French joy as TGV sets new rail speed record

FRANCE’S TGV train smashed the world rail-speed record yesterday, providing an important image boost for the country’s industry in an increasingly competitive world market.

An experimental version of the train, equipped with two supercharged locomotives and extra-large wheels, hit 574.8 kilometres per hour on a specially prepared stretch of track east of Paris.

The record smashed the 515.3km/h set by a TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse or high-speed train) in 1990, but narrowly missed the overall world train speed record of 581kph reached in 2003 by a Japanese magnetic levitation, or Maglev, train.