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by q-big 1369 days ago
> They're maglev trains, so there's no pantograph involved there.

The linked wikipedia article also lists speeds of Chinese non-maglev trains.

1 comments

Ah true, maybe they have higher operating costs on pantograph and/or the power lines maintenance?

(I don't fully believe GP's comment of "The engineer that can solve this problem will allow top speeds in the range of 400/500 kph on /existing/ TGV tracks.", as narrow turns is probably a bigger contraint than the pantograph problem. Maybe a few of the more straight lines can benefit, but there's more constraints to solve before taking turns at 400/500 kph!)