service usually calling at Berlin Airport instead of Südkruz. After we alighted at Berlin Hbf, the service would call at another four intermediate stations before its arrival at Rostock.
With European stations posting paper timetable posters that include platform numbers, we had been able to check what platform our train would be departing from a few days before, allowing us to head straight for platform 3, one of the high-level platforms in Dresden’s ‘south hall’. Our train arrived at 0925, five minutes before the scheduled departure and it was formed of a modern four-car double deck class 4110, a variant of Stadler’s ‘Kiss’ range of EMUs. These modern units have been operating on this route since March 2020, replacing the loco-hauled carriages from the 1980s that still operate on a lot of Intercity routes.
Despite this train only having four coaches, we were in coach 6, the front coach on the train’s arrival into Dresden. Whilst the numbering seems odd, it is because the four-car class 4110 and six-car 4010 are essentially the same train with the latter just having two additional 2nd class carriages inserted. This means that the six-car units have carriages numbered 1-6 whilst the four-car units are missing carriages 2 and 3. Unfortunately as we boarded we discovered one of the disadvantages of these newer trains in that they have limited storage space with lots of people, including us, utilising the ‘lounge area’ in first class as additional luggage storage. Surprisingly despite the chaos in boarding and everyone getting on, the train departed at 0931, only one minute late.
First class was laid out in the usual 1-2 configuration, and our seats were 114, 118, 124 & 128 on the upper deck, which were two pairs around tables on the single seat side of the aisle. These units have all the modern amenities you’d expect such as European power sockets, WiFi, coat hooks and reading lights, with the first-class area also having window blinds. The short delay we’d had on departure was made up by the time we left Dresden Neustadt and shortly after this the guard came round for a ticket check, before returning shortly afterwards to take orders for tea or coffee. Unfortunately, she moved through the carriage so quickly no-one had chance to acknowledge her until a passenger over the aisle from us called her back. Whilst the drinks weren’t free, which is standard for European first class, it was good that there was at least an at seat service for those in first class.
After departing Dresden Neustadt, we seemed to crawl along between Weinböhla and Niederau in the north Dresden suburbs, eventually coming to a stand for a few minutes at the latter. We then took what felt like a very winding route on a single line, passing under a couple of double track mainlines enroute, before rejoining what appeared to be a mainline just to the north of Großenhain Cottbuser where we finally got some speed up. At our next stop of Elsterwerda the train got very busy and I was glad to have reserved seats on this occasion, and clearly the slow running was allowed for in the timetable as we arrived here on time. Between Elsterwerda and our next stop at Doberlug, we passed through the beautiful green forests of the Naturpark Niederlausitzer Heidelandschaft (Lower Lusatian Heath Nature Park) which added something interesting to the otherwise mostly flat farming landscape.
The stop at Doberlug was uneventful although I did note that it appeared to be an interchange between our north-south line and the east-west Halle to Cottbus line with low-level platforms for the latter below ours. Following Doberlug we got to enjoy some more of the open green landscape of the state of Brandenburg, a landscape which allowed the railway to be nice and straight and for us to get up to speeds of 194km/h (120mph). As we passed through Baruth/Mark I was able to see the twin towers of Stadtpfarrkirche St. Sebastian which were constructed in the early 20th century as additions to the 15th century church. Not long after Baruth/Mark we started to reach the southern extremities of the Berlin conurbation and S-bahn network at Blakenfelde.
After passing under the western approach to Berlin’s ‘new’ Brandenburg Airport, the airport that’s opening was delayed by a decade and became a national embarrassment, we joined an orbital line that took us round to the next ‘spoke’ clockwise to head into Berlin. Unfortunately, after our on time running earlier in the journey, we have picked up 12 minutes of delay arriving at our penultimate stop of Berlin Südkruz, close to the former airfield at Tempelhof which is now a public park. Thankfully lots of people alighted at Südkruz which made our exit at Berlin Hbf a lot easier as we only had to grab our own cases rather than unbury them from all the others that had been there. At 1145 we pulled into platform 7 in the lower level of Berlin Hbf, 12 minutes late, bringing to a end the first leg of our journey.
All in all this journey on a DB Intercity service was comfortable and pleasant, although the 12-minute delay to arrival after a mostly on time journey was somewhat frustrating. Whilst there is a snack bar on these new Intercity trains, the options are fairly limited and they certainly don’t compare to the excellent Bordrestaurants on ICE trains. The seats were comfortable with modern facilities and overall the service provided by staff was good, although the guard did seem to want to avoid serving any drinks by the speed at which they went through the carriage. Overall a pretty good journey and it certainly didn’t feel like a 2+ hour journey.
Lounge 0*
Seat/Facilities 4*
Food 3*
Service 4*
Punctuality 4*
Overall Rating 15/25 (read about my rating system here!)
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