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A startup in Germany is making a bid to compete with the national rail service.
Billing themselves as the world's first crowd-funded train line, they've had more than twenty five thousand passengers in their first month.
Ira Spitzer reports from Berlin
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VO#1 A German startup company is hoping these passengers are getting on board with the next big thing.The new train line 'Locomore' is hoping to compete with the Deutsche Bahn, the country's national rail service, which controls about ninety nine percent of long distance train travel. One of their main selling points is their lower fares. Florian Bischhof is riding the train from Berlin to Stuttgart.
SOT, Florian Bischhof, Passenger
"Basically, the reason I travel with Locomore is that it's cheaper than the Deutsche Bahn. As a student, the prices are unbeatable."
VO#2 Trains have lost ground in recent years though to both long distance busses and low-cost airlines. Still, for many, the comfort and convenience of train travel is hard to beat. Here's Derek Ladewig, Locomore's CEO.
SOT, Derek Ladewig, Locomore CEO
"I really like traveling long distance by train and I think it you ld be really great if the market share for train travelling long distance would be high er and could grow. So it's a mix between business opportunities and doing something which will really make sense."
VO#3 The company still has a long way to go. Right now Locomore has just one train. It leaves Stuttgart in Southern Germany every morning, comes to Berlin, and then heads back to Stuttgart in the afternoon. That trip takes about six and a half hours, an hour longer than the traditional service But with tickets as cheap as twenty two euros, they're hoping customers will accept the scheduling limitations.
VO#4 Can they be profitable though, doing something others before them have tried and failed at? Karl-Peter Naumann of rail passengers' association Pro Bahn thinks they have a shot.
SOT, Karl-Peter Naumann, Pro Bahn
"I think a large enterprise can never focus on individual groups the way a small business is able to."
VO#5 In their first four weeks, Locomore had more than 25,000 riders. The company said it needs to sell about half its seats on average to expand to a second train. Ira Spitzer, Berlin.
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