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French Train Breaks Speed Record

Posted by Zonk on from the zooom dept.

Josh Fink writes "A French train on the TGV line has broken the wheeled train speed record - again. At a speed of 350 miles per hour, they came close to breaking the all time record of 361 miles per hour, held by a Japanese maglev train. It was last broken back in 1990. From the article: 'The TGV, short for "train a grande vitesse," as France's bullet trains are called, is made up of three double-decker cars between two engines. It has been equipped with larger wheels than the usual TGV to cover more ground with each rotation and a stronger, 25,000-horsepower engine, said Alain Cuccaroni, in charge of the technical aspects of testing.'"

2 of 612 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What you don't see by j-cloth · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How many people have been to the moon? Fewer than a dozen?. Anyone can ride a fast train in France. Who's wasting money?

  2. Re:What you don't see by Volante3192 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'll leave the 'blasting money into space' retort for someone else...I'm partial to the space program even though the ISS is the Ford Pinto of space projects...

    However, a good high speed train would be great down here. LA to bay area...to Vegas... Holy crap, LA - Vegas train like that? Would pay for itself in probably 2 years. More practical than a plane, and more comfortable than a bus, and hella safer than dealing with the nutters on I-15.

    Much more useful to have something like that in the US than another Hummer model, at the very least.

    And I don't think the financial situation in the US as a nation is on solid enough ground that you can infer to it as better, even to France, but that's just an opinion.

    Our rail system is a joke. Worse than a joke. It's not notable enough to use as a punchline.