The Hamburg Koln Express has celebrated its first six months of operations with an on-board concert.
On January 23 the ‘Fastest Musical Festival in Germany’ took place during the train trip from Cologne to Hamburg.
Various bands and solo artists, including Bryan Kessler, Timid Tiger and Hufschlag and Braun played. The Hamburg Koln Express provides further good news for open access campaigners in Europe. HKX has carried almost 150,000 passengers in its first six months.
Success is down to appealing to the youth market says Chief Executive, Eva Kreienkamp. ‘We have a particularly high percentage of young people between the ages of 18 to 29, who are increasingly doing without their own car and demonstrating a different, more selective mobility behaviour, which means they are very open to the railway service’, said Kreienkamp.
‘We’re very happy about that. And also about the approximately 50% of women on board, showing us that we have been able to expand the market for train travel.’
Hamburg-Köln-Express GmbH (HKX) is the first private rail transport operator in Germany that exclusively operates long-distance passenger service on the tracks.
The majority shareholder of HKX GmbH is Railroad Development Corporation (RDC) Deutschland.
