Deutsche Bahn’s high-speed trains on the Hamburg‑to‑Berlin corridor are now traveling slower than they did before the recent months‑long shutdown. According to the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” (Friday edition), the fastest ICE will now cover the route in 107 minutes, compared with 103 minutes during the longest period it previously operated at that pace.
Years earlier, the fastest service took 103 minutes. Just before the €2.2 billion corridor overhaul, the company increased the timetable by two minutes in 2025, and the post‑construction timetable adds another two minutes. Deutsche Bahn initially denied the changes, but upon the paper’s inquiry, it conceded the longer journey times.
In the early 2000s, under former chief executive Hartmut Mehdorn, the line was upgraded from 160 to 230 km/h at a cost of about €650 million. The promise was a 90‑minute journey; soon after, the travel time was raised first to 93 minutes and then to 95 minutes, indicating that the initial reserves were insufficient.
When the German government answered a Green‑party parliamentary question in 2021, it said that “according to DB AG, the minimum travel time is 1 hour 35 minutes”. The extension, it explained, was largely “due to the condition of the line (age and wear) and the resulting construction cost escalations”.
After the renovation, that reason is no longer cited. A Deutsche Bahn spokesperson clarified that the longer timetable is “not due to the state of the infrastructure after the corridor renovation, but to a complex scheduling system”. The spokesman added that both Hamburg and Berlin hubs are congested, the network is crowded with many local services, and the condition of surrounding tracks also influences planning.
Professor Christian Böttger of the Academy of Technology and Economics in Berlin calls the shifting explanations “preparatory”. “The changing excuses from Deutsche Bahn are alarming. The current justification is that the route is overloaded rather than dilapidated” he remarks. “This is disappointing for passengers. In the future, I wish the company-and the government-were more honest”.