High-speed rail ( HSR) is a type of rail transport network utilising that run significantly faster than those of traditional rail, using an integrated system of specialised rolling stock and dedicated railway track. While there is no single definition or standard that applies worldwide, lines built to handle speeds of at least or upgraded lines of at least are generally considered to be high-speed.
The first high-speed rail system, the Tōkaidō Shinkansen, began operations in Honshu, Japan, in 1964. Due to the streamlined spitzer-shaped nose cone of the trains, the system also became known by its English nickname Shinkansen. Japan's example was followed by several European countries, initially in Italy with the Direttissima line, followed shortly thereafter by France, Germany, and Spain. Today, much of Europe has an extensive network with numerous international connections. Construction since the 21st century has led to China taking a leading role in high-speed rail. , China's HSR network accounted for over two-thirds of the world's total.
In addition to these, many other countries have developed high-speed rail infrastructure to connect major cities, including: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Indonesia, Morocco, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Uzbekistan. Only in continental Europe and Asia does high-speed rail cross international borders.
High-speed trains mostly operate on standard gauge tracks of continuously welded rail on Grade separation rights of way with large radii. However, certain regions with broad gauge, including Russia and Uzbekistan, have sought to develop a high-speed railway network in Russian gauge. There are no narrow gauge high-speed railways. Countries whose legacy network is entirely or mostly of a different gauge than 1435 mm – including Japan and Spain – have often opted to build their high speed lines to standard gauge instead of the legacy railway gauge.
High-speed rail is the fastest and most efficient ground-based method of commercial transport. Due to requirements for large track curves, gentle gradients and grade separated track the construction of high-speed rail is costlier than conventional rail and therefore does not always present an economical advantage over conventional speed rail.
Definitions
Multiple definitions for high-speed rail are in use worldwide, with various international organisations and regional bodies establishing different standards. Several countries have also developed their own legal definitions and technical standards for high-speed rail.
International Union of Railways definition
The International Union of Railways (UIC) identifies three categories of high-speed rail:
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Category I: New tracks specially constructed for high speeds, allowing a maximum running speed of at least 250 km/h (155 mph).
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Category II: Existing tracks specially upgraded for high speeds, allowing a maximum running speed of at least 200 km/h (124 mph).
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Category III: Existing tracks specially upgraded for high speeds, allowing a maximum running speed of at least 200 km/h, but with some sections having a lower allowable speed (for example due to topographic constraints, or passage through urban areas).
A third definition of high-speed and very high-speed rail
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Maximum achievable running speed in excess of , or for very high-speed,
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Average running speed across the corridor in excess of , or for very high-speed.
The International Union of Railways prefers to use "definitions" (plural) because they consider that there is no single standard definition of high-speed rail, nor even standard usage of the terms ("high speed", or "very high speed"). They make use of the European EC Directive 96/48, stating that high speed is a combination of all the elements which constitute the system: infrastructure, rolling stock and operating conditions.
The criterion of is selected for several reasons; above this speed, the impacts of geometric defects are intensified, track adhesion is decreased, aerodynamic resistance is greatly increased, pressure fluctuations within tunnels cause passenger discomfort, and it becomes difficult for drivers to identify trackside signalling.
European Union definition
The European Union Directive 96/48/EC, Annex 1 (see also Trans-European high-speed rail network) defines high-speed rail in terms of:
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Infrastructure: Track built specially for high-speed travel or specially upgraded for high-speed travel.
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Minimum speed limit: Minimum speed of on lines specially built for high speed and of about on existing lines which have been specially upgraded. This must apply to at least one section of the line. Rolling stock must be able to reach a speed of at least 200 km/h to be considered high speed.
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Operating conditions: Rolling stock must be designed alongside its infrastructure for complete compatibility, safety and quality of service.
National legal definitions
Some national legal definitions of high-speed rail include:
Australia
According to the High Speed Rail Authority Act 2022, high-speed rail in Australia is defined as a railway capable of supporting trains that can travel at speeds exceeding 250 km/h.
As of 2025, Australia does not have any railways which meet this definition.
China
According to China's Ministry of Railways
Order No. 34 (2013), high-speed rail refers to new passenger rail lines designed to operate at speeds of 250 km/h or higher, with initial service running at least 200 km/h.
Japan
The first law defining high-speed rail was Japan's
"Law number 71 for Construction of Nation-Wide High-Speed Railways", adopted on May 18, 1970.
Article 2 of this law provided the following definition: "An artery railway that is capable of operating at the speed of 200km/h or more in its predominating section."
This law formalised the definition of Shinkansen and established a framework for the Shinkansen network, which had started in operation since 1964.
South Korea
South Korea defines high-speed rail through the Railway Service Act (2004),
which categorises railway lines and trains into three types:
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High-speed railway lines: Can run at speeds of 300 km/h or more on the majority of tracks.
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Semi-high-speed railway lines: Can run at speeds between 200 km/h to 300 km/h on the majority of tracks.
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Conventional lines: Can run at a maximum speed of less than 200 km/h on the majority of tracks.
The Act also categorises trains into corresponding types based on their maximum speeds.
United States
United States federal law defines high-speed rail as intercity passenger rail service expected to reach speeds of at least .
History
Railways were the first form of rapid land transport and had an effective monopoly on long-distance passenger traffic until the development of the
automobile and
airliners in the early to mid-20th century. Speed had always been an important factor for railways and they constantly tried to achieve higher speeds and decrease journey times. Rail transport in the late 19th century was not much slower than non-high-speed trains today, and many railways regularly operated relatively fast express trains which averaged speeds of around .
[Official Guide of the Railways, 1910: The Official Guide of the Railways and Steam Navigation Lines of the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico, and Cuba, Rand McNally & Company Publishing, 1910,]
Early research
First experiments
High-speed rail development began in Germany in 1899 when the Prussian state railway joined with ten electrical and engineering firms and electrified of military owned railway between
Marienfelde and
Zossen. The line used three-phase current at
Volt and
Hertz.
The Van der Zypen & Charlier company of Deutz, Cologne built two railcars, one fitted with electrical equipment from Siemens-Halske, the second with equipment from Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG), that were tested on the Marienfelde–Zossen line during 1902 and 1903 (see Experimental three-phase railcar).
On 23 October 1903, the S&H-equipped railcar achieved a speed of and on 27 October the AEG-equipped railcar achieved .[Sith Sastrasinh, " Electrical Train Marienfelde–Zossen in 1901 ", 21 January 2000, WorldRailFans. Accessed 23 January 2013.] These trains demonstrated the feasibility of electric high-speed rail; however, regularly scheduled electric high-speed rail travel was still more than 30 years away.
High-speed aspirations
After the breakthrough of electric railroads, it was clearly the infrastructure – especially the cost of it – which hampered the introduction of high-speed rail. Several disasters happened – derailments, head-on collisions on single-track lines, collisions with road traffic at grade crossings, etc. The physical laws were well-known, i.e. if the speed was doubled, the curve radius should be quadrupled; the same was true for the acceleration and braking distances.
In 1891, engineer Károly Zipernowsky proposed a high-speed line from Vienna to Budapest for electric railcars at . In 1893 Wellington Adams proposed an air-line from Chicago to St. Louis of , at a speed of only .
Alexander C. Miller had greater ambitions. In 1906, he launched the Chicago-New York Electric Air Line Railroad project to reduce the running time between the two big cities to ten hours by using electric locomotives. After seven years of effort, less than of straight track was finished. A part of the line is still used as one of the last interurbans in the US.
High-speed interurbans
In the US, some of the
(i.e. trams or
which run from city to city) of the early 20th century were very high-speed for their time (also Europe had and still does have some interurbans). Several high-speed rail technologies have their origin in the interurban field.
In 1903 – 30 years before the conventional railways started to streamline their trains – the officials of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition organised the Electric Railway Test Commission to conduct a series of tests to develop a carbody design that would reduce wind resistance at high speeds. A long series of tests was carried. In 1905, St. Louis Car Company built a railcar for the traction magnate Henry E. Huntington, capable of speeds approaching . Once it ran between Los Angeles and Long Beach in 15 minutes, an average speed of . However, it was too heavy for much of the tracks, so Cincinnati Car Company, J. G. Brill and others pioneered lightweight constructions, use of aluminium alloys, and low-level which could operate smoothly at extremely high speeds on rough interurban tracks. Westinghouse and General Electric designed motors compact enough to be mounted on the bogies. From 1930 on, the Red Devils from Cincinnati Car Company and a some other interurban rail cars reached about in commercial traffic. The Red Devils weighed only 22 tons though they could seat 44 passengers.
Extensive wind tunnel research – the first in the railway industry – was done before J. G. Brill in 1931 built the Bullet cars for Philadelphia and Western Railroad (P&W). They were capable of running at . Some of them were almost 60 years in service.
Early German high-speed network
On 15 May 1933, the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft company introduced the diesel-powered "Fliegender Hamburger" in regular service between Hamburg and Berlin (), thereby achieving a new top speed for a regular service, with a top speed of . This train was a streamlined multi-powered unit, albeit diesel, and used
.
Following the success of the Hamburg line, the steam-powered Henschel-Wegmann Train was developed and introduced in June 1936 for service from Berlin to Dresden, with a regular top speed of . Incidentally no train service since the cancelation of this express train in 1939 has traveled between the two cities in a faster time . In August 2019, the travel time between Dresden-Neustadt and Berlin-Südkreuz was 102 minutes.
Further development allowed the usage of these "Fliegenden Züge" (flying trains) on a rail network across Germany.
The "Diesel-Schnelltriebwagen-Netz" (diesel high-speed-vehicle network) had been in the planning since 1934 but it never reached its envisaged size.
All high-speed service stopped in August 1939 shortly before the outbreak of World War II.
American Streamliners
On 26 May 1934, one year after Fliegender Hamburger introduction, the Burlington Railroad set an average speed record on long distance with their new streamlined train, the
Pioneer Zephyr, at with peaks at . The Zephyr was made of stainless steel and, like the Fliegender Hamburger, was diesel powered, articulated with
, and could reach as commercial speed.
The new service was inaugurated 11 November 1934, traveling between Kansas City and Lincoln, but at a lower speed than the record, on average speed .
In 1935, the Milwaukee Road introduced the Morning Hiawatha service, hauled at by steam locomotives. In 1939, the largest railroad of the world, the Pennsylvania Railroad introduced a duplex steam engine Class S1, which was designed to be capable of hauling 1200 tons passenger trains at . The S1 engine was assigned to power the popular all-coach overnight premier train the Trail Blazer between New York and Chicago since the late 1940s and it consistently reached in its service life. These were the last "high-speed" trains to use steam power. In 1936, the Twin Cities Zephyr entered service, from Chicago to Minneapolis, with an average speed of .
Many of these streamliners posted travel times comparable to or better than their modern Amtrak successors, which are limited to top speed on most of the network.
Italian electric and the last steam record
The German high-speed service was followed in Italy in 1938 with an electric-multiple-unit ETR 200, designed for , between Bologna and Naples. It too reached in commercial service, and achieved a world mean speed record of between Florence and Milan in 1938.
In Great Britain in the same year, the streamlined steam locomotive Mallard achieved the official world speed record for at . The external combustion engines and boilers on steam locomotives were large, heavy and time and labor-intensive to maintain, and the days of steam for high speed were numbered.
Introduction of the Talgo system
In 1945, a Spanish engineer, Alejandro Goicoechea, developed a streamlined, articulated train that was able to run on existing tracks at higher speeds than contemporary passenger trains. This was achieved by providing the locomotive and cars with a unique
axle system that used one axle set per car end, connected by a Y-bar coupler. Amongst other advantages, the centre of mass was only half as high as usual.
[ Popular Science, February 1945, p. 70] This system became famous under the name of
Talgo (
Tren Articulado Ligero Goicoechea Oriol), and for half a century was the main Spanish provider of high-speed trains.
First above 300 km/h developments
In the early 1950s, the French National Railway started to receive their new powerful CC 7100 electric locomotives, and began to study and evaluate running at higher speeds. In 1954, the CC 7121 hauling a full train achieved a record during a test on standard track. The next year, two specially tuned electric locomotives, the CC 7107 and the prototype BB 9004, broke previous speed records, reaching respectively and , again on standard track.
For the first time, was surpassed, allowing the idea of higher-speed services to be developed and further engineering studies commenced. Especially, during the 1955 records, a dangerous hunting oscillation, the swaying of the
which leads to dynamic instability and potential derailment was discovered. This problem was solved by yaw dampers which enabled safe running at high speeds today. Research was also made about "current harnessing" at high-speed by the pantographs, which was solved 20 years later by the Zébulon
TGV's prototype.
Breakthrough: Shinkansen
Japanese research and development
With some 45 million people living in the densely populated Tokyo–
Osaka corridor, congestion on road and rail became a serious problem after World War II, and the Japanese government began thinking about ways to transport people in and between cities. Because Japan was resource limited and did not want to import petroleum for security reasons, energy-efficient high-speed rail was an attractive potential solution.
Japanese National Railways (JNR) engineers began to study the development of a high-speed regular mass transit service. In 1955, they were present at the Lille's Electrotechnology Congress in France, and during a 6-month visit, the head engineer of JNR accompanied the deputy director Marcel Tessier at the DETE (SNCF Electric traction study department).
First narrow-gauge Japanese high-speed service
In 1957, the engineers at the private Odakyu Electric Railway in Greater Tokyo Area launched the Odakyu 3000 series SE EMU. This EMU set a world record for
narrow gauge trains at , giving the Odakyu engineers confidence they could safely and reliably build even faster trains at standard gauge. Conventional Japanese railways up until that point had largely been built in the
Cape gauge, however widening the tracks to
standard gauge () would make very high-speed rail much simpler due to improved stability of the wider rail gauge, and thus
standard gauge was adopted for high-speed service.
With the sole exceptions of Russia, Finland, and Uzbekistan all high-speed rail lines in the world are still standard gauge, even in countries where the preferred gauge for legacy lines is different.
A new train on a new line
The new service, named
Shinkansen (meaning
new main line) would provide a new alignment, 25% wider standard gauge utilising continuously welded rails between Tokyo and Osaka with new rolling stock, designed for . However, the
World Bank, whilst supporting the project, considered the design of the equipment as unproven for that speed, and set the maximum speed to .
After initial feasibility tests, the plan was fast-tracked and construction of the first section of the line started on 20 April 1959.
The first Shinkansen trains, the 0 Series Shinkansen, built by Kawasaki Heavy Industriesin English often called "Bullet Trains", after the original Japanese name Dangan Resshaoutclassed the earlier fast trains in commercial service. They traversed the distance in 3 hours 10 minutes, reaching a top speed of and sustaining an average speed of with stops at Nagoya and Kyoto.
High-speed rail for the masses
Speed was not only a part of the Shinkansen revolution: the Shinkansen offered high-speed rail travel to the masses. The first
Bullet trains had 12 cars and later versions had up to 16,
and double-deck trains further increased the capacity.
After three years, more than 100 million passengers had used the trains, and the milestone of the first one billion passengers was reached in 1976. In 1972, the line was extended a further , and further construction has resulted in the network expanding to of high speed lines as of 2024, with a further of extensions currently under construction and due to open in 2038. The cumulative patronage on the entire system since 1964 is over 10 billion, the equivalent of approximately 140% of the world's population, without a single train passenger fatality. (Suicides, passengers falling off the platforms, and industrial accidents have resulted in fatalities.)
Since their introduction, Japan's Shinkansen systems have been undergoing constant improvement, not only increasing line speeds. Over a dozen train models have been produced, addressing diverse issues such as tunnel boom noise, vibration, aerodynamic drag, lines with lower patronage ("Mini shinkansen"), earthquake and typhoon safety, braking distance, problems due to snow, and energy consumption (newer trains are twice as energy-efficient as the initial ones despite greater speeds).
Future developments of Shinkansen
After decades of research and successful testing on a test track, in 2014 JR Central began constructing a
Maglev Shinkansen line, which is known as the Chūō Shinkansen. These Maglev trains still have the traditional underlying tracks and the cars have wheels. This serves a practical purpose at stations and a safety purpose out on the lines in the event of a power failure. However, in normal operation, the wheels are raised up into the car as the train reaches certain speeds where the magnetic levitation effect takes over. It is proposed to link Tokyo and Osaka by 2037, with the section from Tokyo to Nagoya expected to be operational by 2034.
Maximum speed is anticipated at . The first generation train can be ridden by tourists visiting the test track.
Europe and North America in 1960s and 1970s
First demonstrations at
In Europe, high-speed rail began during the International Transport Fair in
Munich in June 1965, when Dr Öpfering, the director of Deutsche Bundesbahn (German Federal Railways), performed 347 demonstrations at between Munich and
Augsburg by DB Class 103 hauled trains. The same year the Aérotrain, a French hovercraft monorail train prototype, reached within days of operation.
Le Capitole
After the successful introduction of the Japanese Shinkansen in 1964, at , the German demonstrations up to in 1965, and the proof-of-concept jet-powered Aérotrain,
SNCF ran its fastest trains at .
In 1966, French Infrastructure Minister Edgard Pisani consulted engineers and gave the French National Railways twelve months to raise speeds to .
The next year, in May 1967, a regular service at was inaugurated by the TEE Le Capitole between Paris and Toulouse, with specially adapted SNCF Class BB 9200 locomotives hauling classic UIC cars, and a full red livery.
At the same time, the Aérotrain prototype 02 reached on a half-scale experimental track. In 1969, it achieved on the same track. On 5 March 1974, the full-scale commercial prototype Aérotrain I80HV, jet powered, reached .
US Metroliner trains
In the United States, following the creation of Japan's first high-speed
Shinkansen, President Lyndon B. Johnson as part of his
Great Society infrastructure building initiatives asked the Congress to devise a way to increase speeds on the railroads.
[ Remarks at the Signing of the High-Speed Ground Transportation Act . 30 September 1965] Congress delivered the High Speed Ground Transportation Act of 1965 which passed with overwhelming
Bipartisanship support and helped to create regular Metroliner service between New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. The new service was inaugurated in 1969, with top speeds of and averaging along the route, with the travel time as little as 2 hours 30 minutes.
[The Metroliner was able to travel from New York to Washington in just 2.5 hours because it did not make any intermediate stops, Metroliner Timetable, Penn Central, 26 October 1969, The Metroliners this travel time beats the Contemporary (2015) Acela on the same route, though the latter makes intermediate stops] In a 1967 competition with a GE powered Metroliner on Penn Central's mainline, the
UAC TurboTrain set a record of .
United Kingdom, Italy and Germany
In 1976
British Rail introduced a high-speed service able to reach using the InterCity 125
diesel-electric trainsets under the brand name of High Speed Train (HST). It was the fastest diesel-powered train in regular service and it improved upon its forerunners in speed and acceleration. As of 2025 it is still in regular service as the fastest diesel-powered train.
The train is a reversible multi-car set having driving power-cars at both ends and a fixed formation of passenger cars between them. Journey times were reduced by an hour for example on the East Coast Main Line, and passenger numbers increased.
Prior to COVID-19, ridership of the UK's High Speed Intercity Services had exceeded 40 million journeys per annum.
In 1977 Germany introduced a new service at , on the Munich–Augsburg line. That same year, Italy inaugurated the first European High-Speed line, the Direttissima between Rome and Florence, designed for , but used by FS E444 hauled train at . In France this year also saw the abandonment for political reasons of the Aérotrain project, in favour of the TGV.
Evolution in Europe
Italy
The earliest European high-speed railway to be built was the Italian Florence–Rome high-speed railway (also called "Direttissima") in 1977.
High-speed trains in Italy were developed during the 1960s. E444 locomotives were the first standard locomotives capable of , while an ALe 601 electrical multiple unit (EMU) reached a speed of during a test. Other EMUs, such as the ETR 220, ETR 250 and ETR 300, were also updated for speeds up to . The braking systems of cars were updated to match the increased speeds.
On 25 June 1970, work was started on the Rome–Florence Direttissima, the first high-speed line in Italy and in Europe. It included the bridge on the Paglia river, then the longest in Europe. Works were completed in the early 1990s.
In 1975, a program for a widespread updating of rolling stock was launched. As it was decided to put more emphasis on local traffic, this caused a shifting of resources from the ongoing high-speed projects, with their subsequent slowing or, in some cases, total abandonment. Therefore, 160 E.656 electric and 35 D.345 locomotives for short-medium range traffic were acquired, together with 80 EMUs of the ALe 801/940 class, 120 ALn 668 diesel railcars. Some 1,000 much-needed passenger and 7,000 freight cars were also ordered.
In the 1990s, work started on the Treno Alta Velocità ( TAV) project, which involved building a new high-speed network on the routes Milan – (Bologna–Florence–Rome–Naples) – Salerno, Turin – (Milan–Verona–Venice) – Trieste and Milan–Genoa. Most of the planned lines have already been opened, while international links with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia are underway.
Most of the Rome–Naples line opened in December 2005, the Turin–Milan line partially opened in February 2006 and the Milan–Bologna line opened in December 2008. The remaining sections of the Rome–Naples and the Turin–Milan lines and the Bologna–Florence line were completed in December 2009. All these lines are designed for speeds up to . Since then, it is possible to travel from Turin to Salerno () in less than 5 hours. More than 100 trains per day are operated.
Other proposed high-speed lines are Salerno-Reggio Calabria
The main public operator of high-speed trains ( alta velocità AV, formerly Eurostar Italia) is Trenitalia, part of FSI. Trains are divided into three categories (called "Le Frecce"): Frecciarossa ("Red arrow") trains operate at a maximum of on dedicated high-speed tracks; Frecciargento (Silver arrow) trains operate at a maximum of on both high-speed and mainline tracks; Frecciabianca (White arrow) trains operate at a maximum of on mainline tracks only.
Since 2012, a new and Italy's first private train operator, NTV (branded as Italo), runs high-speed services in competition with Trenitalia. Italy is the only country in Europe with a private high-speed train operator.
Construction of the Milan-Venice high-speed line began in 2013 and in 2016 the Milan-Treviglio section has been opened to passenger traffic; the Milan-Genoa high-speed line (Terzo Valico dei Giovi) is also under construction.
Today it is possible to travel from Rome to Milan in less than 3 hours with the Frecciarossa 1000 high-speed train. There is a train every 30 minutes.
France
Following the 1955 records, two divisions of the
SNCF began to study high-speed services. In 1964, the DETMT (petrol-engine traction studies department of SNCF) investigated the use of
: a diesel-powered railcar was modified with a gas-turbine, and was called "TGV" (Turbotrain Grande Vitesse).
It reached in 1967, and served as a basis for the future Turbotrain and the real TGV. At the same time, the new "SNCF Research Department", created in 1966, was studying various projects, including one code-named "C03: Railways possibilities on new infrastructure (tracks)".
In 1969, the "C03 project" was transferred to public administration while a contract with Alstom was signed for the construction of two gas-turbine high-speed train prototypes, named "TGV 001". The prototype consisted of a set of five carriages, plus a power car at each end, both powered by two gas-turbine engines. The sets used , which reduce drag and increase safety.
In 1970, the DETMT's Turbotrain began operations on the Ligne Paris-Caen, and operated at despite being designed for usage at . It used gas-turbine powered multiple elements and was the basis for future experimentation with TGV services, including shuttle services and regular high rate schedules.
In 1971, the "C03" project, now known as "TGV Sud-Est", was validated by the government, against Bertin's Aerotrain.
The 1973 oil crisis substantially increased oil prices. In the continuity of the De Gaulle "energy self-sufficiency" and nuclear-energy policy (Pierre Messmer then French Prime Minister announced an ambitious buildout of nuclear power in France in 1974), a ministry decision switched the future TGV from now costly gas-turbine to full electric energy in 1974. An electric railcar named Zébulon was developed for testing at very high speeds, reaching a speed of . It was used to develop pantographs capable of withstanding speeds of over .
After intensive tests with the gas-turbine "TGV 001" prototype, and the electric "Zébulon", in 1977, the SNCF placed an order to the group Alstom–Francorail–MTE for 87 TGV Sud-Est trainsets.
In 1981, the first section of the new LGV Sud-Est was inaugurated, with a top speed (then soon after). Being able to use both dedicated high-speed and conventional lines, the TGV offered the ability to join every city in the country at shorter journey times.
Germany
Following the ETR 450 and
Direttissima in Italy and French
TGV, in 1991 Germany was the third country in Europe to inaugurate a high-speed rail service, with the launch of the Intercity-Express (ICE) on the new Hannover–Würzburg high-speed railway, operating at a top speed of . The German ICE train was similar to the TGV, with dedicated streamlined power cars at both ends, but a variable number of trailers between them. Unlike the TGV, the trailers had two conventional bogies per car, and could be uncoupled, allowing the train to be lengthened or shortened. This introduction was the result of ten years of study with the ICE-V prototype, originally called Intercity Experimental, which broke the world speed record in 1988, reaching .
Spain
In 1992, just in time for the Barcelona Olympic Games and Seville Expo '92, the Madrid–Seville high-speed rail line opened in Spain with 25 kV AC electrification, and
standard gauge, differing from all other Spanish lines which used
Iberian gauge. This allowed the
AVE rail service to begin operations using Class 100 trainsets built by Alstom, directly derived in design from the French TGV trains. The service was very popular and development continued on high-speed rail in Spain.
In 2005, the Spanish government announced an ambitious plan, (PEIT 2005–2020)
, the Spanish high-speed rail network is the longest HSR network in Europe with
Turkey
In 2009, Turkey inaugurated a high-speed service between Ankara and Eskişehir.
This has been followed up by an
Ankara –
Konya route, and the Eskisehir line has been extended to
Istanbul (European part). In this extension, Europe and Asia were connected by an undersea tunnel,
Marmaray in the Bosphorus. The first connection between two continents in the world as a high-speed train line was made in Istanbul. The last station of this line in Europe is Halkalı station. An extension to Sivas was opened in April 2023.
North America
United States
In 1992, the United States Congress passed the Amtrak Authorization and Development Act that authorised
Amtrak to start working on service improvements on the segment between
Boston and New York City of the Northeast Corridor.
The primary objectives were to electrify the line north of New Haven, Connecticut, to eliminate
and replace the then 30-year-old Metro liners with new trains, so that the distance between Boston and New York City could be covered in 3 hours or less.
Amtrak started testing two trains, the Swedish X2000 and the German ICE train, in the same year along its fully electrified segment between New York City and Washington, D.C. The officials favored the X2000 as it had a tilting mechanism. However, the Swedish manufacturer never bid on the contract as the burdensome United States railroad regulations required them to heavily modify the train resulting in added weight, among other things. Eventually, a custom-made tilting train derived from TGV, manufactured by Alstom and Bombardier, won the contract and was put into service in December 2000.
The new service was named "Acela Express" and linked Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. The service did not meet the 3-hour travel time objective between Boston and New York City. The time was 3 hours and 24 minutes as it partially ran on regular lines, limiting its average speed, with a maximum speed of being reached on a section of its route through Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
As of November 2021, the U.S. has one high-speed rail line under construction (California High-Speed Rail) in California,
Expansion in East, Southeast, and South Asia
For four decades since its opening in 1964, the Japanese
Shinkansen was the only high-speed rail service outside of Europe. In the 2000s a number of new high-speed rail services started operating in
East Asia.
Southeast Asia also saw, and
South Asia will see their first high-speed rail service in the 2020s.
China
High-speed rail was introduced to China in 2003 with the Qinhuangdao–Shenyang high-speed railway.
The Chinese government made high-speed rail construction a cornerstone of the Chinese economic stimulus program to mitigate the effects of the 2008 financial crisis and the result has been a rapid development of the Chinese rail system into the world's most extensive high-speed rail network. By 2013 the system had of operational track, accounting for about half of the world's total at the time.
State planning for high-speed railway began in the early 1990s, and the country's first high-speed rail line, the Qinhuangdao–Shenyang Passenger Railway, was built in 1999 and opened to commercial operation in 2003. This line could accommodate commercial trains running at up to . Planners also considered Germany's Transrapid maglev technology and built the Shanghai maglev train, which runs on a track linking the Pudong, the city's financial district, and the Pudong International Airport.
The maglev train service began operating in 2004 with trains reaching a top speed of , and remains the fastest high-speed service in the world. Maglev, however, was not adopted nationally and all subsequent expansion features high-speed rail on conventional tracks.
In the 1990s, China's domestic train production industry designed and produced a series of high-speed train prototypes but few were used in commercial operation and none were mass-produced. The Chinese Ministry of Railways (MOR) then arranged for the purchase of foreign high-speed trains from French, German, and Japanese manufacturers along with certain technology transfers and joint ventures with domestic trainmakers. In 2007, the MOR introduced the China Railways High-speed (CRH) service, also known as "Harmony Trains", a version of the German Siemens Velaro high-speed train.
In 2008, high-speed trains began running at a top speed of on the Beijing–Tianjin intercity railway, which opened during the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. The following year, trains on the newly opened Wuhan–Guangzhou high-speed railway set a world record for average speed over an entire trip, at over .
A collision of high-speed trains on 23 July 2011 in Zhejiang province killed 40 and injured 195, raising concerns about operational safety. A credit crunch later that year slowed the construction of new lines. In July 2011, top train speeds were lowered to . But by 2012, the high-speed rail boom had renewed with new lines and new rolling stock by domestic producers that had indigenised foreign technology. On 26 December 2012, China opened the Beijing–Guangzhou–Shenzhen–Hong Kong high-speed railway, the world's longest high-speed rail line, which runs from Beijing West railway station to Shenzhen North Railway Station.
Like Japan, China is also developing maglev system to run trains with even higher speeds. Currently there are two separate high-speed maglev systems being developed in China:
-
the CRRC 600, is based on the Transrapid technology and is being developed by the CRRC under license from ThyssenKrupp.
-
An incompatible system has been developed at Southwest Jiaotong University in Chengdu, the design uses high-temperature super conducting magnets, which the university has been researching since 2000, and is capable of . A prototype was demonstrated in January 2021 on a test track.
South Korea
In South Korea, construction of the high-speed line from
Seoul to
Busan began in 1992. The Seoul–Busan corridor is Korea's busiest running between the two largest cities. In 1982, it represented 65.8% of South Korea's population, a number that grew to 73.3% by 1995, along with 70% of freight traffic and 66% of passenger traffic. With both the Gyeongbu Expressway and
Korail's
Gyeongbu Line congested as of the late 1970s, the government saw the pressing need for another form of transportation.
The line known as Gyeongbu high-speed railway, better known with the Korea Train Express (KTX) service operating on it, was launched on 1 April 2004, using primarily TGV technology from France. Top speed for trains in regular service is currently , though the infrastructure is designed for . In 2015 and 2016, high-speed rail services were extended to other parts of the country, with the Honam high-speed railway connecting Gwangju, and Suseo–Pyeongtaek high-speed railway as the second link from Seoul, entered operation. Super Rapid Train, an open-access operator, started joining the market to operate services on the latter in the same year. Some existing conventional lines, including Gyeonggang Line and Jungang line, are also upgraded to semi-high-speed standard, further expanded the KTX network.
The KTX-I was based on Alstom's TGV Réseau, and was partly built in Korea. The domestically developed HSR-350x, which achieved in tests, resulted in a second type of high-speed trains now operated by Korail, the KTX-Sancheon, which entered into commercial service in 2010. The next generation experimental EMU prototype, HEMU-430X, achieved in 2013, making South Korea the world's fourth country after France, Japan, and China to develop a high-speed train running on conventional rail above . It was further developed into commercialised variants, namely KTX-Eum and KTX-Cheongryong, with respective maximum service speeds of and , which entered into KTX services in 2021 and 2024, respectively.
Taiwan
Taiwan High Speed Rail's first and only HSR line opened for service on 5 January 2007, using Japanese trains with a top speed of . The service traverses from to in as little as 105 minutes. While it contains only one line, its route covers
Western Taiwan where over 90% of Taiwan's population live; connecting most major cities of Taiwan:
Taipei, New Taipei, Taoyuan,
Hsinchu,
Taichung,
Chiayi,
Tainan, and
Kaohsiung.
Once THSR began operations, almost all passengers switched from airlines flying parallel routes
while road traffic was also reduced.
Extension from both of current ends are being studied, and it was announced in December 2024 that the end from Zuoying will be extended to Kaohsiung city centre and
Pingtung County.
Indonesia
Indonesia is the first country in Southeast Asia to operate high-speed rail. The concept was first seriously considered in 2008, leading to discussions at the Asian Investment Summit in 2013, and detailed plans were established in 2015. Plans to begin construction of the
East Jakarta-
Bandung Regency HSR were announced by the Indonesian government in July 2015, after the Chinese President and other world leaders visited the Bandung Conference.
Both Japan and China expressed interest in high-speed rail projects in Indonesia, which highlighted the rivalry between them in their race for Asian infrastructure projects.
The construction of the first high-speed rail service, linking two major cities of Jakarta and Bandung with a distance of , started in August 2018, with the cost of $7.3 billion to build.
Middle East and Central Asia
Saudi Arabia
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan opened the Afrosiyob service from
Tashkent to
Samarkand in 2011, which was upgraded in 2013 to an average operational speed of and peak speed of . The Talgo 250 service has been extended to Karshi as of August 2015 whereby the train travels in 3 hours. As of August 2016, the train service was extended to
Bukhara, and the extension will take 3 hours and 20 minutes down from 7 hours.
Africa
Egypt
, there are no operational high-speed rail lines in Egypt. Plans have been announced for three lines, aiming to connect the Nile river valley, the Mediterranean coast, and the Red Sea. Construction had started on at least two lines.
Morocco
In November 2007, the Moroccan government decided to undertake the construction of a high-speed rail line between the economic capital
Casablanca and
Tangier, one of the largest harbour cities on the Strait of Gibraltar.
The line will also serve the capital
Rabat and
Kenitra. The first section of the line, the Kenitra–Tangier high-speed rail line, was completed in 2018.
Future projects include expansions south to Marrakech and Agadir, and east to Meknes, Fes and Oujda.
Network
Maps
Technologies
Continuous welded rail is generally used to reduce track vibrations and misalignment. Almost all high-speed lines are electrically driven via
, have in-cab signalling, and use advanced switches using very low entry and
Switch frog angles. HSR tracks may also be designed to reduce vibrations originating from high speed rail use.
Road-rail parallel layout
The road-rail parallel layout uses land beside highways for railway lines. Examples include Paris/Lyon and Köln–Frankfurt in which 15% and 70% of the track runs beside highways, respectively.
There are
synergies to be achieved from such a setup as noise mitigation measures for the road benefit the railway and vice versa and furthermore less land must be taken through
expropriation as land may have already been acquired for the construction of the other infrastructure. In addition to that, habitats of local wildlife are disrupted only once (by the combined rail/road right of way) instead of at multiple points. However, downsides include the fact that roads usually allow steeper grades and sharper turns than high-speed rail lines and thus co-locating them may not always be suitable. Moreover, both roads and railways often make use of narrow river valleys or mountain passes which do not allow a lot of infrastructure to be sited next to each other.
Track sharing
In China, high-speed lines at speeds between may carry freight or passengers, while lines operating at speeds over are used only by passenger CRH/CR trains.
In the United Kingdom, HS1 is also used by regional trains run by Southeastern at speeds of up to , and occasionally freight trains that run to central Europe.
In Germany, some lines are shared with Inter-City and regional trains at day and freight trains at night.
In France, some lines are shared with regional trains that travel at , for example TER Nantes-Laval.
Mixing trains of vastly different speeds and/or stopping patterns on the same tracks drastically reduces capacity,
Cost
The cost per kilometre in Spain was estimated at between €9 million (Madrid–Andalucía) and €22 million (Madrid–Valladolid).
In Italy, the cost was between €24 million (Roma–Napoli) and €68 million (Bologna–Firenze).
In the 2010s, costs per kilometre in France ranged from €18 million (BLP Brittany) to €26 million (Sud Europe Atlantique).
The World Bank estimated in 2019 that the Chinese HSR network was built at an average cost of $17–21 million per km.
Freight high-speed rail
All high-speed trains have been designed to carry passengers only. There are very few high-speed freight services in the world; they all use trains that were originally designed to carry passengers.
During the planning of the Tokaido Shinkansen, the Japanese National Railways were planning for freight services along the route. This plan was discarded before the line opened, but since 2019 light freight has been carried on some Shinkansen services.
The French TGV La Poste was for a long time the sole very high-speed train service, transporting mail in France for La Poste at a maximum top speed of , between 1984 and 2015. The trainsets were either specifically adapted and built, either converted, passenger TGV Sud-Est trainsets.
In Italy, Mercitalia Fast is a high-speed freight service launched in October 2018 by Mercitalia. It uses converted passenger ETR 500 trainsets to carry goods at average speeds of , at first between Caserta and Bologna, with plans to extend the network throughout Italy.
In some countries, high-speed rail is integrated with courier services to provide fast door-to-door intercity deliveries. For example, China Railways has partnered with SF Express for high-speed cargo deliveries
Non-high-speed freight trains running on high-speed lines is much more common; for example, High Speed 1 sees weekly freight services.
Rolling stock
Key technologies used in high-speed train rolling stock include tilting trainsets, aerodynamic designs (to reduce drag, lift, and noise), air brakes, regenerative braking, engine technology and dynamic weight shifting. Notable high-speed train manufacturers include
Alstom,
Hitachi Rail, Kawasaki,
Siemens Mobility,
Stadler Rail, and
CRRC.
Comparison with other modes of transport
Optimal distance
While commercial high-speed trains have lower maximum speeds than jet aircraft, they offer shorter total trip times than air travel for short distances. They typically connect city centre rail stations to each other, while air transport connects airports that are typically farther from city centres.
High-speed rail (HSR) is best suited for journeys of 1 to hours (about ), for which the train can beat air and car trip time. For trips under about , the process of checking in and going through airport security, as well as travelling to and from the airport, makes the total air journey time equal to or slower than HSR.
HSR eliminated air transport from routes such as Paris–Lyon, Paris–Brussels, Cologne–Frankfurt, Nanjing–Wuhan, Chongqing–Chengdu,
China Southern Airlines, China's largest airline, expects the construction of China's high-speed railway network to impact (through increased competition and falling revenues) 25% of its route network in the coming years.
Market shares
European data indicate that air traffic is more sensitive than road traffic (car and bus) to competition from HSR, at least on journeys of and more. TGV Sud-Est reduced the travel time Paris–Lyon from almost four to about two hours. Market share rose from 40 to 72%. Air and road market shares shrunk from 31 to 7% and from 29 to 21%, respectively. On the Madrid–Seville link, the AVE connection increased share from 16 to 52%; air traffic shrunk from 40 to 13%; road traffic from 44 to 36%, hence the rail market amounted to 80% of combined rail and air traffic.
This figure increased to 89% in 2009, according to Spanish rail operator
Renfe.
[ Spain's High-Speed Rail Offers Guideposts for U.S., The New York Times, 29 May 2009.]
According to Peter Jorritsma, the rail market share s, as compared to planes, can be computed approximately as a function of the travelling time in minutes t by the logistic formula
According to this formula, a journey time of three hours yields a 65% market share, not taking into account any price differential in tickets.
In Japan, there is a so-called "4-hour wall" in high-speed rail's market share: If the high-speed rail journey time exceeds 4 hours, then people likely choose planes over high-speed rail. For instance, from Tokyo to Osaka, a 2h22m-journey by Shinkansen, high-speed rail has an 85% market share whereas planes have 15%. From Tokyo to Hiroshima, a 3h44m-journey by Shinkansen, high-speed rail has a 67% market share whereas planes have 33%. The situation is the reverse on the Tokyo to Fukuoka route where high-speed rail takes 4h47m and rail only has 10% market share and planes 90%.
In Taiwan, China Airlines cancelled all flights to Taichung Airport within a year of Taiwan high-speed rail starting operations.
Energy efficiency
Travel by rail is more competitive in areas of higher population density or where gasoline is expensive because conventional trains are more fuel-efficient than cars when ridership is high, similar to other forms of mass transit. Very few high-speed trains consume
diesel fuel or other
but the power stations that provide electric trains with electricity can consume fossil fuels. In Japan (prior to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster) and France, with very extensive high-speed rail networks, a large proportion of electricity comes from
nuclear power.
[ The Times, Friday, 6 January 2006, p54. France will run trains free from fossil fuel, says Chirac.] On the
Eurostar, which primarily runs off the French grid, emissions from traveling by train from London to Paris are 90% lower than by flying.
In Germany 38.5% of all electricity was produced from renewable sources in 2017, however railways run on their own grid partially independent from the general grid and relying in part on dedicated power plants. Even using electricity generated from coal, fossil gas or oil, high-speed trains are significantly more fuel-efficient per passenger per kilometer traveled (despite the greater resistance to motion of the railcars at higher speeds) than the typical automobile because of economies of scale in generator technology
and trains themselves, as well as lower air friction and rolling resistance at the same speed.
Automobiles and buses
High-speed rail can accommodate more passengers at far higher speeds than automobiles. Generally, the longer the journey, the better the time advantage of rail over the road if going to the same destination. However, high-speed rail can be competitive with cars on shorter distances, , for example for commuting, especially if the car users experience road congestion or expensive parking fees. In Norway, the
Gardermoen Line has made the rail market share for passengers from
Oslo to the airport (42 km) rise to 51% in 2014, compared to 17% for buses and 28% for private cars and taxis.
[ Rekordmange kollektivreisende til og fra Oslo Lufthavn , in Norwegian.] On such short lines−particularly services which call at stations close to one another−the
acceleration capabilities of the trains may be more important than their maximum speed. Extreme commuting has been enabled by high-speed rail with commuters covering distances by rail daily that they would not usually by car. Furthermore, stations in less densely populated areas within the larger
conurbation of larger cities, like Montabaur railway station and Limburg Süd railway station between Frankfurt and Cologne, are attractive for commuters as the housing prices are more affordable than in the central cities - even when taking into account the price of a yearly ticket for the train. Consequently, Montabaur has the highest per capita rate of Bahn Card 100 in Germany
— a ticket that allows unlimited travel on all trains in Germany for a fixed yearly price.
Moreover, a typical passenger rail carries 2.83 times as many passengers per hour per meter width as a road. A typical capacity is the Eurostar, which provides capacity for 12 trains per hour and 800 passengers per train, totaling 9,600 passengers per hour in each direction. By contrast, the Highway Capacity Manual gives a maximum capacity of 2,250 passenger cars per hour per lane, excluding other vehicles, assuming an average vehicle occupancy of 1.57 people.
Air travel
HSR advantages
-
Less boarding infrastructure: Although air transit moves at higher speeds than high-speed rail, total time to destination can be increased by travel to/from far out airports, check-in, baggage handling, security, and boarding, which may also increase cost to air travel.
-
Short range advantages: Trains may be preferred in short to mid-range distances since rail stations are typically closer to urban centers than airports.
[http://www.techthefuture.com/mobility/high-speed-train-vs-airplane/ from [7] as of 10 May 2014] Likewise, air travel needs longer distances to have a speed advantage after accounting for both processing time and transit to the airport.
-
Urban centers: Particularly for dense city centers, short-hop air travel may not be ideal to serve these areas as airports tend to be far out of the city, due to land scarcity, short runway limitations, building heights, as well as airspace issues.
-
Weather: Rail travel also requires less weather dependency than air travel. A well-designed and operated rail system can only be affected by severe weather conditions, such as heavy snow, heavy fog, and major storm. Flights however, often face cancellations or delays under less severe conditions.
-
Comfort: High-speed trains also have comfort advantages, since train passengers are allowed to move freely about the train at any point in the journey.
[http://www.amtrak.com/the-unique-amtrak-experience-with-many-benefits from Amtrak as of 10 May 2014]
-
Delays: On particular busy air-routes – those that HSR has historically been most successful on – trains are also less prone to delays due to congested airports, or in the case of China, airspace. A train that is late by a couple of minutes will not have to wait for another slot to open up, unlike airplanes at congested airports. Furthermore, many airlines see short-haul flights as increasingly uneconomic and in some countries airlines rely on high-speed rail instead of short-haul flights for connecting services.
[Examples of this include SNCF who codeshares with Air France and Lufthansa's AIRail in cooperation with DB]
-
De-icing: HSR does not need to spend time deicing as planes do, which is time-consuming but critical; it can dent airline profitability as planes remain on the ground and pay airport fees by the hour, as well as take up parking space and contributing to congestive delays.
-
Hot and high: Some airlines have cancelled or move their flights to takeoff at night due to hot and high conditions. Such is the case for Hainan Airlines in Las Vegas in 2017, which moved its long haul takeoff slot to after midnight. Similarly, Norwegian Air Shuttle cancelled all its Europe-bound flights during summer due to heat.
-
Noise and pollution: Major airports are heavy polluters, downwind of LAX particulate pollution doubles, even accounting for Port of LA/Long Beach shipping and heavy freeway traffic.
-
Ability to serve multiple stops: An airplane spends significant amounts of time loading and unloading cargo and/or passengers as well as landing, taxiing and starting again. Trains spend only a few minutes stopping at intermediate stations, often greatly enhancing the business case at little cost.
-
Energy: high-speed trains are more fuel-efficient per passenger space offered than planes. Furthermore, they usually run on electricity, which can be produced from a wider range of sources than kerosene.
Disadvantages
-
HSR usually requires land acquisition, for example in Fresno, California, where it was caught up in legal paperwork.
-
HSR is subject to land subsidence, where expensive fixes sent costs soaring in Taiwan.
-
HSR is affected by topography of the terrain as crossing mountain ranges or large bodies of water requires expensive tunnels and bridges.
-
HSR is costly due to required specialised infrastructure as well as advanced technologies and multiple safety systems.
-
The infrastructure is fixed hence the services provided are limited and can not be changed in response to changing market conditions. However, for passengers this can present an advantage as services are less likely to be withdrawn from railways compared to flight routes.
-
As the infrastructure can be extremely expensive, it is not possible to create a direct route between every major city. This means that a train might be transiting or stopping in intermediate stations, increasing the length and duration of a journey.
-
Railways require the security and cooperation of all geographies and governments involved.
-
As most HSRs are electrified they require an extended electricity grid to supply the
Pollution
High-speed rail usually implements electric power and therefore its energy sources can be distant or renewable. The usage of electric power in high-speed rails can thereby result in a reduction of air pollutants as shown in a case study on China's high-speed railways throughout its development.
This is an advantage over air travel, which currently uses fossil fuels and is a major source of pollution. Studies regarding busy airports such as LAX, have shown that over an area of about downwind of the airport, where hundreds of thousands of people live or work, the particle number concentration was at least twice that of nearby urban areas, showing that airplane pollution far exceeded road pollution, even from heavy freeway traffic.
Safety
HSR is much simpler to control due to its predictable course. High-speed rail systems reduce (but do not eliminate)
collisions with automobiles or people, by using non-grade level track and eliminating grade-level crossings. To date, the only three deadly accidents involving a high-speed train on high-speed tracks in revenue service were the 1998 Eschede train disaster, the 2011 Wenzhou train collision (in which speed was not a factor), and the 2020 Livraga derailment. Shinkansen trains have anti-derailment devices installed under passenger cars, which do not strictly prevent derailment, but prevent the train from travelling a large distance away from train tracks in case a derailment occurs.
Accidents
In general, travel by high-speed rail has been demonstrated to be remarkably safe. The first high-speed rail network, the Japanese
Shinkansen has not had any fatal accidents involving passengers since it began operating in 1964.
Notable major accidents involving high-speed trains include the following.
1998 Eschede accident
In 1998, after over thirty years of high-speed rail operations worldwide without fatal accidents, the Eschede accident occurred in Germany: a poorly designed ICE 1 wheel fractured at a speed of near
Eschede, resulting in the derailment and destruction of almost the entire set of 16 cars, and the deaths of 101 people.
The derailment began at a switch; the accident was made worse when the derailed cars travelling at high speed struck and collapsed a road bridge located just past the switch.
2011 Wenzhou accident
On 23 July 2011, 13 years after the Eschede train accident, a Chinese CRH2 travelling at collided with a CRH1 which was stopped on a viaduct in the suburbs of Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, China. The two trains derailed, and four cars fell off the viaduct. Forty people were killed and at least 192 were injured, 12 of them severely.
The disaster led to a number of changes in management and exploitation of high-speed rail in China. Despite the fact that speed itself was not a factor in the cause of the accident, one of the major changes was to further lower the maximum speeds in high-speed and higher-speed railways in China, the remaining becoming , becoming 200, and becoming 160.
2013 Santiago de Compostela accident
In July 2013, a high-speed train in Spain travelling at attempted to negotiate a curve whose speed limit is . The train derailed and overturned, resulting in 78 fatalities.
Normally high-speed rail has automatic speed limiting restrictions, but this track section is a conventional section and in this case the automatic speed limit was said to be disabled by the driver several kilometers before the station. A few days later, the train worker's union claimed that the speed limiter didn't work properly because of lack of proper funding, acknowledging the budget cuts made by the current government. Two days after the accident, the driver was provisionally charged with homicide by negligence. This is the first accident that occurred with a Spanish high-speed train, but it occurred in a section that was not high speed and as mentioned safety equipment mandatory on high-speed track would have prevented the accident.
2015 Eckwersheim accident
On 14 November 2015, a specialised TGV EuroDuplex was performing commissioning tests on the unopened second phase of the
LGV Est high-speed line in France, when it entered a curve, overturned, and struck the parapet of a bridge over the Marne–Rhine Canal. The rear
power car came to a rest in the canal, while the remainder of the train came to a rest in the grassy median between the northern and southern tracks. Approximately 50 people were on board, consisting of SNCF technicians and, reportedly, some unauthorised guests. Eleven were killed and 37 were injured. The train was performing tests at 10 percent above the planned speed limit for the line and should have slowed from to before entering the curve. Officials have indicated that excessive speed may have caused the accident.
During testing, some safety features that usually prevent accidents like this one are switched off.
2018 Ankara train collision
On 13 December 2018, a high-speed passenger train travelling at and a locomotive collided near
Yenimahalle in Ankara Province, Turkey. Three cars (carriages/coaches) of the passenger train derailed in the collision. Three railroad engineers and five passengers were killed at the scene, and 84 people were injured. Another injured passenger later died, and 34 passengers, including two in critical condition, were treated in several hospitals.
2020 Livraga derailment
On 6 February 2020, a high-speed train travelling at derailed at Livraga, Lombardy, Italy. The two drivers were killed and a number of passengers were injured.
The cause as reported by investigators was that a faulty set of junction points was in the reverse position, but was reported by the signaling system as being in the normal – i.e. straight – position.
Ridership
High-speed rail ridership has been increasing rapidly since 2000. At the beginning of the century, the largest share of ridership was on the Japanese
Shinkansen network. In 2000, the Shinkansen was responsible for about 85% of the cumulative world ridership up to that point.
This has been progressively surpassed by the Chinese high-speed rail network, which has been the largest contributor of global ridership growth since its inception. As of 2018, annual ridership of the Chinese high-speed rail network is over five times larger than that of the Shinkansen.
+ Comparison of high-speed rail and airlines, by year: annual passengers worldwide (in millions). | Year
!scope="col" | Annual world HSR | Annual world airlines |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
+High-speed rail ridership in the world. Data is from UIC Statistics unless otherwise specified. |
| China | 2357.7 | 774.7 | 2019 |
| Japan | 354.6 | 99.3 | 2019 |
| Russia | 156.7 | 6.2 | 2019 |
| France | 125.9 | 60.0 | 2019 |
| Germany | 99.2 | 33.2 | 2019 |
| Taiwan | 67.4 | 12.0 | 2019 |
| South Korea | 66.1 | 16.0 | 2019 |
| Italy | 59.7 | 21.1 | 2019 |
| Spain | 41.2 | 16.1 | 2019 |
| United States | 12.7 | 3.4 | 2019 |
| Sweden | 11.6 | 3.9 | 2019 |
| Turkey | 8.3 | 2.7 | 2019 |
Records
Speed
There are several definitions of "maximum speed":
-
The maximum speed at which a train is allowed to run by law or policy in daily service (MOR)
-
The maximum speed at which an unmodified train is proved to be capable of running
-
The maximum speed at which specially modified train is proved to be capable of running
Absolute speed record
Overall rail record
The speed record for a pre-production unconventional passenger train was set by a seven-car L0 series manned
maglev train at on 21 April 2015 in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan.
Conventional rail
Since the 1955 record, where France recorded a world record of speed of 331 km/h, France has nearly continuously held the absolute world speed record. The latest record is held by a
TGV POS trainset, which reached in 2007, on the newly constructed
LGV Est high-speed line. This run was for proof of concept and engineering, not to test normal passenger service.
Maximum speed in service
, the fastest trains currently in commercial operation are:
-
Shanghai Maglev: (in China, on the lone maglev track)
-
CR400AF/KCIC400AF, CR400BF: (in China and Indonesia)
-
TGV Duplex, TGV Réseau, TGV POS, Euroduplex: (in France)
-
Eurostar e320: (in France and United Kingdom)
-
E5, H5, E6 Series Shinkansen: (in Japan)
-
ICE 3 Class 403, 406, 407: (in Germany)
-
AVE Class 103: (in Spain)
-
CRH2C, CRH3C, CRH380A & AL, CRH380B, BL & CL, CRH380D: (in China)
-
KTX-I, KTX-Sancheon, KTX-Cheongryong: (in South Korea)
-
AGV 575, ETR 500, ETR 1000 (Frecciarossa 1000): (in Italy)
Many of these trains and their networks are technically capable of higher speeds but they are capped out of economic and commercial considerations (cost of electricity, increased maintenance, resulting ticket price, etc.)
Levitation trains
The Shanghai Maglev Train reaches during its daily service on its dedicated line, holding the speed record for commercial train service.
[ "Top ten fastest trains in the world" railway-technology.com 29 August 2013]
Conventional rail
The fastest operating conventional trains are the Chinese CR400A and CR400B running on Beijing–Shanghai HSR, after China relaunched its 350 km/h class service on select services effective 21 September 2017. In China, from July 2011 until September 2017, the maximum speed was officially , but a tolerance was acceptable, and trains often reached . Before that, from August 2008 to July 2011, China Railway High-speed trains held the highest commercial operating speed record with on some lines such as the Wuhan–Guangzhou high-speed railway.
The speed of the service was reduced in 2011 due to high costs and safety concerns the top speeds in China were reduced to on 1 July 2011.
Six years later they started to be restored to their original high speeds.
Other fast conventional trains are the French TGV POS, German ICE 3, and Japanese E5 and E6 Series Shinkansen with a maximum commercial speed of , the former two on some French high-speed lines, and the latter on a part of Tohoku Shinkansen line.
In Spain, on the Madrid–Barcelona HSL, maximum speed is .
Service distance
The
China Railway G403/4, G405/6 and D939/40 Beijing–Kunming train (, 10 hours 43 minutes to 14 hours 54 minutes), which began service on 28 December 2016, are the longest high-speed rail services in the world.
Existing systems by country and region
The early high-speed lines, built in France, Japan, Italy and Spain, were between pairs of large cities. In France, this was Paris–
Lyon, in Japan, Tokyo–
Osaka, in Italy,
Rome–
Florence, in Spain,
Madrid–
Seville (then
Barcelona). In European and East Asian countries, dense networks of urban subways and railways provide connections with high-speed rail lines.
Asia
China
China has the largest network of high-speed railways in the world. it encompassed over of high-speed rail or over two-thirds of the world's total.
It is also the world's busiest with an annual ridership of over 1.44 billion in 2016
and 2.01 billion in 2018, more than 60% of total passenger rail volume.
By the end of 2018, cumulative passengers delivered by high-speed railway trains was reported to be over 9 billion.
According to
Railway Gazette International, select trains between Beijing South to Nanjing South on the Beijing–Shanghai high-speed railway have the fastest average operating speed in the world at .
The improved mobility and interconnectivity created by these new high-speed rail lines has generated a whole new high-speed commuter market around some urban areas. Commutes via high-speed rail to and from surrounding Hebei and Tianjin into Beijing have become increasingly common, likewise are between the cities surrounding Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou.
Hong Kong
A , entirely underground express rail link connects Hong Kong West Kowloon railway station near
Kwun Chung to the border with Chinese mainland, where the railway continues onwards to
Shenzhen's Futian station. A depot and the stabling sidings are located in
Shek Kong. Parts of the West Kowloon station are not under the jurisdiction of Hong Kong to facilitate co-location of border clearance.
Indonesia
operates a high-speed rail line connecting its two largest cities in Western
Java, the Whoosh HSR with an operational speed of . Operations commenced in October 2023. It is the first high-speed rail in
Southeast Asia and the Southern Hemisphere.
Japan
In Japan, the
Shinkansen was the first high-speed train and has a cumulative ridership of 10+ billion passengers with zero passenger fatalities due to operational accidents in its 60+ years of operation. It is the second largest high-speed rail system in Asia with of high-speed lines.
[ Japanese Bullet Trains, Japan Railways Group. ][ AMTRAK, Off Track, Triplepoint. Boston University.]
Saudi Arabia
Plans in Saudi Arabia to begin service on a high-speed line consist of a phased opening starting with the route from
Medina to King Abdullah Economic City followed up with the rest of the line to
Mecca the following year.
The Haramain high-speed railway opened in 2018.
South Korea
Since its opening in 2004,
KTX has transferred over 1 billion passengers as of August 2023,
and now Asia's third largest with
of rail lines. In 2013, for any transportation involving travel above , the KTX secured a market share of 57% over other modes of transport, which is by far the largest.
Taiwan
Taiwan has a single north–south high-speed line, Taiwan high-speed rail. It is approximately long, along the west coast of Taiwan from the national capital Taipei to the southern city of Kaohsiung. The construction was managed by Taiwan high-speed rail Corporation and the total cost of the project was US$18 billion. The private company operates the line fully, and the system is based primarily on Japan's
Shinkansen technology.
Eight initial stations were built during the construction of the high-speed rail system: Taipei, Banqiao, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Chiayi, Tainan, and Zuoying (Kaohsiung).
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan has a single high-speed rail line, the Tashkent–Samarkand high-speed rail line, which allows trains to reach up to with of rail lines. There are also electrified extensions at lower speeds to
Bukhara and
Dehqonobod.
Africa
Morocco
In November 2007, the Moroccan government decided to undertake the construction of a high-speed rail line between the economic capital
Casablanca and
Tangier, one of the largest harbour cities on the Strait of Gibraltar.
The line will also serve the capital
Rabat and
Kenitra. The first section of the line, the Kenitra–Tangier high-speed rail line, was completed in 2018.
Europe
In Europe, several nations are interconnected with cross-border high-speed rail, such as London-Paris, Paris-Brussel-Rotterdam, Madrid-Perpignan, and other future connecting projects exist.
France
France has of high-speed rail lines, making it one of the largest networks in Europe and the world. Market segmentation has principally focused on the business travel market. The French original focus on business travellers is reflected by the early design of the
TGV trains. Pleasure travel was a secondary market; now many of the French extensions connect with vacation beaches on the
Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean, as well as major
and also the ski resorts in France and Switzerland. Friday evenings are the peak time for TGVs (
train à grande vitesse).
[Metzler, 1992.] The system lowered prices on long-distance travel to compete more effectively with air services, and as a result some cities within an hour of Paris by TGV have become commuter communities, increasing the market while restructuring
land use.
[Levinson, D.]
On the Paris–Lyon service, the number of passengers grew sufficiently to justify the introduction of double-decker coaches. Later high-speed rail lines, such as the LGV Atlantique, the LGV Est, and most high-speed lines in France, were designed as feeder routes branching into conventional rail lines, serving a larger number of medium-sized cities.
Germany
Germany's first high-speed lines ran north–south, for historical reasons, and later developed east–west after German unification. In the early 1900s, Germany became the first country to run a prototype electric train at speeds in excess of 200 km/h, and during the 1930s several steam and diesel trains achieved revenue speeds of 160 km/h in daily service. The InterCityExperimental briefly held the world speed record for a steel-wheel-on-steel-rails vehicle during the 1980s. The
InterCityExpress entered revenue service in 1991 and serves purpose-built high-speed lines (Neubaustrecken), upgraded legacy lines (Ausbaustrecken), and unmodified legacy lines.
Lufthansa, Germany's flag carrier, has entered into a codeshare agreement with italic=no where ICEs run as "feeder flights" bookable with a Lufthansa flight number under the
AIRail program.
Greece
In 2022, Greece's first high-speed train began operations between
Athens and
Thessaloniki. The 512 km (318 miles) route is covered in 3 to 4 hours with trains reaching speeds of up to 250 km/h (160 miles/h).
The 180 km (112 mile) line from Athens to
Patras is also being upgraded to high speed with an expected completion by 2026. The route between Athens and Thessaloniki was previously among the busiest passenger air routes in Europe.
Italy
During the 1920s and 1930s, Italy was one of the first countries to develop the technology for high-speed rail. The country constructed the
Direttissime railways connecting major cities on dedicated electrified high-speed track (although at speeds lower to what today would be considered high-speed rail) and developed the fast ETR 200 trainset. After the Second World War and the fall of the fascist regime, interest in high-speed rail dwindled, with the successive governments considering it too costly and developing the tilting
Pendolino, to run at medium-high speed (up to ) on conventional lines, instead.
A true dedicated high-speed rail network was developed during the 1980s and the 1990s, and of high-speed rail were fully operational by 2010. Frecciarossa services are operated with ETR 500 and ETR1000 non-tilting trains at 25kVAC, 50 Hz power. The operational speed of the service is .
Over 100 million passengers used the Frecciarossa from the service introduction up to the first months of 2012.
Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori, the world's first private open-access operator of high-speed rail, is operative in Italy since 2012.
Norway
As of 2015, Norway's fastest trains have a commercial top speed of and the
Stadler FLIRT trains may attain , However the train which have a top speed of 245 km/h. A velocity of is permitted on the
Gardermoen Line, which links the
Gardermoen airport to
Oslo and a part of the main line northwards to
Trondheim.
Some parts of the trunk railways around Oslo are renewed and built for :
-
The Follo Line southwards from Oslo, a line Oslo–Ski on the Østfold Line, mainly in tunnel, planned to be ready in 2021.
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The Holm–Holmestrand–Nykirke part of the Vestfold Line (west to southwest of Oslo).
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The Farriseidet project, between Larvik and Porsgrunn on the Vestfold Line, in tunnel.
Russia
The existing Saint Petersburg–Moscow Railway can operate at maximum speeds of 250 km/h; the
Helsinki–
Saint Petersburg railway, dismantled after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, was capable of a maximum of 200 km/h. A new Moscow–Saint Petersburg high-speed railway, designed specifically for high-speed rail, is currently under construction: once completed, it is expected to have the maximum speed of 400 km/h. Future areas include freight lines, such as the Trans-Siberian Railway in Russia, which would allow 3-day Far East to Europe service for freight, potentially fitting in between the months by ship and hours by air.
Serbia
A high-speed line of
SOKO (, meaning "falcon") trains connects the country's two most populous cities:
Belgrade, the capital of the country, and
Novi Sad, the capital of
Vojvodina.
In contrast to the slower
Stadler FLIRT trains used for the
Regio lines,
the
Stadler KISS take 36 minutes
to go across two cities. In addition to the two main stations, the trains only stop in
New Belgrade.
The line is currently being extended
to reach
Subotica, Serbia's northernmost city.
The work is expected to be finished until the end of 2024, with an anticipated travel time between Belgrade and Subotica being around 70 minutes.
Spain
Spain has built an extensive high-speed rail network, with a length of (2024), the longest in Europe. It uses
standard gauge as opposed to the
Iberian gauge used in most of the national railway network, meaning that the high-speed tracks are separated and not shared with local trains or freight. Although standard gauge is the norm for Spanish high-speed rail, since 2011 there exists a regional high-speed service running on
Iberian gauge with special trains that connects the cities of
Ourense, Santiago de Compostela, A Coruña, and
Vigo in northwestern Spain. Connections to the French network exist since 2013, with direct trains from Paris to
Barcelona. Although on the French side, conventional speed tracks are used from
Perpignan to
Montpellier.
Switzerland
High-speed north–south freight lines in Switzerland are under construction, avoiding slow mountainous truck traffic, and lowering labour costs. The new lines, in particular the Gotthard Base Tunnel, are built for . But the short high-speed parts and the mix with freight will lower the average speeds. The limited size of the country gives fairly short domestic travel times anyway. Switzerland is investing money in lines on French and German soil to enable better access to the high-speed rail networks of those countries from Switzerland.
Turkey
The Turkish State Railways started building high-speed rail lines in 2003. The first section of the line, between
Ankara and Eskişehir, was inaugurated on 13 March 2009. It is a part of the
Istanbul to
Ankara high-speed rail line. A subsidiary of Turkish State Railways, Yüksek Hızlı Tren is the sole commercial operator of high-speed trains in Turkey.
The construction of three separate high-speed lines from Ankara to Istanbul, Konya and Sivas, as well as taking an Ankara–İzmir line to the launch stage, form part of the Turkish Ministry of Transport's strategic aims and targets.[ Strategic Aims and Targets www.bmc.net]
United Kingdom
The UK's fastest high-speed line (High Speed 1) connects London St Pancras with
Brussels, Paris and
Amsterdam through the Channel Tunnel. At speeds of up to , it is the only high-speed line in Britain with an operating speed of more than .
The Great Western Main Line, South Wales Main Line, West Coast Main Line, Midland Main Line, Cross Country Route and East Coast Main Line all have maximum speed limits of . Attempts to increase speeds to on both the West Coast Main Line and East Coast Main Line were abandoned in the 1980s, due to trains operating on those lines not being capable of cab signalling, which was made a legal requirement in the UK for tracks permitted to operate any service at speeds greater than , due to the impracticality of observing lineside signals at such speeds.
North America
United States
The United States has domestic definitions for high-speed rail varying between jurisdictions.
-
The United States Code defines high-speed rail as services "reasonably expected to reach sustained speeds of more than ",
-
The Federal Railroad Administration uses a definition of top speeds at and above.
-
The Congressional Research Service uses the term "higher-speed rail" for speeds up to and "very high-speed rail" for the rail on dedicated tracks with speeds over 150 mph.
Amtrak's Acela Express (reaching ), Northeast Regional, Keystone Service, Silver Star, Vermonter and certain MARC Train Penn Line express trains (the three reaching ) are currently the only high-speed services on the American continent according to the American definition, although they are not considered high-speed by international standards. These services are all limited to the Northeast Corridor. The Acela Express links Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., and while Northeast Regional trains travel the whole of the same route, but make more station stops. All other high-speed rail services travel over portions of the route.
As of 2024, there are two high-speed rail projects under construction in the United States. The California High-Speed Rail project, eventually linking the 5 largest cities in California, is planned to have its first operating segment, between Merced and Bakersfield, begin passenger service as soon as 2030.
Inter-city effects
With high-speed rail there has been an increase in accessibility within cities. It allows for urban regeneration, accessibility in cities near and far, and efficient inter-city relationships. Better inter-city relationships lead to high-level services to companies, advanced technology, and marketing. The most important effect of HSR is the increase of accessibility due to shorter travel times.
HSR lines have been used to create long-distance routes which in many cases cater to business travellers. However, there have also been short-distance routes that have revolutionised the concepts of HSR. They create commuting relationships between cities opening up more opportunities. Using both longer distance and shorter distance rail in one country allows for the best case of economic development, widening the labor and residential market of a metropolitan area and extending it to smaller cities.
Therefore, HSR is highly related to urban development,
it attracts offices and start-ups,
induces industrial displacement,
and promotes firm innovation.
Closures
The KTX Incheon International Airport to Seoul Line (operates on
AREX) was closed in 2018, due to a mix of issues, including poor ridership and track sharing.
The AREX was not constructed as high-speed rail, resulting a cap of 150 km/h on KTX service in its section.
In China, many conventional lines upgraded up to 200 km/h had high-speed services shifted to parallel high-speed lines. These lines, often passing through towns and having level crossings, are still used for local trains and freight trains. For example, all (passenger) EMU services on the Hankou–Danjiangkou railway were routed over the Wuhan–Shiyan high-speed railway on its opening to free up capacity for freight trains on the slower railway.
In India, the Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) network is being newly constructed to provide semi-high-speed rail connectivity between major cities and suburban areas. The RRTS corridors are designed for a maximum speed of 180 km/h, with an operational speed of up to 160 km/h.
See also
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Ground-effect train
-
Inter-city rail
-
List of high-speed railway lines
-
List of high-speed trains
-
Maglev
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Megaproject
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Proposed high-speed rail by country
-
Passenger rail terminology
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Railway speed record
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Vactrain
Works cited
Further reading
External links
