What defines ‘high speed’ rail? I’ve taken my handheld GPS on trips between Boston and Washington and the Northeast Regional often exceeds 110 mph. Iirc I once saw 124 mph.
What defines ‘high speed’ rail? I’ve taken my handheld GPS on trips between Boston and Washington and the Northeast Regional often exceeds 110 mph. Iirc I once saw 124 mph.There is no standardized definition of "high-speed" rail, which leads to considerable confusion in discussion. But in general, speeds of 90~110~120 mph is pretty much the upper limit for "conventional" heavy rail systems that we currently have if they are upgraded and maintained in excellent conditions. To achieve speeds exceeding that up to 190~200 mph or so would require complete replacement of current infrastructure with technology similar to the Japanese Shinkansen Bullet Trains. The Bullet Trains cannot share track with freight traffic. Experimental speeds beyond 200 mph have been achieved with the most promising technology being Maglev (which is also incompatible with the other high-speed technologies.)