After a seemingly unending period of construction, part of the new InterCity Express train line that will eventually connect Berlin to Munich via Erfurt is finally finished! Now you can travel from Erfurt to Leipzig in less than an hour, and by the end of 2017, the travel time from Berlin to Munich is only going to be four hours, which is two hours less than it was when I first visited Germany in 2012.

You can watch a German news video about the event here.
This project is part of German Unity Transport Project 8, whose website is in both German and English. In addition, the new train line is part of a wider European Union effort to increase ease of transit within Europe.

When I was living in Erfurt, the train station had to be closed on holidays several times in order to get the part of the tracks immediately surrounding the train station put in place. This led to an interesting experience - Deutsche Bahn (the train company) had to bus people from Erfurt to Weimar or Erfurt East in order to catch trains from these smaller stations. The buses were quite crowded, which made for a memorable trip.

It's an exciting time for Erfurt. Once finished, the city will finally be on the line between Munich and Berlin. Up until now, that route passed through the smaller university town of Jena instead. This makes it a much more enticing spot for businesses since it will finally have great train connections to match its regional airport, which offers flights to London and Majorca, and the large amount of industrial space that is available on the city's outskirts.

Erfurt's train station, September 2013