Railway network

The Munich Metropolitan Region has a long history of railway service. In 1837 the first railway line was opened  from Munich to Augsburg. Nowadays, Munich is an important hub in the European railway network. Two transeuropean long-distance lines, Berlin-Munich-Rome and Paris-Munich-Budapest, cross each other in Munich. The route from Munich via Ingolstadt to Nuremberg was already completed for high-speed trains with more than 300 km/h. The high-speed lines in the direction of Stuttgart-Paris on the one hand and Vienna-Budapest on the other are partially under construction or still in planning. Completion will take many years.

The Munich Main Station, with more than 350,000 passengers a day, is the second largest station in Germany. The public transport goes far into the munich metropolitan region. The Munich suburban train system reaches more than 50 km into the hinterland. in 2010     it was elected as the best public transport system in Europe. A second tunnel under the city center of Munich will even more increase the capacity for trains in the future.

Also in freight transport by rail, Munich is an important logistics center. The track in direction of the Swiss Gotthard Base Tunnel is also currently being upgraded to increase capacity. If the Brenner base tunnel is completed in 2025, a second major rail link by the Alps assigns the Munich Metropolitan Region a key position in the North-South freight traffic.