Never a dull moment in Hamburg Altona! When I was heading for breakfast (at a great place called Jools Cafe) I stumbled about a pre-production sample of the next generation ICE sitting at one of the platform tracks just ready to depart. Those trains are being tested extensively by Deutsche Bahn right now. If all goes well, the first units will enter passenger service as class 412 in December 2017. Once in operation the ICE4 train sets are supposed to replace remaining long distance locomotive hauled compositions as well as first and second generation ICEs later on.