High-speed Rail in China - Fastest Trains in China

Fastest Trains in China

The "fastest" train commercial service can be defined alternatively by a train's top speed or average trip speed.

• The fastest train service measured by peak operational speed is the Shanghai Maglev Train which can reach 431 km/h (268 mph). Due to the limited length of the Shanghai Maglev track (30 km)(18.6 mi), the maglev train's average trip speed is only 245.5 km/h (152.5 mph). The Shanghai Maglev also holds the record for the top speed in tests of 501 km/h (311 mph).
• The fastest train service measured by average trip speed from 2009 until 2011 was on the Wuhan-Guangzhou High-Speed Railway, where from December 2009 until July 1, 2011, the CRH3/CRH2 coupled-train sets averaged 312.5 km/h (194.2 mph) on the 922 km (573 mi) route from Wuhan to Guangzhou North. It was the fastest commercial train service in the world. However, on July 1, 2011 in order to save energy and reduce operating costs, shortly prior to the head to tail collision with another high-speed train, the maximum speed of Chinese high-speed trains was reduced to 300 km/h, and the average speed of the fastest trains on the Wuhan-Guangzhou High-Speed Railway was reduced to 272.68 km/h (169 mph), slower than some French TGVs.
• The top speed attained by a non-maglev train in China is 487.3 km/h (302.8 mph) by a CRH380BL train on the Beijing–Shanghai High-Speed Railway during a testing run on January 10, 2011.