Here is a map showing high speed railway connections in Europe. German ICE trains usually peak at 300 km/h on selected tracks while the French TGV can go up to 320 km/h.
> German ICE trains usually peak at 300 km/h on selected tracks
So selected, in fact, that the DB is currently procuring over 300 ICEs limited to 250 km/h, and a grand total of 17 (with an option of up to two more!) that peak at 320 km/h.
I'll call myself lucky if the train manages 180 km/h on my usual routes.
You dropped the small detail that those new ICEs are going to replace IC and EC trains first.
And those usually run below 250 km/h.
And only in a later phase they are going to replace ICE 1 and ICE 2 trains, which can only go 280 km/h.. so not a huge downgrade.
They are not a replacement for those trains running fast services (with legs with 300 km/h in them).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_railway_line#/media...
There is a huge project upgrading existing railway tracks throughout Germany to make it possible getting from Berlin to Munich in under 4h by 2017.
http://www.vde8.de/---_site.project..ls_dir._likecms.html