What's The Fastest Train In The World?

The category of the fastest train in the world comes in two categories – the fastest train on conventional rails, and the fastest train overall. The train holding the overall fastest speed record (in any kind of rails) is the Japanese magnetic levitation train or Maglev, which set a speed record of 581 kmph, which translates to 361 mph. This record was set way back in 2003 and still stands as the fastest speed recorded by any train ever. The Maglev is a high speed train developed originally by Japan as an advancement of the Bullet Train technology.

The record for the fastest train ever to run on conventional rails was held by a TGV train, which traveled at an amazing speed of 515 kmph or 320 mph. That record was set way back in 1990, and stood till Tuesday, 3 April 2007. On that day, at 1114 GMT, another TGV train, a modified version called the V150 shattered that record by a sizeable margin. The V150 traveled at a speed of 574.8 kmph or 356 mph. It traveled the distance between Paris and Strasbourg. To break the record, the train used two engines, one at the front and another at the back, to motor three double-decker cars. For the record, the overhead cable's electrical tension was also upgraded to 31,000 volts from the standard 25,000 volts. TGV trains have been used in France from the year 1981.

The Japanese bullet trains. They do not run on wheels and tracks but levitate with electromagnetic fields.
Recently in the news, is the French train built by Alston, a French train builder, which was able to travel on tracks and wheels over 570 km an hour, which is faster than the world war two spitfire airplane that swooped down on the enemy.

Jacques Chirac hailed the achievement as yet another step forward in French innovation, and train engineering. And said his country, France was proud and will begin exporting the trains all over the world which are built in Europe. Germany already has its super trains, which have been in operation for some time, not without incident, as one came off the tracks and smashed into an overhead pass on a road, a few years ago. But this record which was smashed yesterday will go a long way to revolutionizing long distance train travel in Europe.

The Japanese bullet train, 'Hitari' Tokyo to Osaka in three hours.

Bullet train is  The Fastest Train In The World

Elon Musk will be soon coming with the fastest one, but not in the next 5 years, I think.