Electric trains passed 200 km/h in 1903, sixty years before bullet trains
In October 1903 two experimental electric railcars raced along a military line south of Berlin, one reaching 206.7 km/h and the other 210.2 km/h. They proved fast electric rail could work. Yet scheduled high-speed service did not begin until Japan opened the Tōkaidō Shinkansen in 1964.
The German trials began in 1899, when the Prussian state railway and ten engineering firms electrified 72 kilometres of track between Marienfelde and Zossen with three-phase current. One railcar carried Siemens-Halske equipment and the other AEG. The obstacle afterwards was infrastructure cost. Physics was unforgiving: doubling speed meant quadrupling curve radius, and the same applied to acceleration and braking distances.
Dreamers pressed on regardless. In 1891 Károly Zipernowsky proposed electric cars running between Vienna and Budapest at 250 km/h. In 1906 Alexander C. Miller launched a plan to link Chicago and New York in ten hours; after seven years he had finished under 50 kilometres of straight track, part of which survives in the South Shore Line, one of the last American interurbans.
There is no single worldwide definition. The International Union of Railways treats new lines built for at least 250 km/h, or upgraded lines for at least 200 km/h, as high speed, and stresses that track, trains and operating rules must work as one system. Above 200 km/h, small track defects matter more, wheels grip less, air resistance soars, tunnel pressure changes bother passengers, and drivers struggle to read trackside signals, so automated train control becomes necessary. Japan passed the first law defining high-speed rail in 1970, while American federal law sets the bar at just 110 miles per hour.
The Shinkansen's pointed nose earned it the nickname bullet train, and Italy's Direttissima, then lines in France, Germany and Spain, followed. By 2023 China accounted for more than two-thirds of the world's network. Most lines use standard gauge on welded rail with wide curves, so Japan and Spain built their fast lines to a different gauge from their older railways, and no narrow gauge high-speed line exists.
Source: High-speed rail
