The ''Van Beethoven'' was an international train linking the Dutch capital

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

and the West German capital

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...

. The train was named after the Bonn-born composer

Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classic ...

. The ''Van Beethoven'' was the successor of the '' TEE Rhein–Main'' on the same route and schedule. The route of the ''Rhein–Main'' was shortened to Amsterdam - Bonn in the autumn of 1971, thus ending the relation with the

Main Main may refer to: Geography * Main River (disambiguation) **Most commonly the Main (river) in Germany * Main, Iran, a village in Fars Province *"Spanish Main", the Caribbean coasts of mainland Spanish territories in the 16th and 17th centuries ...

eventually resulting in renaming the TEE to ''Van Beethoven''. Travellers wanting to go to

Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

in the evening could proceed from Bonn using the TEE Saphir arriving in Frankfurt eight minutes later than the former ''Rhein-Main''. On request of German members of parliament the route was extended to Nürnberg in 1976, resulting in an arrival around 1:30 a.m. In 1978, the

Deutsche Bundesbahn The Deutsche Bundesbahn or DB (German Federal Railway) was formed as the state railway of the newly established Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) on 7 September 1949 as a successor of the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft (DRG). The DB remaine ...

decided to reinstate the Amsterdam Frankfurt service with timed connections to Nürnberg arriving at a decent time (23:58). On 26 May 1979, the ''Van Beethoven'' was converted in a two-class InterCity. The ''Van Beethoven'' was continued as international service until 1983 and afterwards served several different routes in Germany until the end of 2002. La Légende des TEE p. 328.

References

Works cited

* * * {{Trans Europ Express trains International named passenger trains Named passenger trains of Germany Named passenger trains of the Netherlands Trans Europ Express Railway services introduced in 1973