ICE Berlin–Cologne

Races the length of the North German Plain; the dead-straight Hanover–Berlin racetrack, partly laid on old border land, lets ICE 4 sets hold 250 km/h.

The capital’s window on the west opened properly in 1998, when the Hannover–Berlin high-speed line finished reunification’s first great rail project. ICEs cross the Elbe flats and Mittelland canal country, pause at Wolfsburg beneath Volkswagen’s chimney quartet, then run the old Prussian trunk through Westphalia (Bielefeld, Hamm, the Ruhr’s city chain) before the Rhine bends the line into Cologne beneath the cathedral. Four hours that read as a compressed economic history of Germany.

Stations

1. 1 kmBerlin Hauptbahnhof (Tief)
2. 13 kmBerlin-Spandau
3. 181 kmWolfsburg Hauptbahnhof
4. 256 kmHannover Hauptbahnhof
5. 516 kmDuisburg Hauptbahnhof
6. 540 kmDüsseldorf Hauptbahnhof
7. 580 kmKöln Hauptbahnhof

The stations OpenStreetMap lists for this service, in order, with the distance along the line as drawn here. A train may skip some of them.

Along the way

• Elbe marshes and canal country
• Wolfsburg’s Autostadt chimneys
• Porta Westfalica gap
• Ruhr conurbation city chain
• Rhine approach to the Dom

How this line was checked

• Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 9626408 — the same nodes OpenStreetMap holds for this railway, thinned to within under 25 m of them
• Checked against OpenStreetMap: the whole line lies on real track, a median 5 m from it
• Checked against the running timetable via ÖBB Scotty: our line sits under 100 m from the shape of FLX 1322
• Wikipedia has an article for this line
• See for yourself: open this line on the map with OpenStreetMap's own railway drawn underneath it

Questions and answers

How long is the ICE?

The ICE runs 573 km from Berlin to Cologne.

How long does the ICE take?

The fastest scheduled journey is 4 h 8 min for the 573 km. That is an average of 139 km/h end to end. The line's top service speed is 250 km/h.

Who runs the ICE?

DB Fernverkehr, with ICE 4, Class 412.

How old is the ICE?

The line has been in service since 1998. That is the year the atlas dates it from: for a modern brand running over an older railway, it is the railway's date, not the brand's.

How often does the ICE run?

Hourly.

View on the world railway map →

Read more on Wikipedia ↗