On 12 August 1995, the Chinese head of state Jiang Zemin travelled on board the ICE from Ludwigsburg (near Stuttgart) of Rolandseck (near Bonn). For this purpose, a special trainset had been coupled from two power cars and six intermediate cars, one of which had been converted to a palace car. The Guest of the State was accompanied by the Federal Minister of Transport Matthias Wissmann, DB chief of passenger operations Klaus Daubertshäuser and several board members of AEG and Siemens. The train reached a maximum speed of 280 km/h. A visit to the cab that was scheduled for five minutes was extended to about 30 minutes by the Guest of the State. The companies involved hoped to sell ICE technology for the 1300 km Beijing to Shanghai connection.