A French high-speed train (TGV) has smashed the world record for a train on rails by a big margin, reaching 574.8km/h (356mph).
The previous TGV record was 515km/h (320mph), set in 1990.
The event was broadcast live on French TV.
French TGV trains, in service since 1981, generally travel at about 300km/h. But from 10 June they will be allowed to reach 320km/h on the recently opened Paris-Strasbourg LGV Est line.
Try going fast on American train tracks? Try it with a trainload of fertilizer and lethal chemicals going through a trailer park in Mississippi. They fall off at 60 mph (97km/h).
TGV lines don’t carry freight. I doubt it would do well with a load of fertilizer and lethal chemicals either.
Correct – TGVs are only people movers. But the same railway tracks are also used to transport freight specially during night hours – of course with less speed.
Considering the current CO2 discussion – it would be probably a good idea for US to consider a reliable and modern railway system.
Correction, It would have been a good idea for the US to consider a reliable and modern railway system 25 years ago. It’s imperitive that it be considered now. The trucking of goods is incredibly inefficient as is regional air travel.
For greatest efficiency there should be a unified transportation network instead of all these seperate industries. For example, goods would go from major city to major city via rail and be trucked to and from the local depot. If I wanted to travel from say Minneapolis to San Antonio I should fly from Minneapolis to Dallas and take a train from the Dallas airport to San Antonio.
See the video on http://www.record2007.com/site/index_en.php
Trains are great for freight, not for people. Find me a way to go that fast in a private vehicle.
do americans even know what trains are?
Holy molten rails, Batman! What a great video. I doubt there’s a track in the US that could support a 570 kph train. Heck, I don’t reach that speed in a vertical dive with twin 540 HP engines (without risk of redlining the airframe). And that train is OMG on the ground.
Hope it’s got one heck of a ‘cowcatcher’ on the front.
Mark, thanks for the video post. Made my day.
# 6
“Do Americans even know what trains are?”
Sure we do! Those are those steam powered things that train robbers used to chase on horseback. I have seen them in the old Western movies. I don’t think they exist any more though.
8. Heck, we gotta one of them here in Durango. Aint too fast but shore is purty.
http://tinyurl.com/37e7vm
8. Actually they used that train in the Movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Correct – TGVs are only people movers. But the same railway tracks are also used to transport freight specially during night hours – of course with less speed.
Here in Spain the high speed lines are used for goods traffic, but only at 200 kph (as opposed to the passenger trains that do 300 kph).
#5 – Trains are great for freight, not for people. Find me a way to go that fast in a private vehicle.
Comment by TheGlobalWarmer — 4/3/2007 @ 8:54 am
I am becoming a big fan of your work. I don’t mind that you are almost always wrong. I’m just in awe of the larger than life character you have developed online. You take being a souless corporate whore and thoughtless eco-rapist to an artistic level that few trolls ever achieve. 🙂
I just know you drive a hybrid and have an organic garden in real life.
You know, I’ve tried to figure out what sucks most about Indianapolis. For a while I thought it was the overabundance of rednecks and Bible thumpers. Then I thought is was the total lack of real pizza. I have realized, however, that it is that there is no good train system for public transportation.
There’s talk again of building a high-speed rail network in California:
http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/
In the early 80’s, a private consortium was planning to build a high speed rail network using off the shelf Japanese Bullit train technology, but a combination of factors derailed it. One was a lack of money by private investors , second was Reagan elected president (no federal funds or government bonds could be used). And the final factor against it was lobbying by the airline and highway lobbies.
Two reasons why there’s no genuine high-speed rail in the USA:
1) Congress can’t bring itself to cut the useless cross-country routes (which lose about four times as much as they take in per fare) and shift the money to viable routes such as the northeast corridor.
2) Many high-speed rail schemes are focused on Maglev rather than “conventional” rail. While maglev promises very high speeds (well, at least before this TGV run) it is horrendously expensive, uses ridiculous amounts of energy, requires a completely separate rail network from end to end, is not suitable for ice and snow, and requires very complicated machinery for basic functions such as switching tracks.
But the same railway tracks are also used to transport freight specially during night hours – of course with less speed.
Not sure where you’re getting your information from, Mark.
The LGVs (Lignes a Grande Vitesse), the lines on which the TGVs run, are designed for high-speed passenger trains and for that purpose alone. They have substantially steeper grades (4% or even up to 6%) that would stall a freight (goods) train (1.5-2.0% max) and the banking (canting) on the curves would cause a slow, heavy freight car to topple over.
I’ve been on both TGV and Shinkansen (bullet) trains, and I’d say the Japanese trains feel faster and more impressive, because they blow through city centers at full speed, whereas the French trains hit their high speeds mainly out in the rural areas, where little towns go by out in the distance. It’s kind of like the effect from a plane during a runway approach.
The Japanese trains have also a little smoother ride. The TGV sways a bit, which made me a little uneasy.
All I can say to the pro-train folks is do the numbers. The US is a bit larger that France or Japan. You can’t have road crossing gates on a TGV line, you can’t have sharp turns, and you can’t share with freight. You need a NEW railroad route — with new land and new bridges across every road. 100% funded by passenger tickets.
Ok ok ok…
But just the few moments where the train goes at 570+ Kmh viewed from the ground and from overpasses made my day.
Wish I could ride one but it’s still 6 to 8 years away here…
Nathaniel –
Yes, the Shinkansens are built all they way into the center of the cities, chopped through the urban fabric in as straight a line as possible, while the European high-speed lines start outside the centers of the cities and use the conventional lines to enter the cities.
This is partly due to the fact that the Shinkansens use a different gauge (standard gauge, 4 ft 8 1/2 in) than the rest of the Japanese system (3 ft 6 in), and thus a new line has to be built from beginning to end.
Nathaniel –
Yes, the Shinkansens are built all they way into the center of the cities, chopped through the urban fabric in as straight a line as possible, while the European high-speed lines start outside the centers of the cities and use the conventional lines to enter the cities.
In some cases, such as Osaka, a new station has been built just outside the downtown area to allow a straighter line and to reduce costs.
This is partly due to the fact that the Shinkansens use a different gauge (standard gauge, 4 ft 8 1/2 in) than the rest of the Japanese system (3 ft 6 in), and thus a new line has to be built from beginning to end.
Trains are great for freight, not for people. Find me a way to go that fast in a private vehicle.
Comment by TheGlobalWarmer — 4/3/2007 @ 8:54 am
Charter Lear for hire, only US $3..50 per mile for 5. Cessna, Beechcraft and Mooney still make ’em, too. Or just learn to fly and buy an airplane. 🙂
http://www.mooney.com/
What an amazing run that must have been. Thanks for that link, Mark. What a great couple of minutes it was, watching that.
So what? The Concorde could get you from NY to Paris much faster than a 747. It doesn’t make it a workable solution. 99.9 percent of trans-Atlantic passengers still took the good ol’ lumbering sub-sonic jumbo jets instead of the sleek and fast super-sonic Concords back when they still flew.
I’d rather have reliable, affordable, efficient, and fast-enough.
Also, while I would be tempted to give Peter Rodwell the benefit of the doubt as he lives in Spain, it seems very unlikely that the Spanish high-speed rail would be used for freight in the off hours either, as it is a different gauge (4 ft 8 1/2 inches) than the rest of the system (5 ft 6 inches), and it the cost of building special freight cars just for these lines would not be worth it.