Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: Class 403

This was that evening, after I had taken the Eurostar to Brussels, and the ICE to Koln. This wasn't my train, but I wanted to try this pan shot anyway. I like to think I got lucky.

Koln Hbf sees a lot of ICE traffic. This appears to have been a Class 403 ICE, also called a Velaro. Built by Seimens from 1999 to (officially, at least) 2010, when it was superseded by the Class 407. In the interim, a multi-current version, the Class 406, was also produced. All of these trainsets have been very fast. They were perhaps the first ever trains designed to cruise at 330Km/h, or 205 m.p.h. On speed tests in 2006, a Class 406 achieved a top speed of 407.6 Km/h, or 250.8 m.p.h., which wasn't a world speed record for a train, but a world record for an unmodified production train. The original Class 403 set a speed record for the class of 368 Km/h, or 228.66 m.p.h., in 1999 (to the best of my knowledge, as it was on the original tests).

Here's one of the newer Classes of ICE introduced around the time of my first visit to Germany in 1998. At the time, the Class were still in testing, but now they have been in service for many years. Although there isn't a high-speed line in Germany yet that can accommodate their full 330Km/h (205 m.p.h.) cruising speed, they still get to run quite fast, up to at least 250Km/h on most high-speed lines.