​Imagine this.

You are at Munich station picking someone up from a train about to arrive. Perhaps your wife and baby. Behind you, a brand new ICE 4, the smell of new train wafting out the doors. A futuristic bleeping sets in, the doors close in a flurry of flashing LED lights .

​So this is the future, and I'm in it. Wow. With a subtle, soothing sigh the breaks release and the train noiselessly sets itself in motion, gliding majestically out into the sunlight.

You scratch your armpit and adjust your shopping bag. They should be here any moment.

​Suddenly, a text message:

we can't get into our platform. It is blocked by a broken down train.

You look up from your phone, up the line, and there you see it: that vision of things to come, the ICE4, speadeagled across the points of four platforms, grinning like an oblivious python. 45 minutes later it draws back to the platform it left and expels its passengers. It only made it 100 yards towards Hamburg.

You take your wife and baby home an hour late to a lunch of warm beer and cold chicken.

The ICE 4s are the biggest order ever placed by Deutsche Bahn. For more than €5 bn they ordered 130 of these trains, with a contract in place for 300. This train is set to become the backbone of German fast rail transport.

As Deutsche Bahn is owned by the German state, it was important that German manufacturers got a slice of this lovely cake. In this case it was Siemens and Bombardier.

The carriages are made by Bombardier in Görlitz, a city that has been making trains for 160 years, while all the electrical stuff is supplied by Siemens from all over its engineering empire.

OK, I get it. Enough background.

After the unfortunate first meeting, things got much better. I've been on the ICE 4 several times and can now tell you what it is like.

On my first trip I got on at 5:55 AM and saw the LED-lighting in action. Apparently it adjusts to the time of day in all sorts of colours. All I saw was orange in the morning and white as the day progressed. I loved the orange light.

Since then all I've seen is white - presumably it is controlled manually and whoever controls it forgets about it. It would be interesting if there was a light setting for crowd control, for calming down mutinous passengers on an overcrowded, delayed ICE.

The ICE 4 is formed of twelve extra-long coaches. It is painted in the usual white with a red line along its side. The train has three first class carriages, a restaurant car that has some first class seating as well as the compartment for parents with toddlers, and nine second class carriages.

The carriage numbers are painted on - Deutsche Bahn has learnt the hard way that nothing beats good old analogue.

All of the carriages are open plan seating. The only actual ​compartment is the one for parents with toddlers​​​.

Its top speed is 250km/h. Though not as fast as the first generation ICE (280km/h) or the ICE 3 (330 km/h), this is ample. On a network plagued by engineering (or the lack of it), trains rarely attain their top speed. A faster train would have cost more with no benefit whatsoever.

As the carriages are very long, they have to be correspondingly narrow to remain within the German loading gauge. The reduced diameter is noticeable. This is also why the ICE 4 has little gangways that roll out to bridge the yawning gap between the train and the platform.

​The second class comes with standard 2+2 seating (that is, two seats each side of the aisle).

​Though some of the ​chairs are arranged in blocs of four grouped around a table, most are arranged two-by-two behind each other, always facing the middle of the carriage. 

Thus whichever direction the train is travelling, half of the seats are facing backwards, half forwards.

What is wise of DB is to have generous, easily accessible luggage racks.

All in all this is a fairly pleasant second class experience, much nicer and more spaceous than the rather cramped second class on the ÖBB Railjet with its frozen-spinach coloured seats and linoleum floor or, God help us, the smartie-coloured man-trap that is SNCF's TGV Duplex.

There have been many complaints, in fact mass hysteria about the new model of seats Deutsche Bahn has installed in the ICE 4. People have been saying they are torture chairs from hell.

Perhaps there is something wrong with my back (I did do ballroom dancing for ten years) but I find them superbly comfortable.

They have a nice high head and proper ears that support your head nicely as you snooze. They do not recline, instead the bottom bit slips forward, pulling the back rest after it. The benefit is that a reclining seat doesn't invade your space, thus preventing aircraft-style brawls.

I also like the little displays on the head-rests, showing from where to where the seat is reserved. This is easy to see and to read.

The free Wifi works well enough wherever there is a decent LTE signal. This isn't everywhere, but that is hardly Deutsche Bahn's fault. In the second class each device is allowed 200MB of data volume

The first class comes with 2+1 seating and leather chairs. Apart from being made of leather and spaced a bit further apart, they follow the same design pattern as those in the second class. They aren't more comfortable.

The carpet is the same and so is the Wifi signal. The only difference here is unlimited data volume per device.

Why go first class? It's breathing space and elbow room more than the seats that make first class more pleasant on the ICE 4.

Have you got a baby? I have, these days, and I love that Deutsche Bahn has a nice separate compartment in which you can let it run around. Or breastfeed.

Sometimes people with nowhere to sit will find their way into the toddler's compartment, but they cannot complain. And if you roll up with a baby, you can make them move.

This is something Deutsche Bahn has solved very well: the toddler's compartment is next to the guard's van, so there is always someone to help you, the restaurant car is next door, and there is a nice toilet with a changing mat. It is all very well done, on all ICE and Intercity trains.

Until the ICE 4 was introduced, it was dogma that no bicycles are allowed on ICEs. The German bicycle club never stopped lobbying for this to be changed.

Now that many Intercities are being replaced with ICEs, DB has grudgingly accepted that the ICE 4 has to transport bicycles. So it has a small section with eight slots for bikes. These have to be reserved at the cost of €9. 

Some smart people think that if they have their bicycle in a bag or a cardboard box it can go free as baggage.

Wrong. The other day on my Flixtrain, running at full capacity, I found a man blocking six seats with his bicycle in a nylon holdall. I went mad. I made him put it where it belonged and charged him the full bicycle price - the alternative being he pay for six seats.

The only bikes that can go free are the truly collapsable ones that fold into a small carrier bag.

Anyway, I haven't tried to load a bicycle into the ICE 4, but the set up looks usable. Just remember: carriage 1 is for bicycles and you need a reservation. As many older ICEs don't take bikes, it is wise to book as far in advance as you can.

Now for my one big complaint. A preposterous amount of seats on this train have no window, or a tiny sliver of one. Since trains have started to be measured in price per seat and kilometre travelled, window seats have gone out the window. This is one of many symptoms of the bottom-line doing the designing on the ICE 4.

Now, when booking a seat on an ICE, if the train you are dealing with is an ICE 4, you are likely to specify a window seat and find yourself next to the wall. At the same time, the spacious and desperately needed baggage racks afford your suitcase a fantastic view right next to the window.

This is just really cack-handed design, an example of DB's bean counters shitting on us passengers. It could have been avoided, but all that mattered was cost. Bizarrely, the first class is just as bad as the second class.

I go to great lengths for you, my readers. One of these lengths is to walk from end to end on the ICE 4 with a furrowed brow, muttering to myself, writing stuff down. I even had to explain myself to the guard.

I have compiled a list of all the seats that have no window. And believe me, it is long. You can find the list of all the unwindow-seats as a handy download in the e-guide library. If you subscribe to my email list you have free, life-long access to my e-guide-library - even if you unsubscribe.

When I went to university,  nearly everyone I met was starting a degree in Business Administration (me, I enrolled in Russian Linguistics). Wherever I went, everyone was studying this thing. They still are. "Why?" I asked. "Well," they said, "you can do anything afterwards, and work for anyone".

Business Administration is neither a science nor a humanity. It is an ideology. As a university subject it is as divorced from science as Marxism-Leninism was in East Germany. Business Administration's central premise is scarcity. There is never enough of anything, especially money, so it has to be saved. You have to cut costs and close your factories. 

Now this vast army of Business Administrators has been let loose on the world and is saving money everywhere, meaning that everyone has less and works more.

The brightest Business Administrators work for PwC, Accenture and Roland Berger, the Angels of Downsizing. The dull, stupid ones end up working for Deutsche Bahn, laying waste to everything they can cross out with their red pencils. Night trains, for instance.

Business Administrators shift the focus from making quality products to making money. They have destroyed Cadbury's, they have smashed Wedgwood, and they've got their teeth deep into Marks and Spencer's.

At Deutsche Bahn their influence is ever more noticeable, and the ICE 4 is a good example.

But I digress.

The restaurant car is very nice, with both a bar area and a proper seated restaurant section. They have nice Bitburger beer on tap and an astounding variety of quite tasty, reasonably priced food.

Of course it is all warmed up, but real food has long disappeared from Western trains, and as it goes, this is quite good. It is much better than the hospital food DON serves on the Railjet these days, but it cannot compare with a Polish or Slovak restaurant car, where your food is still cooked to order.

Unfortunately even in the restaurant car the windows and seating are not on speaking terms. Sip your coffee and admire the beam between the windows.

At the very front and at the very rear (carriages 1 and 14), if you get on through the door nearest to the driving cab and then turn towards the driving cab, you enter a small section of eight seats in second class or six seats in first class which feels nicely closed off from the rest of the train and where the seats are perfectly aligned with the windows.

It is a dead end, so you don't get any confused people barrelling backwards and forwards bellowing the place down. Only drivers pass through. Though open to anyone, people seem to avoid it.

Sadly, you can't see into the driving cab, since you ask. DB has done away with that.

I have tried to put myself into the shoes of various travellers and work out where I can recommend who sits. Here is what I have come up with:

You are fine almost everywhere. Most of the seats are two-by-two. Consider going first-class if there is a good deal. If you want to ensure you have a window, download my guide to the un-window seats on the ICE 4 and reserve yourself something nice. I would probably get myself something not too far from the restaurant car.

As a group between four and eight people I would try and snaffle the secret area in carriage No. 1, about which I waxed lyrical earlier. Bring your own food and drink and forget about the distant restaurant car. 

Whenever I've tried to reserve a seat in the secret area outright it has been unreservable, yet when I got on the train, nothing was reserved. It is possible that these seats are always unreserved.

Book yourself the toddler's compartment if you can - you have to be travelling with a child under six to get it. 

I cannot emphasise enough how great the toddlers' compartment is. The so-called "family area" is just the same as everywhere else, only that it is noisy and smells of sausage and hard-boiled eggs.

If you cannot get the toddler's compartment, try and get yourself somewhere else, anywhere else, with a table, or the secret section in carriage No. 1. If travelling with a baby and there is no space in the toddler's compartment, make for the secret section, as it is peaceful.

Germany is one of the rail-pass friendly countries. There are no compulsory reservations on any DB trains. So you can use all ICE trains except the ICE Sprinters, for which a supplement would be payable. ICE 4s are not used on the Sprinter lines as of 2018.

If you are in a group, the same advice applies as for any other group. If your are tired and want to sleep, make for the secret section in carriage No. 1. 

If you want to spread out on the floor and picnic, again, carriage No. 1 is best for you, provided the bicycle area is empty.

Big warning: on one of my trips, the WiFi signal barely reached the secret section. If you value WiFi, best go somewhere else.

Having been on the ICE 4 several times I have discovered that I like the infamous seats. They are comfortable and have the best headrests I know of in German rail.

I like the toddler's compartment and I think the restaurant is a very pleasant place to be with its new, discreet colour scheme and its bar area.

What I really like is the two secret, quiet compartments at the front and the back of the train. Another good thing is that they seem to have installed lots of toilets that are easy to find.

Also well done is the ample space for luggage. I resent that it blocks windows, but the benefit is you can have your luggage near where you are sitting.

What is really bad is the window/seat situation. This never used to be a problem, why does technical progress mean window seats with no windows?  It is just sloppy can't-be-fuckedness.

When I go to the restaurant car from my lair in carriage 1, I have to go through nine or ten coaches that look exactly the same, and are very long and rather narrow.

After the third carriage this gets rather unsettling. As most people are wearing their DB-faces they all look the same as well. I lose track of where I am as I stumble through winter upon winter of discontent.

You may have heard about the Flixtrain.

​Maybe you've been wondering how to use them. ​It isn't straightforward, as the Flixtrains operate totally outside the normal rail ticketing systems.

This post is to clear all this up. When you have finished you will know everything you need to know about how to use Germany's Flixtrains (and buses).

In 2013 the German government, clutching at straws to support Germany's bloated and obsolete motor industry, deregulated long-distance coach travel by scrapping a law from 1935 (yes, a Nazi law) that had made it very difficult to run long-distance coach services. This law was in place to protect the national rail operator.

It worked: coach companies mushroomed and there was a surge in orders for coaches.

Fast forward five years and the fastest and most furious rat in the barrel has eaten up the competition and escaped: Flixbus. Now it is on a rampage.

Flix see themselves as the Google of mass transit and only actually own one bus. They need it to call themselves a bus company. Flixbus work with subcontractors. Imagine Uber with buses. And now trains.

Before the Flixtrains, some people had tried to start ​fast-train services in competition with Deutsche Bahn: the Leipzig-Rostock Interconnex ended up under the buses in 2013, the Hamburg-Köln Express (HKX) withered and the Stuttgart-Berlin Locomore went bankrupt after five months. All failed at bums on seats.

Now if there is one thing Flix do really well, it's bums on seats. Flixbus have become the go-to address for super-cheap travel. It is where the destitute and the thrifty turn first.

So Flix have breathed life into the HKX and Locomore timetable slots and the HKX and the Locomore have returned undead. They make the trains run, Flix make the people come. For the first time in Germany, there is significant competition in long-distance rail travel.

As of July 2018 there are three lines that Flix serves by train. More are expected to start after the December 2018 timetable change. 

1. ​Stuttgart-Berlin-Stuttgart: Run by Leo Express using Locomore's slots and carriages plus extra cars rented from elsewhere. 

2. Hamburg-Cologne-Hamburg using the HKX slots, run by BahnTouristikExpress using their own carriages.

3. Hamburg-Lörrach Flixnight with one couchette, attached to BTE's Motorail service from Hamburg-Altona to Lörrach, on the German outskirts of Basel. 

I go to great lengths for you, my readers. One of these lengths is to join BahnTouristikExpress to be at the forefront of this development. Having now worked on both the Hamburg-Cologne Flixtrain and on the Hamburg-Lörrach Flixnight, I can give you some intel.

The Hamburg-Cologne Flixtrain is usually formed of ten coaches belonging to BahnTouristikExpress, a company whose main business is charter trains.

Some of these are seated carriages, some are couchettes in day mode. Nearly all of them are with ten or eleven compartments that seat up to six people, though there are some combined compartment/saloon style carriages as well.

Though the carriages are quite old and only partly refurbished, all of them have WiFi, and most have power outlets. Some don't - here passengers can borrow high-performance power banks from the kiosk in the middle of the train. ​

There is a fun disconnect about the Flixtrain: on the one hand compartments, windows you can open and carriages that could still be heated with steam from a steam engine. On the other hand: WiFi, power outlets and Flix's paperless QR-code tickets. Here I stand ​with my Flixapp and Bluetooth printer where once a Deutsche Reichsbahn guard meticulously issued hand-written paper tickets

​As mentioned above, the Berlin-Stuttgart Flixtrain uses the coaches and the staff that ran in the short-lived Locomore service. Locomore went bankrupt and were bought up by Czech operator Leo Express. Leo Express run this train, Flix market it as a Flixtrain and sell the tickets.

The original Locomore coaches are partly compartment and partly saloon type, which Locomore had lovingly refitted and augmented with WiFi and sockets. The Locomore colours are still very much present on the inside. On the outside the Locomore orange has been covered up with green Flixfoil.

To cope with the increased demand, and the extra train now running on the Berlin-Stuttgart line, additional carriages have been martialled from various places. These are mostly combined compartment/saloon carriages with late 1980s interiors. Instead of sockets, power banks are offered, as on the Hamburg-Cologne line.

​This is something ​I never saw coming: Flix doing night trains.

It isn't, not really, not yet. The Flixnight is ​one ​couchette car that is ​sometimes attached to BahnTouristikExpress's AutoReiseZug (motorail) service that runs on weekends between Hamburg-Altona and Lörrach, on the outskirts of Basel on the German side of the border. 

​This is a train consisting of two sleeping cars, one restaurant car and four to five couchettes and several car-carrying carriages​​​. ​The last of the couchettes is dedicated to Flixtrain foot passengers. Each compartment has five berths. No berth numbers are assigned, anyone can go anywhere within the Flixnight carriage.

​This is where it gets tricky.

Depending on the day of the week there may be one, two or no Flixtrains running your way. The Flixtrains are concentrated around the peak travel days of the weekends and peter out towards mid-week. Their timetable is full of ifs* and buts {1} and rules+ and exceptions {1,2-4}. ​I​t makes my brain hurt. 

I find it easiest just to head over to ​their website and see what is going on when I want to travel.

Hamburg-Cologne-Hamburg FLX 20 departure times:

The Hamburg-Cologne Flixtrain ​runs on most days and takes ​a good four hours from Hamburg to Cologne or vice-versa. ​Here is a day-by-day break-down​ ​of when the trains go. Note that nation-wide bank holidays can lead to further exceptions. Here is a link directly to their timetable.

The trains leave Hamburg-Altona and call at Hamburg Hbf, Hamburg-Harburg, Osnabrück, Münster, Gelsenkirchen, Essen, Duisburg, Düsseldorf and Cologne, taking around four hours and twenty minutes.

​Monday: ​08:49 and 16:36, whereby the 08:49 starts at Hamburg Hbf

Tuesday: NO FLIXTRAIN

Wednesday: 16:36

Thursday: 08:49 and 16:36, whereby the 08:49 starts at Hamburg Hbf

Friday: 08:49 and 16:36, whereby the 08:49 starts at Hamburg Hbf

Saturday: 08:49, from Hamburg Hbf

Sunday: 12:36 and 16:36

​

​The trains leave Cologne Hbf and call at Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Münster, Osnabrück, Hamburg-Harburg, Hamburg Hbf and Hamburg-Altona, taking around four hours and twenty minutes.

​Monday: 7:01 and 15:01

Tuesday: 11:01

Wednesday: NO FLIXTRAIN

​​Thursday: 11:01 and 15:01

Friday: 11:01 and 16:38

Saturday: 7:01

Sunday: 11:01 and 19:01​​​

I don't find this very user-friendly. At the same time, if you just use their website, you don't have to remember. If there's a train, there's a train, and if there isn't, then there isn't.

I sincerely hope that Flix come up with a less unwieldy timetable in the future. But perhaps I'm being old-fashioned.

​In contrast to the Hamburg-Cologne line, passengers between Stuttgart and Berlin have the luxury of a daily Flixtrain at the same time every day. This I like. On some days, there is a second service​. Here is a direct link to their timetable.

​The train leaves Stuttgart Hbf and calls at Vaihingen, Heidelberg, Weinheim, Darmstadt, Frankfurt Süd, Hanau, Fulda, Kassel Wilhelmshöhe, Göttingen, Hanover Messe/Laatzen, Lehrte, Wolfsburg, Berlin Zoo, Berlin Hbf, Berlin Ostbahnhof, Berlin Ostkreuz and Berlin Lichtenberg. The journey takes about seven hours.

​Monday: 06:21 and 14:12

​Tuesday: 06:21

Wednesday: 06:21

Thursday: 06:21 and 14:12

Friday: 06:21 and 14:12

Saturday: 06:39 and 14:12

Sunday: 06:39 and 14:12

​The train leaves Berlin Lichtenberg and calls at Berlin Ostkreuz, Berlin Ostbahnhof, Berlin Hbf, Berlin Zoo, Wolfsburg, Lehrte, Hanover Messe/Laatzen, Göttingen, Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe, Fulda, Hanau, Frankfurt Süd, Darmstadt, Weinheim, Heidelberg, Vaihingen and Stuttgart Hbf. As above, the journey takes about seven hours.

​Monday: 06:29 and 14:28

Tuesday: 14:28

Wednesday: 14:28

Thursday: 06:29 and 14:28

Friday: 06:29 and 14:28

Saturday: 06:29 and 14:28

Sunday: 06:29 and 14:28

​This schedule is much easier to remember than the Hamburg-Cologne timetable. I hope that future Flixtrains adhere to this model.

​This is the hardest one. I can't find a timetable that spells out on which dates the ​Flixnight runs and on which it doesn't.

On ​almost all weekends throughout the year there is at least one service in both directions. During the summer there are more. I can only recommend ​looking at the Flixtrain website, which automatically points you to when the service is running.

In both directions it calls at Hamburg Hbf, Hanover Hbf, Freiburg and Lörrach Autozug.

​Southbound, the service leaves Hamburg-Altona at 19:50, arriving Freiburg at 06:55 and Lörrach at 08:30.

Northbound, it departs Lörrach Autozug at 19:30 and Freiburg at 22:06, arriving Hamburg-Altona at 07:11.

​Though the trains differ depending on who operates them, Flix does demand and provide a certain standard.

​Wireless internet is a Flix non-negotiable. When their buses started to run they were famous for it, and it is arguably Flix that forced Deutsche Bahn to get off its complacent arse and make free WiFi available on all ICE trains, even in second class - long after it was standard in most Eastern European countries.

On a side note, something similar happened in Austria when the Westbahn went into service in 2011 - WiFi was their thang. ​Just a few months later, ÖBB discovered they could make WiFi work on their Railjets after all.​​​

Well, Flix ​have made WiFi work in Cold War era ​carriages​. They just did it. Truth be told, onbord WiFi is only as good as the surrounding LTE signal. Between Osnabrück and Hamburg it isn't up to much.

​Another Flix non-negotiable is sockets. Some of the more recently refurbished carriages have them, but the old ones don't.

To make up for this, Flix has high-performance power banks available for passengers to borrow.  You leave your identity card or passport with the kiosk-staff and they return it to you when you give back the power bank. Simple.

​All Flixtrains have some form of catering. On the Hamburg-Cologne line it is a ​minibar in one of the carriages. The same goes for the Stuttgart-Berlin line​, which also has a small kiosk selling drinks and light refreshments.

​However, the Flixnight gives you access to BTE's lovely full-size restaurant car serving ​proper meals and hot and cold drinks into the small hours. Only very few trains still have this. Though be warned that it is easy to spend more in the restaurant car than you did on your Flix ticket.

​Though seating is generally a free-for-all on the Flixtrains, in July Flix ​started offering seat reservations on both their trains. On both day-services, two carriages have reserved seating, while in the remaining cars it ​remains open season. 

Bizarrely, they have introduced an a​irline-esque numbering system that clashes with the standard continental European seat numbering system and which I find hard to swallow.

​Flix treats the carriage like a bus or plane and imposes row numbers that ignore the compartment layout, and within these row numbers seats are A, B or C. ​At the same time, the seats still have their "natural" standard numbers, which is confusing.

A seat reservation costs €3.49 on top of your ticket, €3.99 if you want a window - the "panorama" option.

​Flixtrain tickets are not sold by the usual railway ticket offices. In fact, as mentioned earlier, the Flixtrains operate completely outside the pan-European ticketing system​. No DB tickets are valid on Flixtrains, no Schönes-Wochenende or Quer-Durchs-Land tickets, no Eurail or Interrail passes. 

However, Flix's ticketing system is wonderfully easy to use. You can buy tickets online on their website, or download the Flixtrain app from the Apple or Google Play store. You don't have to set up an account (though it does make future bookings easier) and Flix accepts all kinds of electronic payment.

​You are issued with a QR code, either within the app, or as a ticket you can either print out or simply show on your mobile device. Having been on the inspecting end of this system, I have to hand it to Flix: it is a wonderful system, so easy to use. It is brilliant.

​What I particularly like is that Flix has gone to the trouble ​of having its system in ​35 European languages, including Macedonian and ​Catalan. You can even pay in Ukrainian Hryvnyas if you so choose.

Nice touch with English denoted by a European flag, too.

​It depends. Flix adhere strictly to the dynamic pricing system. 

Tickets on the Hamburg-Cologne and Stuttgart-Berlin trains start at €9.99 but rise quickly to €29.99 or €39.99. If you pay on the train, Hamburg-Cologne will set you back €65.

Tickets for the Flixnight start at €19.99 and rise. A week beforehand in summer you can pay €59.99.

So unless you get a super-cheap ticket in advance and use one of Flix's promo codes, they aren't always cheaper than Deutsche Bahn.

​As I said further above, Flix is very good at bums on seats. So good in fact that sometimes it's bums in corridor. ​Having been on both the Hamburg-Cologne and the Hamburg-Lörrach services, here are ​my tips to help you have the best possible trip. 

1. Try and get on at the first station. The trains are usually quite full. When leaving from Hamburg or Berlin, it is best to get on at Hamburg-Altona and Berlin-Lichtenberg respectively. Most of the passengers get on at the Hauptbahnhof. If you are on first, you have ten minutes to hole up in a really nice seat before the stampede sets in. 

​Departing Cologne or Stuttgart you don't have this advantage.

2. On the Flixnight, get on at Hamburg-Altona. ​For one thing, again, you are ahead of the bulk of the passengers. But more importantly, ​​​the BTE AutoReiseZug which carries the Flixnight is prone to 1-2 hour delays leaving Hamburg-Altona, as loading the cars onto the motorail carriages tends to take longer than planned.

Passengers getting on at Hamburg Hbf end up standing around waiting. Not fun. But if you are on at Altona you can relax in your compartment. Incidentally, the BTE train has a very generous slot which allows it to catch up even a three-hour delay out of Altona.

​3. If using the Flixnight from Lörrach to Hamburg, ​understand that the train doesn't leave from Lörrach Hbf, but from Lörrach Autozug Terminal, which is five minutes walk up the line. Walk out of Lörrach Hbf station, turn right and follow the tracks. Then you can't miss it. ​​​

​4. Bring back your power bank in plenty of time. ​You don't want to be without your ID card or passport, and you don't want to miss your stop. Bring back the power bank at the latest 10 minutes before you get off, ​​​

​This is what I think of Flixtrains:

​I ​love ​the carriages. Nearly all of them have windows you can open and compartments rather than saloons, which I prefer. However, people who ​like open-plan seating do have somewhere to go as well.

For the last twenty years Deutsche Bahn has been running ​a sustained assault on everything that ​people love to remember about trains, namely, windows you can open and wave out of, perhaps with a white handkerchief, ​​​compartments that get you into conversations with strangers and, yes, night trains. Grudgingly they have accepted that they can't ditch restaurant cars, but that doesn't mean they'll be serving food. Deutsche Bahn wants to transport you in ​laboratory conditions in sterile silence and solitude.

I'm not sure Flix is big on romance. They just want to get as many people as possible from A to B at the lowest cost. ​It just so happens that the only trains they can get their agile little mitts ​on are these indestructible retro ​sets​. While it lasts, Flixtrain is offering you a train ride like it was in the good old days, but with WiFi.

​Flix's service is greatest before and during the purchase of your ticket. ​Their website and their apps are very easy to use and they make it very easy to pay. It is much less demanding than Deutsche Bahn's online ticketing system and app. 

​On the road, or the rails, you are in the hands of their sub-contractors. ​Some are better than others, but anyone who falls below Flix's standards will lose their contract and thus a steady stream of income. So there is an incentive for them to treat you well.

​Flix's concept offers something that no other privately-run train operator has been able to ​muster: a train service that is part of a greater network. 

Deutsche Bahn's ICEs and ICs are fed by regional trains and S-Bahns, and Deutsche Bahn can sell you a reasonably priced ticket for the whole journey. They can even rent a car out to you at ​your destination.

Flixtrains are fed by, and feed, Flixbuses. ​Together they form a network. Flix can sell you a ticket that begins on a bus, goes on to a train, then back onto another bus. Though Flixtrains run isolated from the other trains, they are closely knit into Flix's bus system. And this generates the critical mass of passengers needed to make a train service viable.

Deutsche Bahn's newest trains have soft LED-lighting that adjusts to the time of day even in the second class, fair trade coffee and organic salads. People are going to hate me for saying this, but Flix is re-introducing third-class travel. Lots of people welcome this - students, pensioners, even business travellers.

But in the Germany of 2018 there is also a vast demographic of people who have been left behind, whose livelihoods have been out-sourced and who couldn't care less about ethically sourced coffee and 2300 Kelvin lighting. It is possible to pay for Flix's ridiculously low ticket prices in installments with the Ratepay service. 

Flix gets its people from one place to another reasonably comfortably, at a reasonable speed and at a reasonable price.​​​

​​For this reason, it is hard to see Flixtrain as competition for Deutsche Bahn because a sizeable amount of the Flix customers have never used Deutsche Bahn's trains. Flix is opening train travel to people who never ​went by train, and that is a good thing.

And I like ​the Flix people. They are polite, they don't ​complain, they are happy to be going somewhere. When you arrive they get off and tell you what a nice trip it has been.

​Now we've reached the end of this post. I hope you have enjoyed ​it. Please forgive the moments in which I descended into rants. 

Flixtrain is one of the most exciting developments so far on the ​European fast-train market. ​In some countries like Austria, Italy and Czechia there is competition on the railways. I reviewed Romanian operator Astra Trans Carpatic in my last post.

In Germany, so far, ​competition has failed. Germany, with its huge motor lobby, is a very hostile environment for anyone wanting to run trains. Now Flix, of all people, have entered the train market with a singular focus on low prices, and combined with their extensive bus network it may work out this time.

It looks as if the Flixtrains have come to stay, at least for the next few years. They had a job announcement recently looking for someone to plan their European train network. I applied for this job, ​hoping to get in on the wacky ticket, but they turned me down. It's a shame for them, I don't see how anyone could have been better for the job. But there you go.

​In spite of their ambition and their mighty backers, Flix could pull out of the train business very quickly if they decide it's not working. So while they dabble in the train market, have a go on the Flixtrains. They are great fun.

​As mentioned above, the Astra Trans Carpatic ​traverses Romania from East to West and West to East over night and over the Carpathians. Here is their eastbound timetable, as of summer 2018:

​05:​28 is not a nice time to wake up and ​arrive at Bucharest Gara de Nord, but everything is open and you can have breakfast at McDonald's. What is wonderful is to watch the rest of Bucharest stir and come to life.

But 08:35 is a very civilised time to arrive at ​Constanța.

Here is the westward timetable, as of summer 2018:

​The westbound service has perfect timing in every way.

​Astra’s 2nd class seated car is probably one of the nicest in Romania - it is ​worlds ​better than the 2nd class on the ICE or the Railjet, simply because Astra has taken the trouble to align the seats with the windows. On newer Deutsche Bahn trains you may ask for a window seat and find yourself ​staring at a wall.

Carpeted floor, 2+2 seating, leather seats, functioning air conditioning, sockets for every seat - Astra has done well. Some seats are arranged in sets of four around a decently-sized table.

​One of the nicest couchettes I’ve ever seen, on par with the Russian 4-berth sleeper running on the Moscow-Nice and Moscow-Paris services.

​Now for the sleepers. Each sleeper carriage has ten compartments with two berths each - Astra doesn’t do T3 berths. Two is the maximum amount of people in a compartment.

This is much higher welfare than the CityNightLine and Nightjet Comfortline carriages that squeeze two more compartments with three berths into the same ​26.4 meters of length.

​The compartment is carpeted and the walls are clad with faux-walnut. Anything not in faux-walnut is painted a similar ochre colour. The duvets are nice and long, so your feet are covered, and the pillows are a decent size.

​Three of the compartments have a futuristic en-suite bathroom with a loo, a shower and a sink. Mine was spotless. Here’s one fun Eastern European hack Astra has done: Install an upside-down handdryer as a hairdryer​.

The shower was fabulous. Both hot and cold water at decent pressure, cool lighting, no funny smells. Obviously the equipment is new, but I hope they manage to ​maintain this standard.

​What I particularly like is the lighting. There is an array of switches over the door that controls them. Next to your pillow there are also light switches.

If you turn all the lights off you have true darkness, which is great - in most sleepers you are still left with some sort of LED shining in your face. The Nightjet sleeper has a little white button I feel compelled to cover, and PKP's new and refurbished sleepers have an appalling blue LED blaring all night.

​Having described the train itself, we shall now have a look at the service concept on Astra Trans Carpatic.

​After the train sets off the attendant knocks and wants to see your ticket. In my case it was a QR code on my smartphone. All the attendant did was look at it cursorily. No scanning, nothing. Of course, if you are in your compartment and no one else lays claim to it, and they have you on their list, there is no reason to go scanning QRs or looking at ID cards.

One thing I missed on both my trips was complementary water. I think a bottle of water should definitely be included in the price of one's berth.

​On both my trips there were no towels ready in the compartment, but when I asked for them (​proSOP, vâ rog)​ the attendant gave me some straight away.​

​In the morning ​they wake you with a knock on the door. On my arrival in Bucharest there was no breakfast - maybe because it was impossibly early (05:28 AM) or maybe because the attendant had forgotten.

On my arrival at Arad, on my return journey, there was ​weapons-grade instant coffee and a plastic-wrapped submarine sandwich with chicken and red pepper in it. I don't know what it tasted like.

​As ​a sleeping car attendant who has made thousands of night train breakfasts and thrown away almost as many, I think breakfasts are a waste of workers' time, the punters' money and precious food. 

What people need is a hot drink and a small, energising snack to ​keep the wolf from the door as they drag themselves home or to the next bar. ​Wagon Slovakia, who do the night trains in Slovakia, get it right with their cup of coffee and waffle bar. No fuss, you drink your coffee lying down and eat or don't eat your waffle bar, or you take it with you for later.

​Sleeping car people can afford not only to go in the sleeping car. They can also afford food allergies and paleo diets. Then there are vegans. There is no lowest common food denominator a rail company can fall back to, so it is better to keep breakfast as low-key as possible. The Russians don't do it at all.

On my ​CityNightLines ​so much food was wasted. ​​And it went everywhere as people ​​​​​​​scrabbled about getting their mobile phones, neck cushions and babies' favourite blankets together.​​​

​But I digress.

​The train is not long - only four carriages - and so it doesn’t have the length to support a restaurant car, sadly.

There is a minibar with all the usual stuff on sale - "drinks and light refreshments" is the technical term, I believe. I'd brought my own, so I didn't use it. Once I tried to get water, but couldn't chase down the attendant and lost interest.

​As a blogger in the service of my readers I am prepared to go to extraordinary lengths. One of these lengths is to forget ​a mobile phone, a neck cushion and a baby’s favourite blanket on the train.

A shunter found me wandering around the sidings of Arad station. I explained in my ​best Romanian that I had lost my phone. He made some phone calls and asked my to wait by the ​casa de bilete.

Half an hour later an Astra Trans Carpatic worker appeared with all of the things I'd left. ​

​On the whole, most people on their way to ​Romania will opt for the Euronight 473 ​Ister ​from Budapest to Bucharest, or the Euronight 347 ​Dacia ​from Vienna to Bucharest.​​​​​​

​My reasons for going on Astra Trans Carpatic were as follows:

1. I wanted to ​review it for the blog

2. Unlike the Euronights, it got me to Bucharest with ample spare time to change onto my onward train to Varna at 12:45 PM - to be precise, at 05:​​28. The ​Dacia ​arrives at 15:05, which ​is too late, and the ​Ister ​at 12:05 PM. Only ​mad dogs and bahn.de think 40 minutes are enough ​to change onto a once-daily service

3. It was easy to book online.

​1. It is the only overnight train from the West that gets you to Bucharest with enough time to change onto the southbound 12:45 PM ​​Romania ​service to Bulgaria and Turkey​​​

2. ​​Astra Trans Carpatic is a new, open-access operator, and like on Italo in Italy and Westbahn in Austria, ​it shows with the staff: they are exceptionally polite and motivated

3. It has brand-new, luxurious carriages

4. It is competitively priced

​5. As mentioned above, it gets you all the way from the Puszta to the Black Sea without changing. Get on at Arad at 19:08, arrive Constanța at 08:35 the next morning.

​1. You have to get yourself to Arad first. Currently, the latest train that gets you from Budapest to Arad in time for the Astra Trans Carpatic is the IC 75 ​Transylvania, ​leaving Budapest at 09:10 and arriving at Arad at 14:34

2. You then spend four hours waiting at Arad. However, I found time passed quickly. Lunch, a walk along the river and a small shop. People who like trams: Arad has ​second-hand trams from all over Europe ​plying its huge tram network. It's like a tram zoo out there.

Also, the time is well spent getting acclimatised to Romania, Romanian and Romania's plastic ​bank notes.

3. You can't use Interrail or Eurail on Astra Trans Carpatic, or indeed any long distance international train tickets.

​Going east towards Bucharest, you'll want to join the Astra Trans Carpatic either at Arad, like I did, or at ​​Timișoara, the next station up the line. ​​Timișoara is a bigger town with more ​for ​the tourist to see. There are no more trains from Belgrade to ​​Timișoara, so one must always come from Hungary.

I have played around with the timetables and always end up with the IC 75 ​Transsylvania​ that leaves Budapest at 09:10 and Szolnok at 10:32.​ ​​​It reaches Arad at 14:34, and if you want to wait at ​​Timișoara you change here onto the 14:44 R 2606 for ​​Timișoara. Wherever you decide to wait, it will be four hours.

When you reach Bucharest the next morning at 05:28, you can get any number of onward trains​.

​Coming from Bucharest on your way west you have two options:

1. Get off at 07:13 at ​​Timișoara and ​catch the IC 78 ​Körös, ​departing ​​Timișoara at 07:30. For me, that is ​too narrow a squeak, but anyone in a hurry could consider ​risking this. The Astra Trans Carpatic is let out of ​​Timișoara ​after ​the ​Körös ​but arrives at ​​Timișoara before it leaves, so there is a window in the timetable at ​​Timișoara that the lucky and well-organised can slip through.​​​​​​ I had a pram to assemble​, so I watched the ​Körös ​leave from my bang-on-time Astra.​​​

2. Get off at 08:25 at Arad and get the IC 74 ​Transsylvania ​from Arad at 14:20​​​. ​There is a posh shopping centre next to Arad station in which ​you can hole up in a ​café, or ​​​you can go into town.

​You can only get the tickets from Astra Trans Carpatic. Normal ticket offices run by Deutsche Bahn or ÖBB​ do not sell them (to say nothing of SNCF). In fact, ​Astra Trans Carpatic doesn't even appear on Deutsche Bahn's bahn.de online timetables, though it ​is ​mentioned in the European Rail Timetable.​​​​​​

At Arad and at Bucharest Gara de Nord Astra Trans Carpatic has its own ticket offices (casa de bilete). You can also just buy your ticket on the train with no surcharge.

I got my tickets online in advance. Unfortunately the ticket buying section is in Romanian only. Fortunately Romanian is one of the easier languages ​for winging it, especially if you know some French and Italian. Also, if you use the Google Chrome browser, you can have it translate everything quite accurately.

If you need help getting Astra Trans Carpatic tickets online​ subscribe to my blog to reach me by email or on Telegram, then I can talk you through it.

How much do​es it cost?

Astra Trans Carpatic has a very simple pricing system. Your fare consists of kilometers travelled plus the class of accomodation you want. Tickets always cost the same whenever you buy them.

Pricing is in the Romanian currency, the leu (RON), which at the time of writing (July 2018) exchanges at €1 = 4.66 RON, £1 = 5.27 RON and $1 = 3.96 RON.

Thus Arad-Bucharest in a seat or couchette is 600km second class (88 lei / €18) plus 3.60 lei (​80 cents) for a seat or 45 lei (€10) for a couchette - so altogether €19 sitting up or €28 lying down in a couchette, all the way from Arad to Bucharest.

In a sleeper its is 600 km first class​ plus the ​supplement for a double or single sleeper or a double or single sleeper deluxe (with the en-suite bathroom)​​​. That is 136 lei (€29) for the distance plus 60 lei (€12) for a double, 80 lei (€17) for a double deluxe, 120 lei (€24) for a single or 160 lei (€34) for a single deluxe.

I paid 432 lei (€92) for the double deluxe for my wife and me. The baby went free of charge. I think that is a fantastic deal. My wife said it was the best train she had ever been on.

​I'm glad you ask.

​It was great. The train goes quite slowly, first across the plains to ​Timișoara, then up into the South Carpathian mountains and through Wallachia.

I didn't see much, to be honest, as it was dark and I slept. But ​at times I awoke and peered out the window ​into nameless ​ravines clanking underneath bridges we were ​crossing, before drifting off again to the clatter of the wheels.

The attendant had switched off the air conditioning for the night, so I opened the window and in rushed lush Carpathian air.

Much of Romania's tracks are still screwed rather than welded together, so you spend ​much of the journey immersed in this hypnoti​c ​haze of metallic rumbling that is great for sleeping.

​Astra Trans Carpatic have done something brave in starting up a night train service in this age of budget airlines and ​coaches. The European Union is still very much in love with planes, global warming be damned.

That is why it is so fantastic that there are people setting out to make money with trains, and indeed overnight trains.

Astra Trans Carpatic have a service that is very nice, reasonably priced and well thought out. I ​love their higher-welfare couchettes and sleepers with only four and two berths respectively.

People on their way to Romania from abroad are more likely to use the established Euronights simply because they are more convenient, but those who make the effort to get to Arad are rewarded with a great train service.

There is talk of extending the service to Budapest or even Vienna and I hope ​Astra Trans Carpatic ​take that plunge.​​​