High-speed route
ICE
Berlin → Frankfurt · Germany
ICE in pictures
Photographs by their authors, hosted on Wikimedia Commons · tap through for the licence
- Distance
- 545 km
- Fastest time
- 3 h 56 min
- Average speed
- 139 km/h
- Top speed
- 280 km/h
- Operator
- DB Fernverkehr
- Train
- ICE 3 Velaro D
- Countries
- Germany
- In service since
- 1991
- Runs
- hourly (Sprinters + standard ICEs)
Figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
Joins the political and banking capitals via Kassel and the Fulda gap, the Velaro D holding 250 km/h over the wooded ridges of northern Hesse.
The capital-to-capital-of-money run threads the Sprinter philosophy: leave on the hour, skip almost everything, arrive under four hours later beside the Main. The route crosses the old inner-German border country near the Harz foothills, drops through Göttingen and the tunnels of the 1991 high-speed line, and passes Fulda’s monastery town before the Frankfurt towers stack up ahead. Ordinary ICEs fill the gaps with more stops; the Sprinters carry the laptops.
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 7797053 — 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 7 m from it
- The operator publishes this line's timetable: Deutsche Bahn — a place to look it up, not a check of our drawing
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
Along the way
- Brandenburg and Elbe flats
- Old border country near the Harz edge
- Göttingen curve
- Fulda monastery town
- Main plain arrival
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Planning this trip? Journey time & direct trains: Berlin → Frankfurt · Frankfurt → Berlin.