Trans-Europe Express

Kling Klang and EMI released it in April 1977 as the lead single from the album. The long album version runs 13 minutes 44 seconds and is split into two parts in the United States or three in West Germany. Hütter wrote the music and he and Emil Schult wrote the lyrics, which mention Station to Station and meeting Iggy Pop and David Bowie. Rolling Stone heard the clacking of a train in the way the title melody leads into Metal on Metal, turning into a Morse code synth riff. Karl Bartos said the band went to railway bridges to hear what trains actually sound like and changed the rhythm a little because a real train could not be danced to. He also said he got no credit for the song.

Bartos recalled seeing people in New York making loops of Metal on Metal and breakdancing to them. In 1982 Afrika Bambaataa and the Soul Sonic Force used its melody on Planet Rock, produced by Arthur Baker. The use of Kraftwerk's music was not cleared, and Tommy Boy's Tom Silverman agreed to pay the band a dollar for every record sold. The single reached number 67 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 10 in Germany, and did not chart in Britain. The Guardian put it first in its 2020 list of the band's 30 greatest songs, Billboard put it first in its ten best, and Rolling Stone ranked it 304th in its 2021 list.

Live

An Internet Archive listing says Kraftwerk used a concert at the Paradiso in Amsterdam on 11 September 1976 to debut the song. It was in the set at the Teatro Apollo in Florence on 19 May 1981, played with The Hall of Mirrors and Les Mannequins.