French train breaks speed record

A French TGV train broke a world speed record yesterday as it hurtled down a newly built track at 574.8 kilometres per hour in the country's Champagne region.

The special train called V150, an enhanced version of trains that will run on the Paris-Strasbourg line from June, has been preparing for the record run for weeks and it carried journalists and other guests for the official attempt.

Engineer Alstom, state railways group SNCF and track operator RFF had teamed up to show off French engineering excellence and boost export prospects for French trains.

The absolute speed record for trains was set by a "maglev" train in Japan, at 581 kilometres per hour in 2003. However, those trains do not run on rails but glide on a magnetic field.

The previous speed record for a train running on rails was 515.3 kph, set in France in 1990.

Apart from France's Train a Grande Vitesse (TGV) and Japan's Shinkansen, high-speed trains are also made by Germany's Siemens and Canada's Bombardier.

The V150 was made up of two normal cars that will run on the eastern TGV track, three double-decker carriages and three sets of motorised wheels. The train can develop over 25,000 horsepower, twice that of a conventional TGV.

The record was set between Preny, near Metz in the east of France, and Bezannes near Reims. The event run was broadcast live on television in France and neighbouring Germany.

High-speed trains in France as well as rail links to London, Brussels, Cologne and Amsterdam are competing with plane travel and several French regional airlines have disappeared since the TGV started in 1981.