New Train Speed Record

Yes but what happens if a wheel or axle fails at that speed? One hell of a mess.It's a good thing that it was not tested here in the UK because the track would have failed the points would have been broken, the over head wires come down or it would never have moved at all.

That is the reason it was tested in France!

Yes I think you may well have a valid point there. I noticed that the track was very straight, how will it ever cope if we try to run that fast over here? I do not know of a stretch of line that is straight for more than about 500mtrs. I guess we will have the Branson alternative, that levitates at any given set of points, then reverses its direction just in case we might get some where on time.

The line through Berney Arms and its neighbour through Acle would seem to fit the bill, also the line on Southend Pier, the longest pier in the world.

Yes but we are british and our railways are rather old, the french have spent billions on their shiney new system. Would our brittle rails stand the bashing, would the public stand the cost?

you are so lame you argue on the internet.

eat a pie.

Cool yes, but wat about the train speed recoed?

I think most of you are missing the point. The line which the French train ran on is a sterile line with no other traffic on it. Their normal network track is not much better than hours, but their system does not suffer neglect same as our privatised system.

Its great that train can travel at that speed but this not what out railways were built for. These speeds require a completely dedicated high specification track with little or not points, no over-bridges for people to chuck bricks off, no level crossings for people to try and beat the train and more importantly no stations, just stretch of track between A and B.

Th price of tickets on these trains will never match the budget airlines and therefore it is a massive PR gimmick.

The UK privatised rail network is a disaster and it cannot possibly work effectively, or safely under the privatised regime. It either needs to be nationalised into one big company or split into regions with the train operator being responsible for the track, passenger and fright services in that region. We had to do this in 1920 because the private multi company system did not work and between 1930 and 1948 we had the worlds best railway system operating under four regional companies until they were all bankrupted due the goverment being unable to pay the bills for the war years.

It's not how fast a train can go that important its the fact that the train actually runs, it actually stops at stations to pick up passengers, it gets to the destination on time without murdering half the passengers and it uses the freight revenue to subsidise passenger fares, theses are all what the railways should be about.

Leave the one hour A - B journeys to the budget airlines

Hours? Bridges they have them by the million the man intevieved said the passed under a bridge every five seconds. That an awful lot of bridges. What about theover head power line it is subject to massive stresses as well and think about the German train that derailed hit a bridge (how careless) and ended up killing quite a few.

Vor Sprung Der Technic?