High-speed route
ICE Brussels–Cologne
Brussels → Cologne · Belgium · Germany
The high-speed link binding Belgium to the Rhineland: past Liège’s soaring Calatrava station and over the language border at Aachen, Charlemagne’s capital, at 300 km/h.
- Distance
- 210 km
- Fastest time
- 1 h 47 min
- Average speed
- 118 km/h
- Top speed
- 300 km/h
Stations
- 0 kmBruxelles-Midi - Brussel-Zuid +10
- 3 kmBruxelles-Nord - Brussel-Noord +8
- 104 kmLiège-Guillemins +6
- 153 kmAachen Hauptbahnhof +1
- 222 kmKöln Hauptbahnhof +7
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. A +N after a station: N other routes on this map stop or end there, and the map draws it as a station where lines meet.
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 1398522: 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 4 m from it
- Checked against the running timetable via ÖBB Scotty: our line sits under 100 m from the shape of ICE 315
- 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 210 km from Brussels to Cologne. It runs through Belgium and Germany.
How long does the ICE take?
The fastest scheduled journey is 1 h 47 min for the 210 km. That is an average of 118 km/h end to end. The line's top service speed is 300 km/h.
Who runs the ICE?
Deutsche Bahn, with ICE 3.
How old is the ICE?
The line has been in service since 2002. 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.
More high-speed routes
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Wikipedia ↗ - TGV inOui
France’s original 1981 LGV forms the first leg; today the TGV holds 320 km/h nearly all the way to the Mediterranean.
Wikipedia ↗ - AVE
Scheduled at 300 km/h, this line flipped one of the world’s busiest air routes to rail.
Wikipedia ↗ - AVE
Spain’s first AVE, built for Expo ’92 in standard gauge, the line that reset Spanish railways.
Wikipedia ↗
More train routes in Belgium · Germany.
Planning this trip? Journey time & direct trains: Brussels → Cologne · Cologne → Brussels.