Der Spiegel in English: Molasses-speed rail

International Spiegel (English) has today a lengthy article contrasting the speeds in Germany and in France of the new ICE services (Paris-Stuttgart, and Paris-Frankfurt).
Link is here
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Links to magazine articles can change within a few days, so this link may not last long. The article is too long to cut and paste into a post, but it gives much background of history and politics.
Joe McMahon

link is still working as of now , thanks for the interesting article

That's an opinion piece, not an article per se.

Herr Wüst makes a lot of unsourced claims, I see. He's got an agenda. There are links to several other pieces he's written where he attacks the high-speed trains, all without sufficient proof for his rants. He also seems to require unrealistic expectations (nobody suggested that HSR ought to run in tropical storm-force winds, and he lambasts DE for canceling trains due to hurricane-force winds in this op-ed of his). I wouldn't take the guy seriously; he's got a chip on his shoulder.

Irish Chieftain wrote:That's an opinion piece, not an article per se.

Herr Wüst makes a lot of unsourced claims, I see. He's got an agenda. There are links to several other pieces he's written where he attacks the high-speed trains, all without sufficient proof for his rants. He also seems to require unrealistic expectations (nobody suggested that HSR ought to run in tropical storm-force winds, and he lambasts DE for canceling trains due to hurricane-force winds in this op-ed of his). I wouldn't take the guy seriously; he's got a chip on his shoulder.

Three countries with different policies on fast trains: Germany, France and Britain. France has large amounts of open country with large distances between big cities. They have gone for very fast trains with few stops (and run down everything else - something not always mentioned). Germany has more centres of industry and population and so needs more stops. They have built fewer new lines and have upgraded old routes more (neubaustrecke and aufbaustrecke).
Britain has a very dense settlement pattern and so needs far more stops. Policy here has concentrated on upgrading 19th century routes. Building a new route would be more difficult than in either Germany or France as there is so much settlement and so little open country. That does raise the land cost of building a new route.