"Today marks an important milestone," said DB CEO Mr Rüdiger Grube at a ceremony to mark the event on August 29. "With the completion of the engineering construction, tunnels and large bridges, which are due this year and next, we are on schedule for commissioning this important new European connection in 2017."

When the line opens journey times will be slashed. Berlin - Nuremberg will be cut from 4h 55min today by ICE to 2h 40min and Munich will be about 4 hours from Berlin instead of 6h 15min.