High-speed rail

High-speed rail (often abbreviated to "HSR") is a form of rail travel that uses trains that can travel at least km/h 250 on purpose-built tracks. The fastest trains are capable of speeds in excess of km/h 400, though operational top speeds in day-to-day service are often limited to km/h 300 or less. Most definitions also include upgraded legacy tracks if speeds are km/h 200 or higher in revenue service and some high-speed rail services contain no purpose-built tracks whatsoever. Many rail enthusiasts like high-speed trains because of their sleek streamlined designs, which are meant to improve efficiency and reduce air resistance and their eye-catching "snouts" which eliminate the tunnel boom and their modernity and of course their breathtaking speed!

High-speed rail is often faster than flying, if you take into account the time it takes to get to the airport and through security checks, as well as the usually faster boarding procedures for trains. This is particularly true for journeys between relatively nearby cities, and the regions where high-speed rail is most prevalent (western Europe and east Asia) have many large cities in close proximity to one another. A train journey is usually faster than going by plane if it takes three hours or less. And of course, you'll get to enjoy the scenery during your journey, which you generally would not if travelling by plane.

Many high-speed rail services are aimed at business travellers and the fare structure and on-board amenities (e.g. wifi, a place to hang a suit) tend to reflect this.

The vast majority of high-speed trains are electrical multiple units (EMUs), which means they are driven by electricity and have their motive power distributed over most or all of the train instead of concentrated in a single locomotive. This has several technological advantages and means that a design where some passengers sitting directly behind the driver can see the tracks through the front window is easy to implement and has been done on some German ICEs.

Historical Facts about High-speed rail

Shinkansen 0-series - Shinkansen 0 series and the world's very first high-speed trains, in service 1964-2008

The first high-speed rail line was Japan'sShinkansen (often called Bullet Train in English; actual translation "new trunk line"), with its first line and the Tōkaidō Shinkansen, completed in 1964 - just in time for that year's Olympic Games in Tokyo. When first completed, it transported passengers between the cities of Tokyo and Osaka in a then-record time of 4 hours, compared to the 6 hours 10 minutes the journey took using conventional railway lines. Since then, technology has improved considerably, with the journey time on the fastest Nozomi trains between Tokyo and Osaka now taking 2 hours 22 minutes, and the operating speed of Shinkansen trains having been increased from km/h 210 when it opened in 1964 to 320 km/h today.

For over a decade and the Shinkansen remained the only high-speed train network in the world, until the completion of the first line of the Train à Grande Vitesse (TGV) in France in 1981, which broke the Shinkansen's speed record and ushered in a new age of rail travel in Europe. Subsequently, many European countries introduced their own high-speed rail services and the first outside France being Germany'sIntercity-Express (ICE) in 1991, which in turn broke the speed record of the TGV before France got it back. Today, Europe is served by an extensive network of high-speed rail lines, and is the only place where a system is being developed at the continental scale. Indeed in many places in Europe borders are so seamless for high speed rail travel as to be hardly perceptible. The development of high-speed rail in Europe has revolutionized long distance travel, with many of what were formerly the world's busiest air corridors now being among the most popular high-speed rail routes instead. The European Union is taking a more and more active role in railroad policy, trying to unify - sometimes deliberately chosen for their incompatibility - incompatible national standards and make cross-border open access to the train network easier. The EU also prioritizes certain rail corridors and provides funding for their improvement.

Other East Asian countries have sought to emulate the success of high-speed rail services in Japan and Europe by building networks of their own. In particular, China has been going on a building spree of new rail lines, and now boasts the longest high-speed train network in the world, including an "international" connection to Hong Kong that was completed in 2018. Other countries have also gotten into the game: Türkiye is the first country outside East Asia or Europe to have HSR, and Saudi Arabia is planning to become the first Arab country with HSR. Many other plans were canceled due to the 2008 economic crisis, or have been put on hold perhaps indefinitely. Speed records for rail vehicles are still being set and depending on what you count are either held by France (fastest wheel on rails train), Japan (fastest maglev) or a Siemens-built locomotive on German tracks (the French record is of a multiple unit, not a locomotive hauled train) which is now employed to pull Railjet of ÖBB.

Tilting technology

One of the most expensive factors limiting speed is curve radius. Many railway lines were built in the 19th century following river valleys or other features or had to avoid encroaching on the land of certain landowners and are thus rather curvy. In mountainous areas lines were sometimes deliberately built curvy to allow heavy and underpowered steam trains to climb the slopes, sometimes with spirals where long trains would pass over themselves. Engineers in several countries were tasked with allowing trains to go faster on existing or only moderately upgraded track either to deliver HSR earlier to more people or to avoid the daunting investment of new construction. England, which had a curvy legacy network but was at the time averse to spend much on infrastructure and Italy, which has the Alps in the North and the Apennines along its spine were at the forefront of this development. Both countries saw the solution in a train tilting to decrease lateral forces, similar to what motorcyclists do. There was the question of "active tilt" i.e. the carriages being tilted by motors hydraulics and so on or "passive tilt" where the carriages would be moved by the inertia of the train entering the curve. British Rail developed the "Advanced Passenger Train" or APT the first train with active tilt in passenger service. However and the APT was plagued with teething issues, among them motion sickness experienced by journalists on a test run and thus the project was canceled and the patents sold to Italian companies. The Italians meanwhile developed a series of trains, initially with passive tilt called "Pendolino" which has become the generic name of tilting trains in many languages even though it is still trademarked. Italian tilting train technology enjoys a good reputation and is exported to the British Isles among other places. Not all tilting trains meet the common definitions of high speed rail but they are usually the fastest trains on any given route. In some countries - notably Germany - there have been problems with certain tilting trains leading to the tilting mechanism being disabled or their premature withdrawal from service.

By region and country

There are operating high-speed rail lines only in Asia and Europe, although Africa's first service in Morocco is being built and tested ahead of launch in mid-2018.

Africa

• Morocco begun / a high-speed TGV service between Tangier and Casablanca in 2018. It is run by ONCF and the state railway.

Asia

Eastern Asia HSR2016.svg|HSR services in East Asia (click map to enlarge)

High-speed rail in China|China

• China Railway High-speed (中国高速铁路) (CRH) – The only high-speed trains in the world that offer Sleeper trains|sleeper cabins on longer routes due to the vast distances covered. Cross-border services run via Guangzhou and Shenzhen to West Kowloon Railway Station in Hong Kong. Plans for other international routes have been announced, but no construction has started as of 2022.

Japan

See also: [[rail travel in Japan

• Shinkansen (新幹線), commonly called the bullet train. While Japan's legacy train network is built to mm 1067 gauge, all Shinkansen lines are built to standard gauge due to the higher requirements of faster trains. The original high-speed rail service, operated by the JR companies that are the privatized successors of Japan's state railways. Trains are fast, clean and on time, but prices are higher than in Europe or other Asian countries. While the network reaches all of Japan's main islands it is low on links perpendicular to the main length of the main islands and only started to serve the very southern tip of Hokkaido in 2016 with extensions to cover most of the island planned to be opened gradually until the early 2030s.

Saudi Arabia

A line connects Mecca and Medina however, reportedly the trains are just as off-limits to non-Muslims as the cities.

High-speed rail in South Korea|South Korea

• Korea Train eXpress (한국고속철도) (KTX). The KTX is often promoted as an indigenous Korean development, though it is in truth derived from the TGV. The Seoul - Busan route in particular helped ease congestion on one of the nation's busiest highways and reduce flights on one of the world's busiest flight corridors. Proposals for an undersea tunnel to Jeju are variously made due to the immense popularity of the island and the strain Flights to Jeju put on domestic airport capacity. The 2018 thaw in relations with the north also makes links to or through North Korea more realistic.

Taiwan

• Taiwan High Speed Rail (台灣高速鐵路) (THSR), built using Japanese Shinkansen technology. A single line connects the north and south of the island along its western shore. THSR has greatly reduced domestic flights. Early bird fares offer discounts up to 35% of the regular walk-up fare which is less of a spread than the difference between early bird and walkup fares in Europe but still unusual for east Asian HSR.

Turkey

Turkish State Railways' Yüksek Hızlı Tren (YHT) (literally high-speed train) has two routes in operation originating in Ankara. One links to Pendik (a suburb of Istanbul on the Istanbul/Asian Side]], [[Asian Side) via Eskişehir and the other branches off from that line to serve Konya. A tunnel under the Bosphorus will allow the YHT to extend into Europe once construction work to connect it to the national network is complete. Tickets tend to be rather affordable (e.g. 86 Turkey#Money]], [[lira for a one-way trip from Istanbul to Konya) but trains can book out rather quickly, so you should book ahead even though prices are fixed. Plans to extend the network are underway.

Uzbekistan

A kilometers 334 line links three major cities in Uzbekistan. From the capital Tashkent, trains travel at speeds of up to km/h 250 to Samarkand and Bukhara. Trains are operated on the Russian gauge by Uzbekistan Railways.

Europe

See also: Rail travel in Europe

High Speed Railroad Map of Europe.svg]], [[HSR routes and line speeds in Europe (click map to enlarge) Networks of Major High Speed Rail Operators in Europe.gif]], [[HSR operators in Europe

Cross-border

Europe is the only continent with a truly international high-speed train network, and therefore has several operators linking multiple countries together. There is a reasonable level of integration and cooperation between these companies, allowing passengers to purchase through-tickets on journeys that use more than one company and cross several borders.

• Renfe'sAVE connects Spanish cities to destinations in southern France: Avignon, Lyon, Marseille, Montpellier, Toulouse.
• Eurostar connects the United Kingdom to France, Belgium and the Netherlands via the Channel Tunnel. Major cities served: Avignon, Brussels, Lille, London, Lyon, Marseille, Paris. Services from London and Brussels to Rotterdam and Amsterdam started in April 2023, although the equivalent reverse journey (Netherlands to UK) will involve a change in Brussels for the foreseeable future due to Dutch stations not providing space for border checks. It is not clear whether Brexit will affect Eurostar operations.
• The Deutsche Bahn ICE crosses into most of Germany's neighbors (Austria, Belgium, France and the Netherlands and Switzerland, but not Luxembourg, Poland or the Czech Republic). Major cities served outside of Germany: Amsterdam, Basel, Bern, Brussels, Innsbruck, Paris, Salzburg, Strasbourg, Vienna, Zurich.
• IZY is a low-cost non-stop service offering up to three trains per day between Brussels and Paris. They are owned by Thalys but operate as a separate brand with its own ticketing.
• Railjet trains cross from Austria into some neighboring countries, namely the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary and Italy, but are limited to km/h 160 outside of Austria and Germany due to infrastructure concerns. Major cities served: Budapest, Munich, Prague, Venice, Vienna, Zurich.
• The TGV also crosses borders into many of France's neighbors, namely Belgium, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain and Switzerland (where the service is known as TGV Lyria). The service between France and Germany is jointly operated by the SNCF and Deutsche Bahn, with ICE and TGV trains running on both sides of the border crossing. A similar arrangement works between the SNCF and Spanish company Renfe for journeys between France and Spain. Major cities served outside of France: Barcelona, Basel, Brussels, Frankfurt, Geneva, Luxembourg (city) ]].

No intercity maglev lines are in operation, though Japan is planning to open a maglev Shinkansen line from Tokyo to Nagoya by 2027.