- For the Kraftwerk album, see Trans-Europe Express (album)
Trans Europe Express
Trans Europe Express is a former international train network in Europe.
Origin
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 a later date.
Initially, the system was a completely dieselised network. Because of the many different kinds of eletrical specifications (voltages and current types - alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC) 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.
Modification of Service
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.
Growth
The network grew in the course of the years, adding three more countries: Spain (RENFE), Denmark (DSB) and Austria (ÖBB) until its height in 1974. But of these three only RENFE became a TEE member, the other two countries had TEE's running through them but the rail administrations never were members. From that time more and more former TEE trains got replaced by other trains giving the same kind of service but allowing also 2nd class. In 1979 DB completely restructured the network with the coming of the new national IC services, resulting in succesively less TEE services and more IC services in the course of time.
The End
By 1984 most services were abandoned, leaving only some national services in (mostly) Italy and France and a very few international services. Most were replaced by the at that time new international intercity network that provided both 1st and 2nd class.
