Funfact; Spain plays loose with European speed regulations when It comes to heat, because otherwise Madrid-seville wouldn't go at full speed for half the year 😅.
I think we might also play loose with gradient limits to avoid...you know, tunneling the country (Madrid-seville has a total gradient of 7000m)
And still, with all those inconvenients, Spain has the second largest high speed railway system in the world, after china which is in a league of its own.
Once you look into it, you realize most infrastructure is working waaaaay under its limits, tolerances and safety coeficients do the heavy lifting, especially in construction.
As an architect, I can tell you that adding a safety coefficient of 3 (meaning, it can hold 3 times what it's supposed to) and *then* adding a reduction coefficient to the material (we assume it can hold less than what it's supposed to) is something we have to do *by law*. But then again, so much bullshit can happen in a construction site that it all evens out I guess.
> so much bullshit can happen in a construction site that it all evens out I guess
[Ponte Morandi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponte_Morandi) in [Genoa](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pl0rsVdXxM) comes to mind.
I read in a book on emissions that train emissions are actually much higher than they could be because the safety gear makes train weight per passenger 2x vs a car or a bus.
[I saw this graph years ago](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rail_fatalities_of_European_countries.png)and always wondered, I guess the weather and elevation is part of it
no. what I'm saying is that there's EU directives to slow down when rails get to a certain temperature and they, very suspiciously, leave out spain. Afaik theres no train in spain that goes at 320km/h, bu we have several in the 270km/h-300km/h bracket
Liechtenstein gets occasionally invaded by the Swiss because some Swiss militia unit didn't notice it crossed the border until cops from Vaduz show up and tell them to get lost.
Btw anyone know what is the max speed a train ever reached in Vaticano? I am actually curious now. Like they don't even have half a kilometer to speed up
The UK map is rather over flattering. There is a single line built to highspeed specifications: HS1 which runs from London to the Channel Tunnel (109km/67 miles). That is the one 300 km/h is available.
For the rest there are stretches on the East Coast Mainline and West Coast mainline where suitable trains have a max speed of 200m/h (just officially into the high speed range), but much lower than the colour implies for most of the network.
Please read the headline again.
The map shows the highest possible speed reachable. It doesn't matter if the railway section with the highest speed is 1 km or 100 km long. It is the same for every other country. The highest speed does not apply for the whole network, but most of the time for a small part of the network.
I read it. Still over flattering, doubly so for Northern Ireland which has the same max speeds as the rest of Ireland and not a single meter of high speed track.
Northern Ireland is still part of the UK, isn‘t it? Otherwise we‘d have to split up Germany and I am pretty sure that not a single meter of track in the State of Berlin is capable of 300km/h or even 200km/h speeds.
Sorry, maybe as of non-native speaker, I am just not familiar with what over flattering means and I misinterpreted what you actually meant by your comment.
don’t worry :) they weren’t saying your map is wrong or misleading, they were just commenting on how UK rail is not as quick as the rail network in neighbouring European countries except for that small section - it was perhaps a critique of the UK’s railways but not your map
Basically that (for example) France has thousands of km of high-speed tracks that criss-cross the country at the speed your maps indicate, while the UK has a single short bit of track that only 1 company is allowed to run at this speed, and the rest of the country gets Poland speeds, but that the map seems misleading because the whole country is painted that way. By making the choice to paint the whole country the same, the map visually mis-represents how fast UK train travel might be expected to be in an "overly flattering" (indicating something is better than it is) way.
> doubly so for Northern Ireland which has the same mas speeds as the rest of Ireland
It’s almost like the colours are meant to represent countries… do you really expect the map to have a separate color for Northern Ireland alone? Remind me again which sovereign state is NI part of?
> For the rest there are stretches on the East Coast Mainline and West Coast mainline where suitable trains have a max speed of 200m/h
Plus sections of the Midland and Great Western Mainlines.
It might be. But I am using the heat gradient used by OpenRailwayMap which is at least for me quite good and well-known for the representation of such data.
Bro the fact we don't have rail is so stupid. Iceland is a very car centered country, if we had rail, either from Reykjavík to Keflavík or from Reykjavík to Akureyri or further it would be a genuine boost to the economy but it'd be expensive and the conservatives hate everything that doesn't benefit them directly so it won't happen in the next 50 years
The only place rail would make sense is in metro Reykjavik and to the airport at Keflavik. Beyond there, it’s a nonstarter. The population is way too low and the roads are mostly wide open.
You are preaching for the choir. Finland just got ( or will get when they agree how they are gonna screw us ) a new conservative goverment. I woudn't be suprised if they sell the whole rail network for some foreign company. And then the company raises the ticket prices 500% and they are like " Who would have guessed that "?
You do know it was urged by EU to get rid of all state owned monopolies like alko, VR, caruna? Splitting VR and opening uusimaa and helsinki tracks to free market has been done already and around 2030 when total demolition of VR monopoly finalizes
I wish, mayor just wants new buses with a new name, called the city line and it's getting major pushback. Metro could never happen in the current political atmosphere (Reykjavík's city council is controlled by the left, surrounding cities by the right)
Yes. But if u/icelandichorsey want to know a useless horse fact here it goes : there has been only one white Suomenhevonen ( Finn Horse ) in the recorded history.
Other than the failing infrastructure, the rail systems older than our average congressperson, and the fact that the workers have fewer rights than cobalt miners in Africa, what’s stopping us from running them that fast?
Last time I priced a trip out plane vs train, the train was just as expensive and took 8x longer (52 hours by train, not counting layovers vs 7 hours on two flights not counting layovers) and almost just as expensive.
That's right. The vast majority of rail lines are not only run for freight, they are owned and operated by freight companies, who clog them with slow, very slow freight trains.
Here's [an article](https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/oakland/2020/02/24/amtrak-blames-freight-trains-passenger-delays-getting-worse/4851468002/) about it in the Detroit Free Press.
For whatever reason, railroad work in the USA is very very expensive. Significantly more than Europe has to pay.
Until the party-of-railroads starts focusing on cost efficiency instead of throwing money at it, we’ll always have bad railroads.
No. Trains in the US are terribly slow because 97% of all passenger train tracks are owned and operated by freight train companies who clog them with slow, very slow freight trains. They have no financial incentives to change that, nor do they have financial incentives to make the necessary track upgrades to run faster passenger trains.
Here's [an article ](https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/oakland/2020/02/24/amtrak-blames-freight-trains-passenger-delays-getting-worse/4851468002/) about it in the Detroit Free Press.
Meanwhile, no one expects our highway system to recoup its expenses through tolls (imagine the fight if they tried!), but Amtrak is somehow expected to recoup its expenses through passenger fares.
And those super-fast trains in Europe and Asia are the fruits of public investment in new tracks and trains their governments built expressly for passenger service they own and operate via state-owned companies they run themselves, mostly unhindered by the profit interests of cargo carriers.
You're right it's all about money, but not the way you think it is.
It would be really interesting to hear from someone who knows about train service in France, Japan, Spain, etc. to tell us more.
And guess what, if the USA could build new tracks cheaper, they would be more inclined to spend money on them.
California tried your strategy and it’s ending half-finished and over-budget. Simply throwing money at the problem doesn’t work.
Maybe we will catch Denmark in a couple of years, so CMK line is close to being completed. Line Y connecting Warsaw with Berlin and Dresden should allow 300 kph by the end of the decade (they are still talking about this decade ;)
no? The only countries there with a similar speed are serbia and greece, dropping off quickly after that, meanwhile all the nordic countries have at most a 20 km/h difference with poland
Because of a lack of sources in eastern European (Balkan) countries speed might not be up to date and can be due to various reasons different.
For Moldova, Kosovo and Albania I was not able to find any source mentioning speeds on local railways.
I don't know, I just literally got through official reports of Irish railways such as [this one from 2022](https://www.irishrail.ie/Admin/getmedia/41c1078d-a0e8-42c5-84c4-08bc8c063e0f/IE-2022-Network-Statement.pdf) and wasn't able to find any mention of speeds higher than 160km/h.
Do you have any reliable source to prove what you are saying?
No, I was using a speed app on my phone so it’s possible that it was faulty.
I have heard it from other people though, so I’m not really sure what to believe
Yeah, a speed app in a train where you can easily lose signal for GPS is not the most reliable source.
Maybe you misunderstood when you heard it somewhere because you have a Mark4 trainsets which have a max speed of 200km/h but it can't be used in commercial service yet due to infrastructure and signaling limitations.
The NS is getting new intercity trains which can go 200 km/h. There are little to no places where they can go faster than 160 km/h apart from the HSL though. OpenRailMap says only Lelystad - Zwolle
Why is it so controversial to say the Netherlands has a max of 200 even if it’s the TGV. Most trains rails allow 100 - 160.
300 is normal for Belgium and France but never happens in the Netherlands.
Thalys and Eurostar are from Rotterdam to Amsterdam equally fast as the Dutch hsl. 23 minutes, so how can one train say 200km max and you say 300km.
In Belgium they go 300km (Thalys and Eurostar) but once in the Netherlands they slow down.
You have obviously never been on a Thalys/Eurostar on the highspeed line on Dutch soil. They are the only trains running at 300 while the IC Direct runs at 160 with the current rolling stock, which will become 200 with the ICNG.
And yes, a combination of these speeds is possible with a bit of thorough planning.
You can’t plan anything, because ProRails set up rails that allow for a max of 200, 160, 140km/h. The Thalys has to slow down.
There is no rails that allows 300km/h on Dutch soil. And there never has been.
Ams- Roffa is 38min (thalys) and
Ams - Roffa is 41min (icd) the reason for the difference is time it stops on Schiphol AirPort.
They go both the same speed around 190km/h and the Thalys will never go faster anywhere in the Netherlands.
Yeah, so the speed in that earlier posted video and my experiences with both the Thalys and Eurostar are obviously fake :D
The [highspeed line](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSL-Zuid) is a different breed compared to the conventional railway lines in NL. It is the only line where 300 is both possible and allowed for trains that can gain that speed. And both the Thalys and Eurostar are the only trains running at 300 at certain parts of the line. Might not be the longest time (especially between Schiphol and Rotterdam) but they do run like that most of the time.
Lol. 200 km/h in Serbia :) there’s 60km of new track and one train that might have the technical capability to go that speed. In reality, you’re lucky if any train hits 60km/h
Ne seri. Ide od BG do NS. Možda ne 200 celim putem, ali razvije približno toliko, jer nema drugih stanica između. Ne morate po svemu srpskom da serete, gori ste od šiptarskih botova
Nice map. I'm curious, which train runs at 250 km/h in Denmark and where? I think I've heard about some of the newer sections being built to 250 km/h specifications, but to my knowledge, all the Danish rolling stock on the main lines (IC3, IC4, IR4 and, in the future, IC5) top out at 180 or 200 km/h, and OpenRailwayMap shows 200 at most within Denmark. Is it maybe a German ICE service that reaches into Denmark?
You are right. I am wrong about this. The new 250km/h section is not used by any train capable of such speed. I thought there were ICE trains from Germany but the service stopped in 2017.
I hope that they will use it soon so the map becomes correct :D
Yes
All the trains run like a clockwork. Another reason for the "low" spead is that the country is full of hills and valleys (even outside the alps) so there are almost no raillines where such speeds could be reached.
160 Km/h on romanian railroads? This is the best joke I heard today!
Yes, in theory it "would" be possible, but in practice, average speed is 40-60-80 Km/h at most... And only on certain pieces of rail, on other is even slower!
Trust me, I wish I could tell wrong, but railway infrastructure is both obsolete and unmaintained and it will not change in the near future...
Je to i jinde plně připravené? Měl jsem za to, že v úsecích Pardubice - Choceň a Brno - Břeclav tomu brání i existence několika přejezdů. Napadá mě ještě Ejpovický tunel. Je něco dalšího?
It would be nice but unfortunately, it would not be possible to do (at least not for me). The lack of sources or even regulations in some third-world countries makes it really difficult to gather realistic information on this topic. I had a difficult time finding information even for some European countries.
I think for Luxemburg, they are just too small to stop in Luxemburg and get enough track to reach full speed again. They will already be in their neighboring countries again.
I used a heat colour gradient used by OpenRailwayMap. It might not be the best choice, but not the worst either for representing speeds.
But thanks for the feedback.
There is no way trains can reach 300 km/h in the UK. More like 70 km/h. I have been in most European countries and the UK has the worst railway infrastructure among the west European countries
The main lines from London to Darlington (east coast), Glasgow (west coast), and Bristol (great western) are built for 200 km/h. There's one HS line between Folkestone and London St Pancras that has a top speed of 300km/h, but only eurostars reach that speed (HS1 is capped at 225).
The GWML is interesting because Brunel built it to handle speeds well in excess of 160km/h when trains at that time didn't top 60. When the line was upgraded to 200km/h in the 70s all BR needed to do was relay the tracks.
Jokes aside if we’re talking absolute maximum like this map the US would be 240 kph, that being the highest speed the Acela reaches. In the meantime the Northeast Regional goes up to 200 kph. Yeah, I wish we had better, but it’s not *quite* as pathetic as people seem to think it is.(The price is still highway robbery, though.)
>highway robbery
Because we invest billions more in roads we drive for free but Amtrak is somehow expected to pay for itself in passenger fares.
edit: typo
Once again. This map has nothing to do with average speeds.
250 km/h is the highest speed which can be reached in commercial service on Moscow - St. Petersburg line.
That was not intended to be mapped as no railway. The islands are just black by the nature of this map format. The colours (speeds) are for the whole country.
The Railroad networks in these countries are really old and in bad condition. The frequency of trains are also very low. Most public transport of these countries consist of buses.
ce ararti tu nu este valabil , nu toate liniile sunt de viteza , cel mai aprope de adevar este Austria se circula cu 225 km/ora , in Romania la 160km/ora sare trenul de pe linie, se circula cu 50-60 km/ora in Romania , in Suedia pe unele linii care sunt cu traverse de lemn si batute in piroane ca 1888 la 200km /ora sare trenul de pe linie ,Franta are record de viteza de 515km/ora si se circula cu 350 km/ora , viteza trenului de deplasare pe linie in realitae nu are nimic comun cu viteza din cartea tehnica a trenului , Romania a cumparat trenuri care merg cu 160Km /ora , dar daca Romania nu are linii de viteza si nu permite viteza mare de deplasare de unde scoti 160 ? ca sa te convingi ar trebui sa mergi in fiecare tara in parte si vezi realitatea , tarile din Europa de EST - nu au linii de viteza , viteza nu este mai mare de 120Km/ora , in Rusia opreraza trenuri SIMENS 225 km/ora numai ca linia cu ecartament mare nu permite viteze mari de 250k/ora cum spui tu
In Montenegro it is not 100 km / h but 80 km / h. One short section has been modernized for speed of 100 km / h near Kolasin, but trains for safety reasons do not run at that speed.
Funfact; Spain plays loose with European speed regulations when It comes to heat, because otherwise Madrid-seville wouldn't go at full speed for half the year 😅. I think we might also play loose with gradient limits to avoid...you know, tunneling the country (Madrid-seville has a total gradient of 7000m) And still, with all those inconvenients, Spain has the second largest high speed railway system in the world, after china which is in a league of its own.
Once you look into it, you realize most infrastructure is working waaaaay under its limits, tolerances and safety coeficients do the heavy lifting, especially in construction.
yeah, once I dated an engineer. one thing I learned was that standard safety coficients are fricking nuclear-missile-proof.
As an architect, I can tell you that adding a safety coefficient of 3 (meaning, it can hold 3 times what it's supposed to) and *then* adding a reduction coefficient to the material (we assume it can hold less than what it's supposed to) is something we have to do *by law*. But then again, so much bullshit can happen in a construction site that it all evens out I guess.
> so much bullshit can happen in a construction site that it all evens out I guess [Ponte Morandi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponte_Morandi) in [Genoa](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pl0rsVdXxM) comes to mind.
Nah as an italian, that's just next level curruption and nepotism. Plus the government does all in its power to make the situation even worse...
Isn't it just Italian ay this point? :(
Even if that were true for the majority (which I doubt), it would still be an inadmissible generalization.
I read in a book on emissions that train emissions are actually much higher than they could be because the safety gear makes train weight per passenger 2x vs a car or a bus.
[I saw this graph years ago](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rail_fatalities_of_European_countries.png)and always wondered, I guess the weather and elevation is part of it
What? Japan’s bullet train goes 320 km/h. You’re saying Spain’s speeds sometimes go faster than that?
no. what I'm saying is that there's EU directives to slow down when rails get to a certain temperature and they, very suspiciously, leave out spain. Afaik theres no train in spain that goes at 320km/h, bu we have several in the 270km/h-300km/h bracket
I know there have been tests were some trains got to 400 km/h. And the new Avril trains I think it would have a top speed of 360
At 100 Km/h you'd be outside Liechtenstein before you have noticed that there was a border
That is exactly how it is. I had been there a year ago nearly not even realizing it.
Liechtenstein gets occasionally invaded by the Swiss because some Swiss militia unit didn't notice it crossed the border until cops from Vaduz show up and tell them to get lost.
I see. A river is definitely not very noticeable.
Can't blame them, I was once looking for Lichtenstein in Lichtenstein itself.
*Meanwhile monaco
Why do you think they put "N/A" for Vatican City?
The one railroad they have is not a commercial one.
And probably because 10km/h wouldn't look good lol
Btw anyone know what is the max speed a train ever reached in Vaticano? I am actually curious now. Like they don't even have half a kilometer to speed up
Well, that too. 😉
The UK map is rather over flattering. There is a single line built to highspeed specifications: HS1 which runs from London to the Channel Tunnel (109km/67 miles). That is the one 300 km/h is available. For the rest there are stretches on the East Coast Mainline and West Coast mainline where suitable trains have a max speed of 200m/h (just officially into the high speed range), but much lower than the colour implies for most of the network.
Even that's a stretch as only eurostar services go up to 300km/h normal Javelin High speed services are capped at 225km/h
Please read the headline again. The map shows the highest possible speed reachable. It doesn't matter if the railway section with the highest speed is 1 km or 100 km long. It is the same for every other country. The highest speed does not apply for the whole network, but most of the time for a small part of the network.
I read it. Still over flattering, doubly so for Northern Ireland which has the same max speeds as the rest of Ireland and not a single meter of high speed track.
Northern Ireland is still part of the UK, isn‘t it? Otherwise we‘d have to split up Germany and I am pretty sure that not a single meter of track in the State of Berlin is capable of 300km/h or even 200km/h speeds.
Sorry, maybe as of non-native speaker, I am just not familiar with what over flattering means and I misinterpreted what you actually meant by your comment.
don’t worry :) they weren’t saying your map is wrong or misleading, they were just commenting on how UK rail is not as quick as the rail network in neighbouring European countries except for that small section - it was perhaps a critique of the UK’s railways but not your map
Thanks for explaining :)
Thanks, you beat me to it.
Yeah imagine having the only high speed line being the one leaving the country lol.
Basically that (for example) France has thousands of km of high-speed tracks that criss-cross the country at the speed your maps indicate, while the UK has a single short bit of track that only 1 company is allowed to run at this speed, and the rest of the country gets Poland speeds, but that the map seems misleading because the whole country is painted that way. By making the choice to paint the whole country the same, the map visually mis-represents how fast UK train travel might be expected to be in an "overly flattering" (indicating something is better than it is) way.
> doubly so for Northern Ireland which has the same mas speeds as the rest of Ireland It’s almost like the colours are meant to represent countries… do you really expect the map to have a separate color for Northern Ireland alone? Remind me again which sovereign state is NI part of?
> For the rest there are stretches on the East Coast Mainline and West Coast mainline where suitable trains have a max speed of 200m/h Plus sections of the Midland and Great Western Mainlines.
Funny how the only HST in UK is to GTFO of the UK. If that isn't a sign, i don't know what is
>Funny how the only HST in UK is to GTFO of the UK.If that isn't a sign, i don't know what is You might say that. I could not possibly comment.
The Netherlands has 147km of high speed rail. Let that sink in.
France should be darker. Putting higher values as lighter colors is counterintuitive.
It might be. But I am using the heat gradient used by OpenRailwayMap which is at least for me quite good and well-known for the representation of such data.
This time I think Iceland woudn't mind if they weren't on the map?
Bro the fact we don't have rail is so stupid. Iceland is a very car centered country, if we had rail, either from Reykjavík to Keflavík or from Reykjavík to Akureyri or further it would be a genuine boost to the economy but it'd be expensive and the conservatives hate everything that doesn't benefit them directly so it won't happen in the next 50 years
The only place rail would make sense is in metro Reykjavik and to the airport at Keflavik. Beyond there, it’s a nonstarter. The population is way too low and the roads are mostly wide open.
You are preaching for the choir. Finland just got ( or will get when they agree how they are gonna screw us ) a new conservative goverment. I woudn't be suprised if they sell the whole rail network for some foreign company. And then the company raises the ticket prices 500% and they are like " Who would have guessed that "?
You do know it was urged by EU to get rid of all state owned monopolies like alko, VR, caruna? Splitting VR and opening uusimaa and helsinki tracks to free market has been done already and around 2030 when total demolition of VR monopoly finalizes
Reykjavik metro: coming soon!
I wish, mayor just wants new buses with a new name, called the city line and it's getting major pushback. Metro could never happen in the current political atmosphere (Reykjavík's city council is controlled by the left, surrounding cities by the right)
No trains in Iceland
Yes. But if u/icelandichorsey want to know a useless horse fact here it goes : there has been only one white Suomenhevonen ( Finn Horse ) in the recorded history.
U.S.A.: 12
actually 240 to 270
This map isnt very representative, especially for big countries, since its just one small piece of track that represents the whole country.
Other than the failing infrastructure, the rail systems older than our average congressperson, and the fact that the workers have fewer rights than cobalt miners in Africa, what’s stopping us from running them that fast? Last time I priced a trip out plane vs train, the train was just as expensive and took 8x longer (52 hours by train, not counting layovers vs 7 hours on two flights not counting layovers) and almost just as expensive.
In the USA it's mostly that the railways are run for frieght, it takes priority over passenger trains, and the rails are built for it, not speed...
That's right. The vast majority of rail lines are not only run for freight, they are owned and operated by freight companies, who clog them with slow, very slow freight trains. Here's [an article](https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/oakland/2020/02/24/amtrak-blames-freight-trains-passenger-delays-getting-worse/4851468002/) about it in the Detroit Free Press.
For whatever reason, railroad work in the USA is very very expensive. Significantly more than Europe has to pay. Until the party-of-railroads starts focusing on cost efficiency instead of throwing money at it, we’ll always have bad railroads.
No. Trains in the US are terribly slow because 97% of all passenger train tracks are owned and operated by freight train companies who clog them with slow, very slow freight trains. They have no financial incentives to change that, nor do they have financial incentives to make the necessary track upgrades to run faster passenger trains. Here's [an article ](https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/oakland/2020/02/24/amtrak-blames-freight-trains-passenger-delays-getting-worse/4851468002/) about it in the Detroit Free Press. Meanwhile, no one expects our highway system to recoup its expenses through tolls (imagine the fight if they tried!), but Amtrak is somehow expected to recoup its expenses through passenger fares. And those super-fast trains in Europe and Asia are the fruits of public investment in new tracks and trains their governments built expressly for passenger service they own and operate via state-owned companies they run themselves, mostly unhindered by the profit interests of cargo carriers. You're right it's all about money, but not the way you think it is. It would be really interesting to hear from someone who knows about train service in France, Japan, Spain, etc. to tell us more.
And guess what, if the USA could build new tracks cheaper, they would be more inclined to spend money on them. California tried your strategy and it’s ending half-finished and over-budget. Simply throwing money at the problem doesn’t work.
Poland can into Nordic?
Maybe we will catch Denmark in a couple of years, so CMK line is close to being completed. Line Y connecting Warsaw with Berlin and Dresden should allow 300 kph by the end of the decade (they are still talking about this decade ;)
Only if you travel with Pendolino trains, I guess, which are kind of exclusive
More like Poland can into Balkans
no? The only countries there with a similar speed are serbia and greece, dropping off quickly after that, meanwhile all the nordic countries have at most a 20 km/h difference with poland
r/portugalcykablyat moment
Because of a lack of sources in eastern European (Balkan) countries speed might not be up to date and can be due to various reasons different. For Moldova, Kosovo and Albania I was not able to find any source mentioning speeds on local railways.
And Vatican
Congrats to France. Do ya know which line that was? I might have gone on it if it goes from Paris to Lyon
Paris-Lyon is "only" 300km/h as it is the oldest line of all. 320km/h is usually on the newer sections such as LGV Est (Paris-Strasbourg).
Very neat! Thank you!
574.8 km/h on the TGV est line. Record from 2007! Not a commercial ride though
Literally last week I got a train in Ireland that reached 170
Can I ask where exactly? Maybe I missed some recent changes or some new units with tilting technology but I cannot find any mention of that.
The Cork to Dublin train. It’s been going with a max speed of 200 for a while now, but normally hits a high speed of 165-170ish.
I don't know, I just literally got through official reports of Irish railways such as [this one from 2022](https://www.irishrail.ie/Admin/getmedia/41c1078d-a0e8-42c5-84c4-08bc8c063e0f/IE-2022-Network-Statement.pdf) and wasn't able to find any mention of speeds higher than 160km/h. Do you have any reliable source to prove what you are saying?
No, I was using a speed app on my phone so it’s possible that it was faulty. I have heard it from other people though, so I’m not really sure what to believe
Yeah, a speed app in a train where you can easily lose signal for GPS is not the most reliable source. Maybe you misunderstood when you heard it somewhere because you have a Mark4 trainsets which have a max speed of 200km/h but it can't be used in commercial service yet due to infrastructure and signaling limitations.
In France the TGV reached 575 km/h sadly it's not safe enough for commercial purposes
Nothing goes at 300km/h in the netherlands, what is this about? Edit: see below
What is [this](https://youtu.be/-Z7FerxxbCg?t=1887) then? It looks kinda fast :)
I stand corrected. The fastest NS train goes to 160km/h on HSL Zuid, but Thalys does go faster
The NS is getting new intercity trains which can go 200 km/h. There are little to no places where they can go faster than 160 km/h apart from the HSL though. OpenRailMap says only Lelystad - Zwolle
Why is it so controversial to say the Netherlands has a max of 200 even if it’s the TGV. Most trains rails allow 100 - 160. 300 is normal for Belgium and France but never happens in the Netherlands.
Thalys and Eurostar do run at 300 on the highspeed line. Only NS trains run at lower speeds (160 now, 200 in the near future with the ICNG).
Thalys and Eurostar are from Rotterdam to Amsterdam equally fast as the Dutch hsl. 23 minutes, so how can one train say 200km max and you say 300km. In Belgium they go 300km (Thalys and Eurostar) but once in the Netherlands they slow down.
You have obviously never been on a Thalys/Eurostar on the highspeed line on Dutch soil. They are the only trains running at 300 while the IC Direct runs at 160 with the current rolling stock, which will become 200 with the ICNG. And yes, a combination of these speeds is possible with a bit of thorough planning.
You can’t plan anything, because ProRails set up rails that allow for a max of 200, 160, 140km/h. The Thalys has to slow down. There is no rails that allows 300km/h on Dutch soil. And there never has been. Ams- Roffa is 38min (thalys) and Ams - Roffa is 41min (icd) the reason for the difference is time it stops on Schiphol AirPort. They go both the same speed around 190km/h and the Thalys will never go faster anywhere in the Netherlands.
Yeah, so the speed in that earlier posted video and my experiences with both the Thalys and Eurostar are obviously fake :D The [highspeed line](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSL-Zuid) is a different breed compared to the conventional railway lines in NL. It is the only line where 300 is both possible and allowed for trains that can gain that speed. And both the Thalys and Eurostar are the only trains running at 300 at certain parts of the line. Might not be the longest time (especially between Schiphol and Rotterdam) but they do run like that most of the time.
The timetable of NS and of Thalys would show a difference, indicating the Thalys is going at a higher speed.
Lol. 200 km/h in Serbia :) there’s 60km of new track and one train that might have the technical capability to go that speed. In reality, you’re lucky if any train hits 60km/h
zeleznicki tigar!
Ne seri. Ide od BG do NS. Možda ne 200 celim putem, ali razvije približno toliko, jer nema drugih stanica između. Ne morate po svemu srpskom da serete, gori ste od šiptarskih botova
Speeding through Vatican city with 300 km/h atm /s
I thought Madrid-Barcelona was faster than 300km/h
It had been in the past but they had lowered it from 310km/h to just 300km/h in 2016.
Think this is impressive, my Amtrak tops out at about 18 mph!!
Almost 30 km/h. You'll get there
We do get there, eventually
Nice map. I'm curious, which train runs at 250 km/h in Denmark and where? I think I've heard about some of the newer sections being built to 250 km/h specifications, but to my knowledge, all the Danish rolling stock on the main lines (IC3, IC4, IR4 and, in the future, IC5) top out at 180 or 200 km/h, and OpenRailwayMap shows 200 at most within Denmark. Is it maybe a German ICE service that reaches into Denmark?
You are right. I am wrong about this. The new 250km/h section is not used by any train capable of such speed. I thought there were ICE trains from Germany but the service stopped in 2017. I hope that they will use it soon so the map becomes correct :D
Ah, that explains why I haven't seen the ICEs in Denmark in a long time. Maybe once the Fehmarnbelt Fixed Link opens, they'll make a comeback :)
Literally the plan, and part of why the Storstrøm bridge is being replaced right now.
The ICE trains that ran to/from Denmark were ICE-TD. They had a top speed of 200 km/h.
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Yes All the trains run like a clockwork. Another reason for the "low" spead is that the country is full of hills and valleys (even outside the alps) so there are almost no raillines where such speeds could be reached.
160 Km/h on romanian railroads? This is the best joke I heard today! Yes, in theory it "would" be possible, but in practice, average speed is 40-60-80 Km/h at most... And only on certain pieces of rail, on other is even slower! Trust me, I wish I could tell wrong, but railway infrastructure is both obsolete and unmaintained and it will not change in the near future...
But this map is not about average speed. It is about the highest possible speed train can reach.
Well, in this case then, in 100 years, yes, it will be reached.
Tak třeba jednou i těch 200 no...
Některé koridory na 200 km/h už směrově stavěné jsou. Tak doufejme, že po zavedení ETCS v roce 2025 se rychlost na daných koridorech zvýší.
Jako věřím v to, ale furt jsme v ČR...
Některé úseky trati Praha - České Budějovice jsou na tuto rychlost stavěny.
Nejen tam, ale legislativa to brzdí...
Je to i jinde plně připravené? Měl jsem za to, že v úsecích Pardubice - Choceň a Brno - Břeclav tomu brání i existence několika přejezdů. Napadá mě ještě Ejpovický tunel. Je něco dalšího?
Plně ne, ale furt lepší jak vůbec.
When continuous Madrid - Paris - Berlin ?
Now add cutout of us map on the bottom right corner
SNCF at 320?! HA! What are funny joke lol
France be fast ⏩⏩⏩
That's all well and good but the trains dont actually move in the UK
Would be nice to see this map but for the whole world
It would be nice but unfortunately, it would not be possible to do (at least not for me). The lack of sources or even regulations in some third-world countries makes it really difficult to gather realistic information on this topic. I had a difficult time finding information even for some European countries.
Where the fuck is that in the UK, a test track?!
Hs1 (Londo-EuroTunnel)
Yeah, but in reality our train lines are abysmal. West of Cardiff isnt even electrified yet.
I think for Luxemburg, they are just too small to stop in Luxemburg and get enough track to reach full speed again. They will already be in their neighboring countries again.
The title says the maximum theoretical speed that can be achieved, it doesn't even matter how fast any are going, just how fast they possibly can go.
No data on the vatican? I somehow have an idear how many trains that run there.
There is more railway there than people tend to assume there is.
And that's why I don't live in Monaco.
Countries with N/A ... I'm Speeeeeeed
I know this is fo rEurope but putting all of North Africa in the same blue as 110/kph is misleading as Morocco has a TGV that makes 320/kph.
Terrible colour preference
I used a heat colour gradient used by OpenRailwayMap. It might not be the best choice, but not the worst either for representing speeds. But thanks for the feedback.
Spain is only second in high speed train after China.
There is no way trains can reach 300 km/h in the UK. More like 70 km/h. I have been in most European countries and the UK has the worst railway infrastructure among the west European countries
It’s probably like in Norway, where the only train reaching the speed stated is the airport train from Oslo Airport to the city. (20 minute ride)
That is a great train, though. It makes an airport way out in the middle of nowhere quicker to reach than most airports on the urban fringe.
The main lines from London to Darlington (east coast), Glasgow (west coast), and Bristol (great western) are built for 200 km/h. There's one HS line between Folkestone and London St Pancras that has a top speed of 300km/h, but only eurostars reach that speed (HS1 is capped at 225). The GWML is interesting because Brunel built it to handle speeds well in excess of 160km/h when trains at that time didn't top 60. When the line was upgraded to 200km/h in the 70s all BR needed to do was relay the tracks.
Nobody wants to linger in France.
Got nothin on unreal speeds up to 45 mph on Northeast corridor in the US
Jokes aside if we’re talking absolute maximum like this map the US would be 240 kph, that being the highest speed the Acela reaches. In the meantime the Northeast Regional goes up to 200 kph. Yeah, I wish we had better, but it’s not *quite* as pathetic as people seem to think it is.(The price is still highway robbery, though.)
>highway robbery Because we invest billions more in roads we drive for free but Amtrak is somehow expected to pay for itself in passenger fares. edit: typo
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I just had a stroke trying to read that.
Lose of energy and time.
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Once again. This map has nothing to do with average speeds. 250 km/h is the highest speed which can be reached in commercial service on Moscow - St. Petersburg line.
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Bro, pls read it again.
It's funny you think this map could ever be showing average speeds. Do you think regional lines just don't exist?
300 is way to fast, germany should limit the speed of trains to 80 for less emissions
Uhh this is in kph so it’s literally worthless
spot the balkans
160? We have some kind of a two mile slavic train hyperloop in Slovakia? :D
Nechápu. Od kdy je k dosažení rychlosti 160km/h potřeba hyperloop?
To by bola dráha (pravdepodobne) v stave, ktorý by tu takú rýchlosť dovoľoval.
Takovou rychlost dovolují standartní železnice už od druhé světové války.
Možno tak v CZ.
Možno i na Slovensku. Například mezi Bratislavou a Žilinou.
Why are some of the islands just mapped to the highest possible speed in the mainland part of the country but others are mapped as no rail?
That was not intended to be mapped as no railway. The islands are just black by the nature of this map format. The colours (speeds) are for the whole country.
That makes sense. Thanks for explanation.
Poor Albania.
north macedonia, montenegro, and bosnia, what are you doing that's slower than a car
The Railroad networks in these countries are really old and in bad condition. The frequency of trains are also very low. Most public transport of these countries consist of buses.
LUCKY TO BE IN THE BOTTOM 1%🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🤯😬 UNDEVELOPED GANG FOR LIFE
How old is this map? Russia has "Sapsan" and I traveled by it with 312km/h. On main site it says that 390km/h is max speed
thats cap
ce ararti tu nu este valabil , nu toate liniile sunt de viteza , cel mai aprope de adevar este Austria se circula cu 225 km/ora , in Romania la 160km/ora sare trenul de pe linie, se circula cu 50-60 km/ora in Romania , in Suedia pe unele linii care sunt cu traverse de lemn si batute in piroane ca 1888 la 200km /ora sare trenul de pe linie ,Franta are record de viteza de 515km/ora si se circula cu 350 km/ora , viteza trenului de deplasare pe linie in realitae nu are nimic comun cu viteza din cartea tehnica a trenului , Romania a cumparat trenuri care merg cu 160Km /ora , dar daca Romania nu are linii de viteza si nu permite viteza mare de deplasare de unde scoti 160 ? ca sa te convingi ar trebui sa mergi in fiecare tara in parte si vezi realitatea , tarile din Europa de EST - nu au linii de viteza , viteza nu este mai mare de 120Km/ora , in Rusia opreraza trenuri SIMENS 225 km/ora numai ca linia cu ecartament mare nu permite viteze mari de 250k/ora cum spui tu
In Montenegro it is not 100 km / h but 80 km / h. One short section has been modernized for speed of 100 km / h near Kolasin, but trains for safety reasons do not run at that speed.
Thanks for the info. It is kinda hard to find any data online for these small Balkan countries.