Originally Posted by Reindeerflame
The DB website says 2007 for the first improvements to be ready for Paris-Frankfurt, offering travel times of under 4 hours:
"Ziel ist, ab 2007 auf der Strecke Paris–Ostfrankreich–Frankfurt/Stuttgart eine direkte schnelle Schienenverbindung von unter vier Stunden anzubieten."
This is also what various German railfan magazines have said. The line is basically a new, high-speed railroad from outside Paris to short of Strasbourg, with branches to various smaller French towns, Luxembourg, Frankfurt, Strasbourg/Suttgart and Mulhouse/Basel. I don't know whether all the branches will be in opreation for high-speed trains next year. Questions have arisen on why the Stuttgart trains won't be extended to Munich, the exact routing and stops on the Frankfurt line and whether this means the demise of the "Orient Express" (Paris-Vienna overnight train). There's als a question on varying prices for using the TGV and the ICE train. Thalys (a TGV derivative), for instance, charges 1.60 Euro more on Cologne-Brussels than ICE does, even though both are high-speed services. What does this mean for competition?