The Metropolitan was a premium train service operated by Deutsche Bahn AG between Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

 and Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

 in Germany.

The service used specially built coaches, travelled at a maximum speed of 220 km/h and only called at the central stations of Cologne Hauptbahnhof, Düsseldorf Hauptbahnhof

Düsseldorf Hauptbahnhof

is the Hauptbahnhof for the city of Düsseldorf in Germany, state capital of North Rhine-Westphalia.-History:The station was opened on 1 October 1891 opened as Düsseldorf Central Station...

, Essen Hauptbahnhof

Essen Hauptbahnhof

is the Hauptbahnhof for the city of Essen in western Germany. It is situated south of the old town centre, next to the A 40 motorway.It was opened in 1862 by the Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn...

 and Hamburg Hauptbahnhof

Hamburg Hauptbahnhof

is the Hauptbahnhof for the German city of Hamburg. It was opened in 1906 to replace 4 terminal stations. Hamburg Hauptbahnhof is operated by DB Station&Service...

, with a total travel time of 3 hours 29 minutes.

The service was discontinued in December 2004 due to low profitability.

See also

• Train categories in Europe
  Train categories in Europe
  Railway companies in Europe assign their trains to different categories or train types depending on their role. Passenger trains may be broadly split into long-distance and local trains; the latter having average journey times of under an hour and a range of less than 50 kilometres. Goods trains...