Up to 350km/h: The world’s 10 fastest passenger trains

In August 2011, I was fortunate enough to ride on the then brand-new Hayabusa bullet train, which operates on the line between Tokyo and Aomori at the northern tip of Honshu.

It was only five months after the devastating earthquake and tsunami, but the line – which slices through Sendai, the city closest to the epicentre – had already reopened.

The 320km/h glossy green train, with a nose like a blade, was a thing of strange beauty – especially for a rail-user accustomed to riding between Surbiton and Waterloo.

High-speed trains are not as romantic as steam engines, sleepers or old diesel units that chug along coasts or up mountains. But they say a lot about a country’s aspirations. Progress in train technology – along with top speeds – often reflect a country’s international ranking in other fields.

The following are the 10 countries with the fastest scheduled services currently on the tracks. With fresh high-speed lines being developed all over the world, however, it’s a ranking that’s sure to change in the coming years.

(And you won’t be surprised to find Australia is not in the top 10. The fastest train here is Queensland Rail’s Tilt Train, which holds the record for top speed at 210km/h. Its regular service tops out at 160km/h – almost half the speed of the slowest trains on the below list.)

10. United Kingdom: 300km/h

The UK’s current fastest train is the 300km/h Eurostar e320 – which goes to France; Southeastern’s Javelin, using the same section of line (HS1), can reach speeds of 225km/h. Elsewhere, mainlines are limited to 201km/h.

The Eurostar e320 runs on the London-Paris-Brussels line via the tunnel. It uses the High Speed 1 line from St Pancras International and, unlike earlier Eurostar trains, is suitable for use in Germany and the Netherlands.

The train was officially unveiled at St Pancras in November 2014 and began commercial service between London and Paris in November 2015.

It has a maximum operating speed of 322km/h but HS1 is limited to 300km/h; LGV Nord – the French line that links the tunnel to Paris – is designed for 350km/h but the current maximum is the same as in the UK.

The train is also known as British Rail Class 374 which, despite the higher number, sounds oddly sluggish.

9. Saudi Arabia: 300km/h

Sandstorms, soaring temperatures (50ºC is not headline news) and 12 camel crossings were just some of the challenges facing the builders of Saudi Arabia’s Haramain High-Speed Railway, which links the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, via Jeddah.

The line opened in 2018 and has become popular with tourists and pilgrims, reducing the 450-kilometre trip from 9-10 hours to just two.

Thirty-five Spanish-built Talgo trains adapted for desert operation and high temperatures carry 417 seated passengers in 13 carriages. The average top speed is 300km/h, though the track is designed for 322-360km/h.

8. Italy: 300km/h

As the Italian network has a maximum speed of 300 km/h, Trenitalia’s Frecciarossa (“red arrow”), or ETR1000, operates at the same top speed as both the Eurostar e320 and Saudi Arabia’s Spanish trains.

But during testing in 2015, one train reached 389km/h and the engineered maximum speed is just over 400km/h. They are used on the dedicated high-speed lines connecting Turin, Milan, Bologna, Florence, Rome, and Naples.

Trenitalia’s owner has announced plans to compete with Eurostar on the London-Paris route by 2029, using rolling stock “inspired” by Frecciarossa trains.

7. South Korea: 304km/h

South Korea’s national railway operator, Korail, runs its high-speed rail service. Korea Train Express, more commonly known as KTX, began operation in 2004.

The KTX-Sancheon takes its name from the Korean word for the cherry salmon – known for its speed and agility. It has an operational top speed of 305km/h and is the first high-speed train designed and developed in South Korea.

A prototype reached 422km/h in 2013, making South Korea one of only four countries in the world to develop a train capable of such speeds, along with France, Japan and China.

The KTX-Sancheon operates on five lines out of Seoul – the most popular is Seoul-Busan (2 hours 15 minutes) – and three lines beyond the capital.

6. Spain: 310km/h

Spain began running high-speed trains in 1992 when the first line was opened between Madrid, Cordoba and Seville. Since then, the network has spread to almost all the major cities, as well as international connections.

The Renfe Class 103 AVE train operates between Madrid and Barcelona – competing with one of Europe’s busiest air shuttles – and Madrid and Figueres, reaching speeds of up to 310 km/h. In 2006, an S103 achieved a record top speed of 403.6km/h on the Madrid-Zaragoza track, a Spanish rail speed record.

The average speed on Spain’s high-speed network is 222km/h, which is higher than the averages in Japan or France.

5. Morocco: 320km/h

Africa’s first high-speed railway is named Al Boraq, after a mythical creature that served as the prophet Mohammed’s mount. The line, connecting Tangier and Casablanca, is operated by Morocco’s nationalised operator, the Office National des Chemins de Fer du Maroc.

The catchily named Alstom Avelia Euroduplex trains run at speeds as high as 320km/h on the dedicated track. These trains are double-deckers, with a passenger capacity of 533. During pre-service testing on the Al Boraq line, trains hit a peak of 357km/h.

For now, the only dedicated high-speed line is the 187-kilometre section between Tangier and Kenitra, with trains slowing down to 159km/h for the onward journey to Rabat and Casablanca.

Still, the entire 323-kilometre journey now takes only 2 hours 10 minutes, instead of the 4 hours 45 minutes required by conventional trains.

The track south of Kenitra is being upgraded and in April a Kenitra-Marrakech line was officially launched by King Mohammed VI. Lines to Fez and Agadir are at the planning stage.

Africa is waking up to the potential of high-speed rail. Egypt is constructing a network, scheduled to start operating in 2027, and Nigeria – which runs retrofitted pacey Spanish Talgos and InterCity 125’s on Lagos’s metro network – has just announced a high-speed rail project.

4. Japan: 322km/h

The awesome “bullet trains” were launched way back in 1964 – and pictures of them in front of Mount Fuji or streaking across rural Japan still have the power to excite the rail-lover.

The first Shinkansen (“new mainline”) trains, now classed as the 0 series, had a maximum operating speed of 220km/h. The current E5 and H5 Series can hit a top operating speed of 322km/h.

The trains run on Tohoku Shinkansen and Hokkaido Shinkansen services; the H5 is a cold-weather version for the same lines, with a snowplough.

There are more than 2900 kilometres of Shinkansen lines, and the Central Japan Railway is developing a Maglev Shinkansen, the L0 Series, for use between Tokyo and Osaka as early as 2027. These trains are expected to operate at 500km/h but have hit a top speed during testing of 607km/h.

The next bullet train series, the E10, will run on India’s Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed line, due to open 2027-8.

3. France: 322/330km/h

The arrival of the swaggering orange TGV in 1981 confirmed French railways as the new standard for Europe. Every other country has copied it to some extent, and none have quite kept up when it comes to coverage – there are 2600 kilometres of high-speed track, fanning out from Paris in all directions.

It’s only fair that we place France slightly above Japan in this ranking. TGVs have been hitting 322km/h since 1992. The latest model, the Avelia Horizon – which will enter into service next year – can reach 349km/h. The High Speed Alliance reports that some TGVs already operate at 330km/h, though this isn’t confirmed by SNCF.

TGVs have been breaking records galore since their inception. In 1981, a TGV Sud-Est train set a speed record of 380km/h. In 1990, a modified TGV Atlantique 325 train recorded a new record speed of 515km/h.

Seven years later, this record was obliterated, when a modified five-car TGV POS (standing for Paris-Ostfrankreich-Süddeutschland) hit 574.9km/h – a new world record.

SNCF’s TGV network extends outside France, directly linking to Italy, Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany.

2. Germany: 330km/h

It’s characteristically cosmopolitan of Germans to call their sleek white high-speed trains Intercity Expresses – cool-sounding ICE in English or “ee-tsay-ay” in Deutsch.

The ICE 3, manufactured by Siemens and Bombardier, operates at the national maximum track speed of 320km/h (199mph) – but the class 403 runs at 330km/h – on the high-speed line between Frankfurt and Cologne when it needs to make up for a delay. It’s barely breaking sweat, though, as the train reached speeds of 369km/h in trials.

The ICE 3 is operated mainly by Deutsche Bahn and Dutch operator Nederlandse Spoorwegen. But the Siemens Velaro template based on it is exported widely; Belgium, France, the UK, Spain, China, Russia and Turkey all use trains based on the ICE 3. Egyptian National Railways has also ordered some.

1. China: 350km/h (twice) and 460km/h (sort of)

China occupies the first, second and third positions when it comes to the fastest scheduled trains.

The Fuxing series of high-speed trains developed by the China Railway Corporation – the first wholly domestically produced high-speed trains in the country – operates at speeds of 350km/h, but Fuxing CR 400s have hit 420km/h in tests and the next generation CR450AF and CR450BF trains will run at 450km/h.

Eight-car Fuxing trains, carrying more than 500 passengers, run on eight lines including the Beijing–Shanghai high-speed railway. A model modified for high altitudes is used on the Qinghai-Tibet line. The Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway in Indonesia will use Fuxing trains.

China Railway’s Hexie (Harmony) trains, operating at the same speed, have been used on the Shanghai–Hangzhou and Shanghai–Nanjing lines since 2011.

The Shanghai Maglev theoretically tops the global list with a maximum cruising speed of 460km/h; since May 2021, however, it ordinarily operates at 300km/h, to improve passenger comfort and reduce energy costs. In 2003, it achieved a then world-record high speed of 500km/h.

The Maglev race is very much on. In 2015, a Japanese Maglev was clocked at 604km/h, and China is planning to develop a 600km/h Maglev that could reduce the travel time from Beijing to Shanghai from 5.5 to 2.5 hours.

And in 2024, China claimed it had carried out successful tests on a 999km/h vacuum-tube train.

What about American trains?

The US, a superpower in aviation and space, is a land of folkloric railroads and desert-cruising slow trains. Apart from a jet-powered prototype train that managed 412km/h in 1974, the national speed record dates back to 1967 when an unmodified gas turbine train between Trenton and New Brunswick (New Jersey) maxed out at 275km/h. Right now, the fastest operating train is Amtrak’s Acela, capable of 240km/h on sections of the Northeast Corridor between Washington DC and Boston. Projected railways connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco and Los Angeles and Las Vegas could bring 322km/h services to the US.

The Telegraph, London