Fastest Train in The World

The flagship of French rail technology is the TGV or Train à Grande Vitesse (“High-Speed Train”), the world’s fastest train. TGVs regularly run at 300 km/h in normal service on some lines. And even this high speed is well below the TGV’s limits: the TGV holds the world’s record for speed on rails of 574.8 km/h (357.2 mph), or roughly half the speed of sound.

TGVs are very comfortable, quiet, and smooth-running trains. At speeds below 100 km/h, it is often hard to tell that the train is moving at all from the inside, unless you look out a window. At cruising speed, scenery streaks past the windows so quickly that you cannot become bored. At points where the TGV line parallels major highways, it’s amusing to watch expensive sports cars moving at close to two hundred kilometres per hour backwards with respect to the train!

TGVs are the state of the art in rail transport, and the French are justifiably proud of them. Contrary to what you might think, getting a train to move at over 320 km/h is more than just putting in a bigger motor—the engineering problems are huge. Nevertheless, France has been doing exactly this for nearly two decades, and in fact, it first broke the 200-mph (320-km/h) barrier a half-century ago, setting a record that stood unbroken until France itself again broke the record with the TGV.

Of course, in France, TGVs are commonplace. Some people even live in Paris and commute to Lyons to work (or vice versa) each day by TGV; the distance of over 500 km can be covered in less than two hours (some people spend more time than that just driving in from the suburbs!). The TGV is faster, cheaper, and more practical than aircraft for distances of less than 1000 km (and that covers just about every destination in France). Unlike aircraft, TGVs travel from city center to city center, you can board them immediately, and they are always on time (to the second—I’ve verified this several times).