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Trains

TGV V150

Steel-wheel record of 574.8 km/h on 3 April 2007, set by the modified TGV V150 on the LGV Est and printed by Alstom, Reuters and the BBC.

Also known as V150
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Top speed

Published as 574.8 km/hPublished as 574.8 km/hPublished as 574.8 km/h

Modified TGV V150, steel wheels, LGV Est, 3 April 2007. Alstom press release.

OfficialAlstom (opens source in a new tab)

In context

  • 5.5× a cheetah's timed top speedSourced · Cheetah, 29 m/s. Sharp 1997, mean of three timed runs over 201.2 m
  • 1.7 football fields a secondConstant · American football field, 100 yd (91.44 m)
  • London to New York in 9 h 41 minConstant · London to New York, 5,570 km great-circle

Worked out from the sourced figure above, which stays the ranked number.

This list

Why it's so fast

A train is fast when the guideway and the power can keep the cars stable. Steel wheels on rail are one technology. A maglev that does not touch the guideway is another.

  1. Contact, or none

    Wheels lose energy to the rail and have to stay on it. A superconducting maglev floats, so the limit moves to aerodynamic drag, the guideway and the power supply.

  2. A test line is not a timetable

    A record run on a test track and the speed of a train you can buy a ticket for are filed separately on this site.

The manned rail record is the L0 Series maglev.

This is how the category works. A note written for this entry appears here once it is in the database.

Provenance

Every measurement

Claimed, measured and official figures side by side, each with its source. The ranked figure is marked.

  1. 574.8km/h357mph160m/s310knRanked figure

    Modified TGV V150, steel wheels, LGV Est, 3 April 2007. Alstom press release.

    Official
    Alstom (opens source in a new tab)

Reference

Specs

Train
TGV V150
Date
3 April 2007
Speed
574.8 km/h
Rail
Steel wheel

Context

Background

Alstom's press release is titled with the record: 574.8 km/h, set at 13:13 on 3 April 2007. Reuters reported a French TGV at 574.8 kilometres per hour. The BBC archive of the same day prints 574.8 km/h for the TGV.

The figure is a steel-wheel run, which the conditions say. It sits below the maglev marks on purpose. The mile-per-hour conversions in the news stories are not stored.

Head to head

Compare TGV V150

Open the speed race

Spot a wrong number?

Every report is read by a person, and corrections are dated on the page.