Blog Marco

This shot was taken from a tour bus driving along the highway beside the maglev line.

"The highest speed achieved on the Shanghai track has been 501 km/h (311 mph), over a track length of 30 km."

When I was on the train the fastest speed I saw on the LED sign announcing the speeds was 431 km/h.

So the world's fastest rail speed record hasn't been broken by the maglev. But in my opinion, since the TGV tracks are way longer than the 30-40km's of track for the Shanghai maglev, so the TGV has the unfair advantage of a 'runoff'.

Wikipedia article about the technology

Article about the Maglev line in 2002:

This site has great photos of the train! He definitely had time to wander around!

Take this professor's experience from riding the train.

Fastest Railroad
The highest speed recorded on any national railroad is 515.3 km/h (320.2 mph) by the French SNCF high-speed train, TGV (Train a Grande Vitesse) Atlantique, between Courtalain and Tours, France, on May 18, 1990. The Train a Grande Vitesse, which means high-speed train, first entered commercial use in 1981, between Paris and Lyon in France. At the time it was the world's fastest train, with a top speed of 370 km/h (236 mph), but it has since been superseded by newer generation TGVs.
Source: Guinness World Records

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