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On this day 35 years ago, TGV unit 325 set the land speed record at 515.3 km/h on the LGV Atlantique.

This beat the previous record set by the same train on the 5th December 1989 of 482 km/h

Both these records managed to surpass the record set by an experimental ICE prototype in West Germany in 1988, which was 406.9 km/h on the Hannover-Würzburg line, thus establishing French engineering as superior to the German, at least on speed.

This record stayed current until 2007, when SNCF topped this with a TGV POS setting the new record at 568 and then 574,8 km/h.

TGV 325 is now decommissioned, and is kept at the Cité du Train in Mulhouse.

This entry was edited (6 months ago)
in reply to Børge

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feliz

@forteller I'd rather like to see a competition for the best practical expansion of all railway lines for everyday use, with trains that run at frequent, reliable intervals. Japan seems to be in first place here. Experimental ultra-speed locomotives are technically nice, but aren't that necessary. We don't want to end up with the Formula One for train racing. Trains need to stop regularly to serve the people.
@Børge
in reply to Charlie Stross

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Poslovitch

@cstross @Dany @quixoticgeek And the overhead cables need to be « tensed up » further to prevent the pantograph from catching up with what we call the « mur de la caténaire » in French. Going fast is great, but if you need to repair everything each time a train goes through… meh 😜

Quite happy that the most recent record was held on LGV Est though. My beloved LGV ❤️.

@Dany 🔜39C3 @Charlie Stross @Quixoticgeek
in reply to Poslovitch

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Quixoticgeek

@Poslovitch @cstross @Dany
Does illustrate nicely why so many train lines aren't built any faster than they are. I was amused to see that rail baltica is aiming for. Design speed of 234kph. Why such a weird number? Cos at 235kph it's high-speed, and the engineering regulations on the construction becomes more complicated and expensive.

Still sucks tho trundling along at barely 100kph, knowing that we do know how to make them run so much faster, but capitalism says no. Tho not at 574kph.

@Poslovitch @Dany 🔜39C3 @Charlie Stross
in reply to Charlie Stross

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Quixoticgeek

@cstross @Poslovitch @Dany as a train nerd and engineer I really want this to happen. A 500kph maglev sounds awesome. But what annoys me is the people who use the existence of the maglev test track on Japan, as an excuse to not build any rail, HS or otherwise in the UK as we should be holding out for maglev to be working. A bit like keep burning coal til fusion works...

More rail. More hs rail. And maybe eventually some shiny maglev too. But let's build all of them.

@Poslovitch @Dany 🔜39C3 @Charlie Stross
in reply to Quixoticgeek

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Charlie Stross

@quixoticgeek @Poslovitch @Dany I still maintain the BIG mistake that crippled HS2 lay in not starting by building out from Aberdeen, south to Edinburgh and Glasgow, and *then* continuing until finally terminating in London. (Which would have sustained the pressure for it to be fully funded and complete, rather than stopping shorter and shorter "to save money".)
@Poslovitch @Dany 🔜39C3 @Quixoticgeek
in reply to Charlie Stross

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Quixoticgeek

@cstross @Poslovitch @Dany total agreement. "The only way HS2 reaches Scotland is if it starts in Scotland"

The moment they sold it to the public as "20 minutes faster to Birmingham" they lost a lot of public support. What sane mind wants to go to Birmingham?. Had they sold it as "do a day trip the Edinburgh fringe" and started building in Scotland. It would be a very different result.

@Poslovitch @Dany 🔜39C3 @Charlie Stross
in reply to Quixoticgeek

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Moof! 🔜 #IceAGEChallenge

@quixoticgeek @cstross @Poslovitch @Dany Germany is all the better for the limited amount of relatively slow HS rail it has than if it didn’t have any at all.

The problem in the UK is that the speed gains that HS1 gave were basically nullified by the extended length of the track, and most people will never even feel the benefits of those 20-odd minutes on the way to France…

And nobody really talks about the javelins.

@Poslovitch @Dany 🔜39C3 @Charlie Stross @Quixoticgeek
in reply to Moof! 🔜 #IceAGEChallenge

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Charlie Stross

@quixoticgeek @Poslovitch @Dany Worse: the UK is the wrong shape! London is down in the south-east and well-connected to Berlin. But a lot of us live nowhere near London! We really need to blobbify Great Britain—move Scotland into the former Doggerland (now under the North Sea), roll Devon and Cornwall up into the English Channel, and as for Wales …
@Poslovitch @Dany 🔜39C3 @Quixoticgeek
in reply to Quixoticgeek

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Poslovitch

@quixoticgeek @cstross @Dany
Speed is great, but better service is what we actually need.

I'm getting fed up with the rural line between the city and my parents'. A train every hour, regular disruptions due to a poorly-maintained crossing, they plan big capacity trains when no-one is aboard (AGC), and poor capacity ones (Z2) when affluence is through the roof.
And the number of times we got dropped off 50 km from the terminus because "we're so late this train can't go any further now".

@Dany 🔜39C3 @Charlie Stross @Quixoticgeek
in reply to Poslovitch

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Quixoticgeek

@Poslovitch @cstross @Dany agreed. It is my belief that every train station, bus stop, metro station, tram station etc... should be served by at least one service in each direction every 15 minutes. Especially for rural locations. The infrastructure should be brought up to the necessary standard to meet this service level.
@Poslovitch @Dany 🔜39C3 @Charlie Stross
in reply to Moof! 🔜 #IceAGEChallenge

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Bruno Girin

I was in university at the time and I remember being glued to the radio with friends as they were live broadcasting the speed tests.

As engineering students, this was an inspiring tale of real life application of the studies we were entering.

Of course, a fair few of us went on to have careers in software instead, thanks to technical wizardry coming out of CERN a few years later.

in reply to Moof! 🔜 #IceAGEChallenge

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Moof! 🔜 #IceAGEChallenge

In honour of this momentous occasion, @darkphoenix and I are currently attempting to beat that speed record on an unmodified ICE 4 on the Hannover-Würzburg line, as we head up to Hannover from Basel SBB today.

Given that the maximum rated speed of this ICE 4 is 250km/h, and we have no access to the driver’s cab, I think our chances of breaking that record are pretty slim.

@ash
This entry was edited (6 months ago)
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