For the latest stop in our series exploring the many strange and wonderful trade fairs at Messe Berlin, we went to InnoTrans — and found an industry that appears to be having a genuinely good time.

You can usually tell how an industry is doing within the first ten minutes of entering its trade fair.

Sometimes the mood is tense. People stand around waiting for somebody important to appear. Smiles are switched on when a potential customer approaches and switched off again as soon as they leave. Everyone is wearing expensive shoes and quietly checking whether the competition’s stand is bigger.

InnoTrans is not like that.

People here seem genuinely happy. Excited, even. There is sunshine, there are trains and there are thousands of people who really, really want to talk about both. Outside, the Summer Garden feels less like part of a business convention and more like a small festival where everybody happens to have a lanyard.

But first: what actually is InnoTrans?

InnoTrans is the world’s leading trade fair for transport technology, held every two years here in Berlin. This year it celebrated its 30th anniversary and became the biggest edition yet: 3,190 exhibitors from 59 countries, 175,591 trade visitors and 180 world premieres spread across all 42 halls, plus the outdoor and track areas.

In other words, it is where the people who design, build, sell, maintain and buy the world’s trains come to show each other what happens next.

That includes the glamorous things — new underground trains, giant screens and futuristic interiors — but also the less Instagrammable machinery that keeps tracks from falling apart. InnoTrans contains entire worlds of technology most passengers will never notice unless they stop working.

And, despite the scale, the atmosphere is surprisingly relaxed. Talking to exhibitors, you quickly understand why. Several people told me that their order books are already full until 2032.

That will put anybody in a good mood.

Let’s hope Berlin’s public-transport customers start feeling some of that optimism before then.

Trains people queue to sit inside

The most charmingly absurd part of InnoTrans is watching grown adults line up to enter a train that is not going anywhere.

Then they get inside and sit down.

That’s it. They sit in the seats. They look at the handrails. They study the displays. Some remain seated for quite a while, enjoying perhaps the only train journey of their week guaranteed not to be delayed.

There was a proper queue to board the Chinese CRRC Vellink vehicle. Inside, it looked more like a spaceship than the public transport many of us use every morning: enormous displays, softly glowing green lights and enough technology to make your current U-Bahn carriage feel like it was excavated rather than manufactured.

I noticed fewer visitors from Asia than I had expected at such an international fair — a completely unscientific impression based only on the corners I happened to walk through. But Asian manufacturers and exhibitors certainly commanded attention. The crowds around the Chinese train and the very popular Korean food spread made that clear enough.

The Piccadilly line, temporarily in Berlin

One of the strangest pleasures was stepping into London’s future without leaving Charlottenburg.

Siemens Mobility and Transport for London brought the new Inspiro train for the Piccadilly line to InnoTrans. It is part of a 94-train order and, compared with the Tube trains many Londoners know, feels extremely bright, open and new. For a short while, Berlin had a piece of the London Underground sitting under its sun.

Naturally, people got on and sat down.

Nobody had anywhere to go. Nobody needed to get off. Nobody was being crushed into a stranger’s armpit at King’s Cross. Maybe this is the ideal form of public transport.

Elsewhere, the engineering became gloriously incomprehensible. One giant blue machine was called the Stopfroboter 4.0, which sounds less like track-maintenance equipment and more like a villain from a children’s television programme. It was magnificent.

Schinken Schorsch and the little festival

A serious transport fair still needs lunch, and the Summer Garden had understood the assignment.

Food trucks, beer, sunshine, people sitting at long tables and an atmosphere hovering somewhere between industry networking and a very organised mini-festival. The star, at least in name, was Schinken Schorsch, serving a sandwich substantial enough to require its own transport infrastructure.

This is perhaps what makes InnoTrans so enjoyable even if you cannot explain the difference between a bogie and a ballast regulator. The people here care. They are proud of the things they build. They want you to climb aboard, press the buttons, inspect the seats and understand why a particular handrail represents the future.

For one day, their enthusiasm is infectious.

And now, a small message to Berlin

Then you leave the fair.

International guests may spend only a few hours in the city. They arrive at Messe Berlin, see one small slice of Germany and leave again. And what do we show them?

Escalators that do not work. S-Bahn connections that are not running properly. An underpass covered in graffiti, visibly neglected and used as shelter by people whom the city has failed — a place smelling so bad that everybody simply walks faster to leave it quicker.

Inside the Messe, transport companies are presenting the future. Their order books are full until 2032. People queue happily to sit inside trains that do not even move.

Outside, Berlin struggles to make the escalator work.

InnoTrans 2026 took place at Messe Berlin from 22–25 September 2026. The next InnoTrans is scheduled for 2028. Find more information at innotrans.de.