] 
 ** There's nothing misleading about it, and the article's analysis is superficial at best. The Acela is at the low end of high-speed, but it's still high-speed by the definition that matters. The Northeast Regional is not high-speed and is no more relevant to this discussion than any of the slower IC trains on the Berlin-Hamburg route. The Wired article isn't particularly rigorous and probably shouldn't be used as a source at all. It doesn't tell us which dates it booked for, nor which fare brackets, nor which class. I have done similar test bookings for American and German city-pairs and come up with different results. Nor does it indicate whether the German fare included a seat reservation (which is included on the Acela). Using New York-Baltimore means including the rather slow North River Tunnels; I'm not aware of a comparable feature on the Berlin-Hamburg route. The German train is also non-stop, while the Acela is not. I imagine that's because, as the article said, there's a whole lot of nothing between those two cities. If the writer had traveled in the Ruhr, he would have found conditions comparable to the Northeast Corridor. In any event, this is all beside the point. Nothing in that article contradicts the article's assertion that the Acela is high-speed rail, operational differences between the US and the rest of the world notwithstanding.