Chinese Train Hits A Record Breaking 300 MPH

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A China Railway High-Speed train enters Bengbu south railway station, a stop in Anhui province on the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail line, on Friday Dec. 3, 2010. The Chinese passenger train hit a record speed of 302 miles per hour Friday during a test run of a yet-to-be opened link between Beijing and Shanghai, state media said. (AP Photo/Xinhua, Liu Junxi)

A passenger train in China hit a record speed of 302 mph Friday, the fastest speed ever recorded by a conventional commercial train.

The record occurred during a test run of a new track running between Beijing and Shanghai, a rail line that should be open for travel sometime in 2012, the Xinhua News Agency reported. The project, currently furthering China’s high-speed rail initiative, will cost the country $32.5 billion, but the investment will be well worth it. The line is expected to reduce travel time between Beijing and Shanghai from 10 hours to 5 hours.

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Though the train’s speed clocked the record for all unmodified conventional commercial trains, others have bettered the speed. In 2007, a modified French TGV train reached 357.2 mph, while a Japanese magnetically levitated train reached a whopping 361 mph in 2003.

China already has the world’s longest high-speed rail network, which the country expects to expand to 10,000 miles of coverage by 2020, with trains reaching speeds of over 312 mph. Hear that, Amtrak?

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