French Trains and Speed Records - and What's TGV Mean?

Thursday April 5, 2007

A French train, code-named V150 and meant to show how superior TGV high-speed trains are, broke the world's rail speed record Tuesday when it hit 357 miles an hour (about 575 kilometers per hour) in a test on part of the Eastern Europe TGV line, which starts service between Paris and Strasbourg in June. The fastest train speed ever was reached by an electromagnetically levitated train in Japan in 2003 (361 mph, or 580.9 kph).

The high-speed bullet TGV (train a grande vitesse) train's normal cruising speed is up to 186 miles per hour; this was a "test of “French excellence" ^{(New York Times)} and a chance for Alstom, the train's manufacturer to show that they make some faaaast trains.

What's it all mean to you? Well, aside from giving us a chance to consider what fun it would have been to careen down a track at 357 miles per hour (really: think about it), the event was an occasion for some news to come out, like that Alstom's CEO said the company is competing for an order in Argentina and hinted at developments in Europe¹, that a California delegation was there for the test because discussion is afoot for a high-speed train between Sacramento and San Diego (very cool), and you now know a new service will be on the rails from Paris to Strasbourg in June, just in time for your European backpacking trip. Do know that tickets on fast TGV trains are spendier than those regular old fuddy duddy "normal" trains.

_{Related: Eurail Passes 101 | Buying Rail Europe Student Passes | About the Eurostar Train | Backpacking Europe 101}