>>1300986>ride qualityI've never been on an uncomfortable European HSR train ride though. At worst, maybe some IC train on a branch line, but that was more than fine.
>average speedThis depends on the line and route. Average speeds for many ICE lines are pretty low, because a lot of ICE trains start in one city, go along an upgraded line to another city and then feed onto a 300-320 km/h stretch before reaching another city and then back onto higher speed lines.
Some TGV lines go from Paris onto the LGV until the train reaches the end of the LGV and onto the slower legacy lines to reach the end destination.
But between 2 major cities, the ICE and TGV will have a short journey time. Examples include the major corridors between Cologne and Frankfurt, Hamburg and Berlin, Hannover and Berlin, Munich and Nuremberg, Nuremberg and Erfurt and I think one other section.
France can be somewhat comparable with the many major LGV lines which the TGV services use between some of the major urban centres from Paris.
