When I was in high school, my German teacher was able to be distracted by asking him about the trains in Germany. He usually spent the summer vacation in Germany and was quite a train fan. On days when we were supposed to have a quiz or some in-class assignment, getting him to talk about the trains in Germany usually meant that the test was postponed.

My high school German teacher might never stop talking if he were around to ride the train over here today. This past weekend I was in Munich to conduct a worship service on the Passover and the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. I took the train down and back from Bonn, or more precisely, Siegburg-Bonn, which is where the new ICE ("InterCity") train station is.

According to the pamphlet you are given as a passenger on the train, the distance between Siegburg-Bonn and the main station in Munich is 568 km, or 355 miles. The scheduled length of the trip is 4 hours and 18 minutes, but according to the schedule 21 minutes of that time is spent at six stops the train makes along the way. So the actual travel time is just under 4 hours, making the average speed about 89 mph.

In reality the speed varies quite a bit, because only the stretch of track between Siegburg and Stuttgart is built to accommodate the 3rd generation ICE train. Considering acceleration when leaving a station and slowing down when approaching one, the train is really flying along the Siegburg to Stuttgart portion of the trip. At one point I glanced up from my laptop to see the speed panel showing 277 km (173 mph), which isn't too bad. Most ICE3 trains on this route have a 220 volt socket at your seat, so I made good use of the time in entering corrections for our new booklet "The United States in Prophecy". Sure beats driving on the Autobahn!

The individual distances and travel times look like this:

Siegburg-Bonn to Frankfurt airport: 143 km » 39 minutes
Frankfurt airport to Mannheim: 77 km » 30 minutes
Mannheim to Stuttgart: 107 km » 35 minutes
Stuttgart to Ulm: 93 km » 54 minutes
Ulm to Augsburg: 86 km » 41 minutes
Augsburg to Munich: 62 km » 38 minutes