[one very bored guy]

Originally Posted by Fabb

France inaugurates high-speed rail link to Germany, Switzerland

The Associated Press
Thursday, March 15, 2007

PARIS: French officials inaugurated a new high-speed train link Thursday which will cut travel time between Paris and more than a dozen cities in Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland and northeast France.

President Jacques Chirac, hosting a lunch with contractors and other partners in the project, hailed a "major industrial success" with the new line for France's celebrated TGV high-speed trains.

Thursday's ceremony signaled an end to work on the line, though engineers will continue tests until June 10, when commercial services are expected to begin.

The 300-kilometer (186-mile) line will nearly halve the railway travel time between Paris and Strasbourg near the German border, to 2 hours 20 minutes, from 3 hours 50 minutes, railway officials said.

The line also will cut travel times between Paris and Luxembourg, the Swiss cities of Basel and Zurich, as well as Munich and Frankfurt in Germany.

"With this new line, France shows it is, and wants to, remain the world's top country for high speed rail," Chirac said.

The five-year project cost €3.13 billion (US$4.12 billion), funded by 22 partners that included the French and Luxembourg governments, the European Union, as well as train operators and French regions.

Trains on the line are expected to travel at speeds of up to 320 kilometers per hour (199 miles per hour), compared to a maximum of 300 kph (186 mph) for current TGV trains.

Thanks for the update Fabb. I wonder when db.de will update their website, as I checked the best runs between Frankfurt and Strasbourg (and Paris) a few months from now, and although it included the TGV connection to Strasbourg, it still required a change at Karlsruhe. In fact, it takes 2hr 06min just to get to Strasbourg from Frankfurt, nearly as long in time as the Paris to Strasbourg despite being much closer (I can drive faster than that).