World's Fastest High-Speed Train is Now Running in China

Posted on December 29, 2009 by Zachary Shahan

The world’s fastest high-speed train, averaging 217 mph, was just launched in China. It blows away the competition, but may not be so special for long.

The train will cover a distance of 663 miles (1,068 km) from Wuhan (central China) to Guangzhou (in the south). It will reduce the travel time between these cities from over 6 hours to about 2 hours and 45 minutes.

This is just the beginning, though.

China plans to expand its high-speed rail to 42 lines by 2012! It intends to invest $300 billion by 2020 and buy at least 80 super high-speed trains.

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This new high-speed train, developed by Seimens, Bombardier and Alstom hit 245 mph at its fastest, and averaging 217 mph it is well above the next closest trains (France’s — 172 mph, Japan’s — 151 mph, Germany’s — 144 mph). Fast trains!

The US could definitely benefit from some of those. Bridgette Meinhold of inhabitat states that with a train of that speed “a trip from New York City to Chicago would take a little over 3 1/2 hours.” I think it’s high time for the US to start considering high-speed trains more seriously!

via ecofriend & inhabitat

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Image Credit: Extra Medium via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Zachary Shahan (2291 Posts)

I'm the director of CleanTechnica, the most popular clean energy website in the world, and Planetsave, a leading green and science news site. I've been covering green news of various sorts since 2008, and I've been especially focused on solar energy, electric vehicles, bicycling, and wind energy for the past few years. You can also find my work on Scientific American, Reuters, Think Progress, GE's ecomagination site, several sites in the Important Media network, & many other places. To connect on your favorite social network, go to: zacharyshahan.com

DET

It’s very unlikely we’ll ever see much HSR in the U.S. Much of the U.S. is too sparsely populated to ever benefit from it; other parts are too densely populated to allow it to be developed without causing large numbers of people to be dislocated. In any case, a national system must receive approval from Congress, many of whose members are from states that will most likely never benefit from the type of service that HSR might be expected to provide. Getting everyone “on-board” with this type of service without providing a lot of “pork” to other parts of the country is politically highly unlikely, no matter how wise it might be.
DET

It’s very unlikely we’ll ever see much HSR in the U.S. Much of the U.S. is too sparsely populated to ever benefit from it; other parts are too densely populated to allow it to be developed without causing large numbers of people to be dislocated. In any case, a national system must receive approval from Congress, many of whose members are from states that will most likely never benefit from the type of service that HSR might be expected to provide. Getting everyone “on-board” with this type of service without providing a lot of “pork” to other parts of the country is politically highly unlikely, no matter how wise it might be.
Chris V

Bob, China launched a man into space, sent a probe that successfully orbited the moon, are the world’s third richest nation, are a member of the UN Security Council, are one of the few nuclear nations, owns $800 billion in US debt, and is the main creditor to the US. To call them a “developing” country and not a “developed” country is a joke.

Frankly, just the fact that they launched a man into space tells me that their resources and technical wherewithal are developed.
Chris V

Bob, China launched a man into space, sent a probe that successfully orbited the moon, are the world’s third richest nation, are a member of the UN Security Council, are one of the few nuclear nations, owns $800 billion in US debt, and is the main creditor to the US. To call them a “developing” country and not a “developed” country is a joke.

Frankly, just the fact that they launched a man into space tells me that their resources and technical wherewithal are developed.
Chris V

Bob, China launched a man into space, sent a probe that successfully orbited the moon, are the world’s third richest nation, are a member of the UN Security Council, are one of the few nuclear nations, owns $800 billion in US debt, and is the main creditor to the US. To call them a “developing” country and not a “developed” country is a joke.

Frankly, just the fact that they launched a man into space tells me that their resources and technical wherewithal are developed.
bob

Chris, developing status is measured on per-capta levels, China has twice as many people as US and Europe combined so China will still be a developing country when its economy is larger than US and Europe combined, get used to it.
bob

Chris, developing status is measured on per-capta levels, China has twice as many people as US and Europe combined so China will still be a developing country when its economy is larger than US and Europe combined, get used to it.
Chris V

With the fastest train in the world and all these hundreds of billions of investment, can we finally stop calling China “developing” and label it developed? Then maybe we can hold it responsible for it’s contribution to pollution? And perhaps we can get it to spend some of those billions to reducing its carbon output?
Chris V

With the fastest train in the world and all these hundreds of billions of investment, can we finally stop calling China “developing” and label it developed? Then maybe we can hold it responsible for it’s contribution to pollution? And perhaps we can get it to spend some of those billions to reducing its carbon output?
Chris V

With the fastest train in the world and all these hundreds of billions of investment, can we finally stop calling China “developing” and label it developed? Then maybe we can hold it responsible for it’s contribution to pollution? And perhaps we can get it to spend some of those billions to reducing its carbon output?
JJ

I got to ride the HST in Taiwan from Taipai to Hsinchu, the most exhilarating train ride in my entire life. The track was elevated high above the ground like on a viaduct and mostly walled off so not much of a view to see. It was much like being on an a luxury plane, lots of room, practically zero buffeting, but only 20mins ride vs the usual 1hr slow train ride. The G forces on leaving the station was the best part.

Ofcourse the French and Japanese take this for granted.

Somehow I don’t see the US ever getting this kind of transport with republicans in power half the time, for them it is just too socialized.

I wonder if a Nuclear battery such as from Toshiba could be used as a power source to avoid the electrification of such vast amounts of track.
JJ

I got to ride the HST in Taiwan from Taipai to Hsinchu, the most exhilarating train ride in my entire life. The track was elevated high above the ground like on a viaduct and mostly walled off so not much of a view to see. It was much like being on an a luxury plane, lots of room, practically zero buffeting, but only 20mins ride vs the usual 1hr slow train ride. The G forces on leaving the station was the best part.

Ofcourse the French and Japanese take this for granted.

Somehow I don’t see the US ever getting this kind of transport with republicans in power half the time, for them it is just too socialized.

I wonder if a Nuclear battery such as from Toshiba could be used as a power source to avoid the electrification of such vast amounts of track.
MD

Not just the USA, North America needs to consider HST for transport of goods and people, the underlying “what if” is that these trains need constant electrical power.

Currently the Shanghai Maglev Train is running over there, the first commercial high-speed maglev line in the world.
MD

Not just the USA, North America needs to consider HST for transport of goods and people, the underlying “what if” is that these trains need constant electrical power.

Currently the Shanghai Maglev Train is running over there, the first commercial high-speed maglev line in the world.
MD

Not just the USA, North America needs to consider HST for transport of goods and people, the underlying “what if” is that these trains need constant electrical power.

Currently the Shanghai Maglev Train is running over there, the first commercial high-speed maglev line in the world.