ICE Intercity Express Lines in Operation

ICE Intercity Express - D

ICE Lines in Operation

Line	Section Stations	Length		Top Speed	Opened	Rolling Stock
		km	mi
Hanover-Würzburg high-speed railway		327	203	280 km/h	1991
Mannheim-Stuttgart high-speed railway		99	62	280 km/h	9 May 1991
Hanover-Berlin high-speed railway		258	160	250 km/h	15 September 1998
Cologne-Frankfurt high-speed rail line		180	110	300 km/h	30 May 1999
Cologne-Aachen high-speed railway		70	43	250 km/h	May 2002
Nuremberg-Munich high-speed railway		170.8	106.1	300 km/h	2 September 2006
Erfurt-Leipzig/Halle high-speed railway		123	77	300 km/h	9 December 2015
Nuremberg-Erfurt high-speed railway		107	66	300 km/h	10 December 2017
Wendlingen-Ulm high-speed railway		59.575	37.018	250 km/h	9 December 2022

ICE Lines Not Yet Completed

Karlsruhe-Basel high-speed railway (new line, 250 km/h, incomplete, sections under construction)
Stuttgart-Wendlingen high-speed railway (new line, 250 km/h, under construction)
Vogelfluglinie (partially new line, partially being upgraded)
Lübeck-Hamburg railway (German part, to be upgraded to reach 200 km/h)
Lübeck-Puttgarden railway (German part, to be electrified to reach 200 km/h up from the current 160 km/h, under construction)
Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link (tunnel part, will replace the Rødby-Puttgarden ferry, 200 km/h, under construction, completion expected in 2028)
Sydbanen (Danish part, new tracks to be laid by 2021, to be electrified to reach 200 km/h by 2024, under construction)
Copenhagen-Ringsted Line (Danish part, opened on 31 May 2019, currently operating at 180 km/h, upgrading to 250 km/h in 2023)

ICE Lines Planned

Frankfurt-Mannheim high-speed railway (new line, 300 km/h, in planning)
Hanau-Gelnhausen high-speed railway (new line, 300 km/h, in planning)
Hanover-Bielefeld high-speed railway (new line, 300 km/h, in planning)
Nuremberg-Würzburg high-speed railway (new line, 300 km/h, in planning)
Hanover-Hamburg high-speed railway/Hanover-Bremen high-speed railway (Y-shaped, partially new line, 160 and 300 km/h on new sections, 160 km/h on a existing section, in planning)
Fulda-Eisenach high-speed railway 250 km/h 2030 52 km
Fulda-Frankfurt (parallel new) high-speed railway 250 km/h 2035 80 km
Ostermünchen-Brannenburg-Austrian border high-speed railway.

ICE Route Planning and Network Layout

The ICE system is a polycentric network. Connections are offered in either 30-minute, hourly or bi-hourly intervals. Furthermore, additional services run during peak times, and some services call at lesser stations during off-peak times.

Unlike the French TGV or the Japanese Shinkansen systems, the vehicles, tracks and operations were not designed as an integrated whole; rather, the ICE system has been integrated into Germany's pre-existing system of railway lines instead. One of the effects of this is that the ICE 3 trains can reach a speed of 300 km/h (186 mph) only on some stretches of line and cannot currently reach their maximum allowed speed of 330 km/h on German railway lines (though a speed of 320 km/h is reached by ICE 3 in France).

The line most heavily utilised by ICE trains is the Mannheim-Frankfurt railway between Frankfurt and Mannheim due to the bundling of many ICE lines in that region. When considering all traffic (freight, local and long-distance passenger), the busiest line carrying ICE traffic is the Munich-Augsburg line, carrying about 300 trains per day.

ICE North-South Connections

The network's main backbone consists of six north-south lines:

1. from Hamburg-Altona via Hamburg, Hannover, Kassel, Fulda, Frankfurt, Mannheim, Karlsruhe and Freiburg to Basel (line 20) or continuing from Mannheim to Stuttgart (line 22)
2. from Hamburg-Altona and Hamburg and from Bremen to Hannover (where portions are joined) and via Kassel, Fulda and Würzburg to Nuremberg and either via Ingolstadt or via Donauwörth and Augsburg to Munich (line 25)
3. from Hamburg-Altona via Hamburg, Berlin-Spandau, Berlin, Berlin Südkreuz, Leipzig or Halle, Erfurt to Nuremberg and via Augsburg or Ingolstadt to Munich (lines 18, 28 and 29) or continuing from Erfurt via Fulda, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Ulm and Augsburg to Munich (line 11)
4. from Berlin via Berlin-Spandau, Braunschweig, Kassel, Fulda, Frankfurt, Mannheim, Karlsruhe and Freiburg to Basel (line 12) or via Fulda and Frankfurt Süd to Frankfurt Airport (line 13)
5. from Amsterdam or Dortmund via Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Cologne and Frankfurt Airport to Mannheim and either via Karlsruhe and Freiburg to Basel (line 43) or via Stuttgart, Ulm and Augsburg to Munich (line 42)
6. from Essen via Cologne, Frankfurt, Würzburg, Nuremberg and Ingolstadt to Munich (line 41)

(Also applies to trains in the opposite directions, taken from 2019 network map)

ICE East-West Connections

Furthermore, the network has two main east-west thoroughfares:

from Berlin Gesundbrunnen via Berlin, Hannover, Bielefeld to Hamm (where train portions are split) and continuing either via Dortmund, Essen, Duisburg and Düsseldorf to Cologne/Bonn Airport or via Hagen and Wuppertal to Cologne (10)
from Dresden via Leipzig, Erfurt, Fulda, Frankfurt, Frankfurt Airport and Mainz to Wiesbaden (50)

(Also applies to trains in the opposite directions, taken from 2019 network map)

ICE German Branch Lines

Some train lines extend past the core network and branch off to serve the following connections:

from Berlin to Rostock (line 28, individual services)
from Berlin to Stralsund (line 28, individual services)
from Hamburg to Lübeck (line 25, individual services)
from Hamburg to Kiel (lines 20, 22, 28 and 31, individual services)
from Bremen to Oldenburg (lines 10, 22 and 25, individual services)
from Leipzig via Hanover to Cologne (line 50, individual services)
from Leipzig via Kassel to Düsseldorf (line 50, individual services)
from Würzburg via Kassel to Essen (line 41, individual services)
from Munich to Garmisch-Partenkirchen (lines 25, 28 and 41, individual services)
from Nuremberg via Regensburg to Passau (line 91, every two hours)

(Also applies to trains in the opposite directions)

ICE Overview

Locale: Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland and France. Formerly Denmark.
Dates of Operation: 1985-present
Track Gauge: 1,435mm Standard gauge

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