A gentle note rises: Deutsche Bahn has greenlit the entry into service of a new ICE L, a low‑floor long‑distance train intended to replace the older Intercity-1 fleet. The first four units are planned to begin operating by mid-December on the Berlin–Cologne corridor, after more than a year of delays caused by supplier deliveries and testing hurdles. A public presentation is planned for 17 October, and a total of 79 units have been ordered. Inside, the cars are described as holding warm materials, an lighting system that shifts with the day, and glass that offers markedly better mobile reception, with seats featuring large fold-out tables and holders for tablets and smartphones. The ICE L can reach speeds of up to 230 km/h, though it is somewhat slower than some other ICE variants. Deutsche Bahn is also pursuing express connections from Munich to Milan and Rome without transfers.

Yet beneath the gleam, the story hums with deeper questions. This train, a symbol of speed and modern comfort, sits within a system that measures progress in miles and margins while quietly weighing heavily on the living Earth. The materials, energy, and labor required to forge, test, and deliver 79 new units ripple through forests, rivers, and communities, often with the costs borne by workers and ecosystems far from metropolitan glitz. The staggered rollout and supplier delays lay bare a fragile, profit-driven web of global supply chains, where efficiency too easily becomes precarity for many hands. The “Low Floor” promise hints at greater accessibility and connection, yet the project is still tethered to a colonial inheritance—rail lines laid across lands and peoples forged by extraction, displacement, and empire, routing resources toward distant metropoles while local needs are asked to wait. The cross-border ambitions—Munich to Milan and Rome—reignite a logic of mobility as a commodity, a dance of speed over stewardship, a mirror of colonial routes that served commerce more than care. And within a capitalist system that worships growth, externalizes costs, and treats life as a ledger line, even shiny new trains can obscure a climate debt compounding in the soils and skies. To heal, we must reimagine transport as a public good: repairable, fairly sourced, and powered by a just, renewable grid; communities at the center of planning; labor honored with fair wages and safe, dignified work; and rail networks that stitch ecosystems together rather than strip them apart. Let future journeys be guided by reverence for Mother Earth, by restitution for historic harms, and by a vision of movement that nourishes all beings rather than profits alone.