The Trans Europ Express, for some people magic, for others just history. However, it did even inspire one movie director: Alain Robbe-Grillet for his film Trans Europ Express (1966).

The TEE network was set up in 1957 following an idea of Ir. F.Q. den Hollander, president-director at that time of the Dutch railways company (NS). It was a network jointly operated by the railways of Germany (DB), France (SNCF), Switzerland (SBB-CFF-FFS), Italy (FS) and, of course, the Netherlands. (Note: although some trains operated through Belgium from the beginning, the railway company (SNCB-NMBS) joined only in 1964. Luxembourg (CFL) also did join at some time, but I do not know when.) The service was based on a number of principles:

Diesel traction

Because of the many different kinds of current used in the different countries it was thought at that time that this would greatly speed up border crossing. Moreover, at that time many border crossing sections were not yet electrified. In 1961 with the introduction of the Swiss trainsets that accepted 4 kinds of current this principle was abandoned.

Trainsets

The reason for this principle is the shorter stopping time at stations that require a change of direction. Because trainsets are fairly fixed in size (only the German VT11 class had some freedom), and en-route changes are very time consuming, this principle soon lead to problems on the Paris-Brussels-Amsterdam route. While Paris-Brussels was in very high demand, Brussels-Amsterdam was much less so. This already soon lead to relief trains on the Paris-Brussels section. In 1963 (with the introduction on this route of locomotive hauled trains) the principle was abandoned.

International

Originally the idea was to promote only international routes as TEE routes. This idea was abandoned in 1965 with the introduction of the French le Mistral and the German Blauer Enzian. The reason to abandon this principle is very clear: there are many much longer national routes than some of the international TEE routes.

Luxuary rolling stock

This idea has always been maintained: luxury, hence 1st class only, with catering on all routes. This in almost all cases has meant that the rolling stock was especially built for TEE services, only to be downgraded after many years of sevice.

Custom control en-route

This idea was new at that time, before that time in many cases you had to leave the train when a border was crossed, resulting in a very long waiting time. Currently (and already since the early sixties) this is standard in Europe. So, while this was a renovation at that time, it held that status only shortly.

Running dayly

This was to simplify the concept for the public; you could always rely on a train running. This idea was given up in February 1968 with the introduction of le Lyonnais. Later many more trains were not running daily and not during high summer or other times.

In 1987 a new service was introduced, the international EuroCity services for international services, both 1st and 2nd class. In a number of cases this was used as replacement for old TEE services but in France some old TEE services still remained. Also there was permission to retain Gottardo and Rheingold as international TEE, but the last one changed along to EC. Finally in about 1990 also the last services were dropped. But in 1993 on the Paris-Brussels route TEE services were resurrected, but these replaced EC services by name only and were both 1st and 2nd class; they were replaced in 1995 by TGV services.

A strange member of the family of TEE services is the Lufthansa Airport Express, introduced in Germany in 1983. These were against many principles of the TEE operation and indeed were not called TEE service in publications. Their designation as TEE was only done to insure priority.

Currently the information about the TEE's available can be accessed through:

• a historic overview
• a list of names
• a list of trainnumbers
• a list of stations served
• rolling stock used
• sample timetables
• maps
• some emergency TEE's

Please mail comments, additions etc. and have a look at the remaining questions.

Sources:

Books

Articles

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