Goodbye ICE 3M!

In 1994, Deutsche Bahn (DB) placed an order for 13 ICE 3M trains. These were the international variants of the 50 ICE 3 trains that would enter service in 1998. The “M” in 3M stands for mehrsystemfähig, as the trainsets would be able to operate under different power supplies, initially for Germany and the Netherlands and later in Switzerland, Belgium, and France. To supplement DB’s order, the Dutch Railway (NS) purchased an additional four ICE 3M trains in 1995. The trains were built by Siemens and Bombardier and are closely related to the modern Siemens Velaro family of trains.

The ICE 3M (and ICE 3) trains are capable of traveling up to 330 km/h, 50 km/h faster than their ICE 2 predecessor, which only entered service three years prior to the first ICE 3 in 1995. Despite their impressive speed on German tracks, the trains are limited by the Dutch rail infrastructure to 140 km/h. With a capacity of 404 seats across eight cars, including the restaurant, the ICE 3M first saw public service in the Netherlands as Expo-Express (EXE), a special service ferrying passengers between Amsterdam and Hannover for Expo 2000. The trains entered regular service later in the year, between Amsterdam and Cologne, taking over the existing EuroCity route.

All services were then extended to Frankfurt (Main) Hbf in 2002 via Cologne from Amsterdam. A year later, one service per day went to Basel SBB. By 2007, DB’s ICE 3M trains were modified for use in France between Paris and Frankfurt and, a few years later, in Belgium between Brussels and Frankfurt.

Thirty years after their purchase, and twenty-four years after they were first used in passenger service, the ICE 3M trains were replaced in June on the Amsterdam and Brussels route by their successor, the ICE 3neo. By this point, the NS-owned ICE 3M’s had already changed hands and were now owned by DB. The 3M’s were plagued with air conditioning issues in their later years that caused delays and canceled services. I managed to record the final passenger service of the ICE 3M on 15 June 2024, which departed Amsterdam at 06:38. Or so I thought!

Last weekend, a farewell ride was planned for the ICE 3M starting at Hannover—a nod, no doubt, to the first international service for this series of trains—then through Minden, and Rhein before entering the Netherlands through Bad Bentheim. Within the Netherlands, the train made brief stops at Almelo, Deventer, Amersfoort Centraal, and Amsterdam Bijlmer ArenA, where it reversed before departing to Amsterdam Centraal. For the first, part of the trip the train traveled under service number ICE 13406.

Another point of significance I hadn’t noticed until reading about it on eisenbahn magazin was that the two trains used, numbers 4601 and 4651, were the first ICE 3M to be manufactured and the only ICE 3M to be modernised, respectively.

My wife and I, along with a group of spotters, were camped at Duivendrecht, waiting to record the train as it departed Bijlmer ArenA towards Amsterdam Centraal. Before the ICE 3M trainsets arrived at Bijlmer ArenA from Diemen Zuid, we caught a glimpse of it from the platform at Duivendrecht, briefly pausing on the inner curve—track 589a—between the two stations. I, of course, took a picture in which the train was out of focus…

Anyways, while we were waiting for the train to pass by the platform after reversing, we saw the new ICE 3neo pass on the regular passenger service from Frankfurt to Amsterdam. Shortly after we were able to see the two ICE 3M trains pass. At Amsterdam Centraal, the train changed service numbers to ICE 25 and drove through Den Haag HS, Rotterdam Centraal, Dordrecht, Sittard, Aachen, and Köln before ending at Frankfurt (Main) Hbf.

It was a fun day; the weather held up nicely too. I wish I had gotten to see more of the train before it was taken out of service, but there’s still an opportunity to ride them in Germany.