Railways were the first form of rapid land transport and had an effective monopoly on long-distance passenger traffic until the development of the
motor car and
airliners in the early to mid-20th century. Speed had always been an important factor for railways and they constantly tried to achieve higher speeds and decrease journey times. Rail transport in the late 19th century was not much slower than non-high-speed trains today, and many railways regularly operated relatively fast express trains which averaged speeds of around .
Early research First experiments High-speed rail development began in Germany in 1899 when the
Prussian state railway joined with ten electrical and engineering firms and electrified of military-owned railway between
Marienfelde and
Zossen. The line used
three-phase current at
10 kilovolts and
45 Hz. The Van der Zypen & Charlier company of
Deutz, Cologne built two railcars, one fitted with electrical equipment from
Siemens-Halske, the second with equipment from
Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG), that were tested on the
Marienfelde–
Zossen line during 1902 and 1903 (see
Experimental three-phase railcar). On 23 October 1903, the S&H-equipped railcar achieved a speed of and on 27 October the AEG-equipped railcar achieved . These trains demonstrated the feasibility of electric high-speed rail; however, regularly scheduled electric high-speed rail travel was still more than 30 years away.
High-speed aspirations After the breakthrough of electric railroads, it was clearly the infrastructure – especially the cost of it – which hampered the introduction of high-speed rail. Several disasters happened – derailments, head-on collisions on single-track lines, collisions with road traffic at grade crossings, etc. The physical laws were well-known, i.e. if the speed was doubled, the curve radius should be quadrupled; the same was true for the acceleration and braking distances. In 1891, engineer
Károly Zipernowsky proposed a high-speed line from Vienna to Budapest for electric railcars at . In 1893 Wellington Adams proposed an
air-line from Chicago to St. Louis of , at a speed of only . Alexander C. Miller had greater ambitions. In 1906, he launched the
Chicago-New York Electric Air Line Railroad project to reduce the running time between the two big cities to ten hours by using electric locomotives. After seven years of effort, less than of straight track was finished. A part of the line is still used as one of the last interurbans in the US, the
South Shore Line.
High-speed interurbans In the US, some of the
interurbans (i.e. trams or
streetcars which run from city to city) of the early 20th century were very high-speed for their time (also Europe had and still does have some interurbans). Several high-speed rail technologies have their origin in the interurban field. In 1903 – 30 years before the conventional railways started to streamline their trains – the officials of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition organised the Electric Railway Test Commission to conduct a series of tests to develop a carbody design that would reduce wind resistance at high speeds. A long series of tests was carried. In 1905,
St. Louis Car Company built a railcar for the traction magnate
Henry E. Huntington, capable of speeds approaching . Once it ran between Los Angeles and Long Beach in 15 minutes, an average speed of . However, it was too heavy for much of the tracks, so
Cincinnati Car Company,
J. G. Brill and others pioneered lightweight constructions, use of aluminium alloys, and low-level
bogies which could operate smoothly at extremely high speeds on rough interurban tracks.
Westinghouse and
General Electric designed motors compact enough to be mounted on the bogies. From 1930 on, the
Red Devils from Cincinnati Car Company and a some other interurban rail cars reached about in commercial traffic. The Red Devils weighed only 22 tons though they could seat 44 passengers. Extensive
wind tunnel research – the first in the railway industry – was done before J. G. Brill in 1931 built the
Bullet cars for
Philadelphia and Western Railroad (P&W). They were capable of running at . Some of them were almost 60 years in service. P&W's
Norristown High Speed Line is still in use, almost 110 years after P&W in 1907 opened their double-track Upper Darby–Strafford line without a single grade crossing with roads or other railways. The entire line was governed by an
absolute block signal system.
Early German high-speed network On 15 May 1933, the
Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft company introduced the diesel-powered "
Fliegender Hamburger" in regular service between
Hamburg and Berlin (), thereby achieving a new top speed for a regular service, with a top speed of . This train was a streamlined multi-powered unit, albeit diesel, and used
Jakobs bogies. Following the success of the Hamburg line, the steam-powered
Henschel-Wegmann Train was developed and introduced in June 1936 for service from
Berlin to
Dresden, with a regular top speed of . Incidentally no train service since the cancelation of this express train in 1939 has traveled between the two cities in a faster time . In August 2019, the travel time between
Dresden-Neustadt and
Berlin-Südkreuz was 102 minutes. See
Berlin–Dresden railway. Further development allowed the usage of these "Fliegenden Züge" (flying trains) on a rail network across Germany. The "Diesel-Schnelltriebwagen-Netz" (diesel high-speed-vehicle network) had been in the planning since 1934 but it never reached its envisaged size. All high-speed service stopped in August 1939 shortly before the outbreak of
World War II.
American Streamliners '' passenger train On 26 May 1934, one year after Fliegender Hamburger introduction, the
Burlington Railroad set an average speed record on long distance with their new streamlined train, the
Zephyr, at with peaks at . The Zephyr was made of stainless steel and, like the Fliegender Hamburger, was diesel powered, articulated with
Jacobs bogies, and could reach as commercial speed. The new service was inaugurated 11 November 1934, traveling between
Kansas City and
Lincoln, but at a lower speed than the record, on average speed . In 1935, the
Milwaukee Road introduced the
Morning Hiawatha service, hauled at by steam locomotives. In 1939, the largest railroad of the world, the
Pennsylvania Railroad introduced a duplex steam engine
Class S1, which was designed to be capable of hauling 1200 tons passenger trains at . The S1 engine was assigned to power the popular all-coach overnight premier train
the Trail Blazer between New York and Chicago since the late 1940s and it consistently reached in its service life. These were the last "high-speed" trains to use steam power. In 1936, the
Twin Cities Zephyr entered service, from Chicago to Minneapolis, with an average speed of . Many of these streamliners posted travel times comparable to or better than their modern
Amtrak successors, which are limited to top speed on most of the network.
Italian electric and the last steam record trainset of the speed world record () in 1938, now preserved as historical train, was re-numbered ETR 232 in the 1960s The German high-speed service was followed in Italy in 1938 with an electric-multiple-unit
ETR 200, designed for , between Bologna and Naples. It too reached in commercial service, and achieved a world mean speed record of between Florence and Milan in 1938. In Great Britain in the same year, the streamlined
steam locomotive Mallard achieved the official
world speed record for steam locomotives at . The external combustion engines and boilers on steam locomotives were large, heavy and time and labor-intensive to maintain, and the days of steam for high speed were numbered.
Introduction of the Talgo system In 1945, a Spanish engineer,
Alejandro Goicoechea, developed a streamlined, articulated train that was able to run on existing tracks at higher speeds than contemporary passenger trains. This was achieved by providing the locomotive and cars with a unique
axle system that used one axle set per car end, connected by a Y-bar coupler. Amongst other advantages, the centre of mass was only half as high as usual. This system became famous under the name of
Talgo (
Tren Articulado Ligero Goicoechea Oriol), and for half a century was the main Spanish provider of high-speed trains.
First above 300 km/h developments In the early 1950s, the French National Railway started to receive their new powerful
CC 7100 electric locomotives, and began to study and evaluate running at higher speeds. In 1954, the CC 7121 hauling a full train achieved a record during a test on standard track. The next year, two specially tuned electric locomotives, the CC 7107 and the prototype BB 9004, broke previous speed records, reaching respectively and , again on standard track. For the first time, was surpassed, allowing the idea of higher-speed services to be developed and further engineering studies commenced. Especially, during the 1955 records, a dangerous
hunting oscillation, the swaying of the
bogies which leads to dynamic instability and potential derailment was discovered. This problem was solved by
yaw dampers which enabled safe running at high speeds today. Research was also made about "current harnessing" at high-speed by the pantographs, which was solved 20 years later by the Zébulon
TGV's prototype.
Breakthrough: Shinkansen Japanese research and development With some 45 million people living in the densely populated Tokyo–
Osaka corridor (
Taiheiyō Belt), congestion on road and rail became a serious problem after
World War II, and the Japanese government began thinking about ways to transport people in and between cities. Because Japan was resource limited and did not want to import petroleum for security reasons, energy-efficient high-speed rail was an attractive potential solution.
Japanese National Railways (JNR) engineers began to study the development of a high-speed regular mass transit service. In 1955, they were present at the
Lille's Electrotechnology Congress in France, and during a 6-month visit, the head engineer of JNR accompanied the deputy director Marcel Tessier at the DETE (
SNCF Electric traction study department). With the sole exceptions of Russia, Finland, and Uzbekistan all high-speed rail lines in the world are still standard gauge, even in countries where the preferred gauge for legacy lines is different.
A new train on a new line The new service, named
Shinkansen () would provide a new alignment, 25% wider standard gauge utilising continuously welded rails between Tokyo and Osaka with new rolling stock, designed for . However, the
World Bank, whilst supporting the project, considered the design of the equipment as unproven for that speed, and set the maximum speed to . In 1963, on the new track, test runs hit a top speed of . Five years after the beginning of the construction work, in October 1964, just in time for the
Olympic Games, the first modern high-speed rail, the
Tōkaidō Shinkansen, was opened between the two cities; a line between Tokyo and Ōsaka. As a result of its speeds, the Shinkansen earned international publicity and praise. The first Shinkansen trains, the
0 Series Shinkansen, built by
Kawasaki Heavy Industriesin English often called "bullet trains", after the original Japanese name outclassed the earlier fast trains in commercial service. They traversed the distance in 3 hours 10 minutes, reaching a top speed of and sustaining an average speed of with stops at Nagoya and Kyoto.
High-speed rail for the masses Speed was not only a part of the Shinkansen revolution: the Shinkansen offered high-speed rail travel to the masses. The first "bullet trains" had 12 cars and later versions had up to 16, and double-deck trains further increased the capacity. After three years, more than 100 million passengers had used the trains, and the milestone of the first one billion passengers was reached in 1976. In 1972, the line was extended a further , and further construction has resulted in the network expanding to of high speed lines as of 2024, with a further of extensions currently under construction and due to open in 2038. The cumulative patronage on the entire system since 1964 is over 10 billion, the equivalent of approximately 140% of the world's population, without a single train passenger fatality. (Suicides, passengers falling off the platforms, and industrial accidents have resulted in fatalities.) Since their introduction, Japan's Shinkansen systems have been undergoing constant improvement, not only increasing line speeds. Over a dozen train models have been produced, addressing diverse issues such as
tunnel boom noise, vibration,
aerodynamic drag, lines with lower patronage ("Mini shinkansen"),
earthquake and
typhoon safety,
braking distance, problems due to snow, and energy consumption (newer trains are twice as energy-efficient as the initial ones despite greater speeds).
Future developments of Shinkansen After decades of research and successful testing on a test track, in 2014 JR Central began constructing a
Maglev Shinkansen line, which is known as the
Chūō Shinkansen. These Maglev trains still have the traditional underlying tracks and the cars have wheels. This serves a practical purpose at stations and a safety purpose out on the lines in the event of a power failure. However, in normal operation, the wheels are raised up into the car as the train reaches certain speeds where the magnetic levitation effect takes over. It is proposed to link Tokyo and Osaka by 2037, with the section from Tokyo to Nagoya expected to be operational by 2034. Maximum speed is anticipated at . The first generation train can be ridden by tourists visiting the test track.
Europe and North America in 1960s and 1970s First demonstrations at In Europe, high-speed rail began during the International Transport Fair in
Munich in June 1965, when Dr Öpfering, the director of
Deutsche Bundesbahn (German Federal Railways), performed 347 demonstrations at between Munich and
Augsburg by
DB Class 103 hauled trains. The same year the
Aérotrain, a French hovercraft monorail train prototype, reached within days of operation. At the same time, the
Aérotrain prototype 02 reached on a half-scale experimental track. In 1969, it achieved on the same track. On 5 March 1974, the full-scale commercial prototype Aérotrain I80HV, jet powered, reached .
US Metroliner trains trains developed in the U.S. for rapid service between New York and Washington, DC In the United States, following the creation of Japan's first high-speed
Shinkansen, President
Lyndon B. Johnson as part of his
Great Society infrastructure building initiatives asked the
Congress to devise a way to increase speeds on the railroads. Congress delivered the
High Speed Ground Transportation Act of 1965 which passed with overwhelming
bipartisan support and helped to create regular
Metroliner service between New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. The new service was inaugurated in 1969, with top speeds of and averaging along the route, with the travel time as little as 2 hours 30 minutes. In a 1967 competition with a GE powered Metroliner on Penn Central's mainline, the
United Aircraft Corporation TurboTrain set a record of .
United Kingdom, Italy and Germany train running on the
Florence–Rome high-speed line near
Arezzo in Italy, the first high-speed railway opened in Europe. In 1976
British Rail introduced a high-speed service able to reach using the
InterCity 125 diesel-electric trainsets under the brand name of High Speed Train (HST). It was the fastest diesel-powered train in regular service and it improved upon its forerunners in speed and acceleration. As of 2025 it is still in regular service as the fastest diesel-powered train. The train is a reversible multi-car set having driving power-cars at both ends and a fixed formation of passenger cars between them. Journey times were reduced by an hour for example on the
East Coast Main Line, and passenger numbers increased. Prior to COVID-19, ridership of the UK's High Speed Intercity Services had exceeded 40 million journeys per annum. In 1977 Germany introduced a new service at , on the Munich–Augsburg line. That same year, Italy inaugurated the first European High-Speed line, the
Direttissima between
Rome and
Florence, designed for , but used by
FS E444 hauled train at . In France this year also saw the abandonment for political reasons of the
Aérotrain project, in favour of the
TGV.
Evolution in Europe Italy '
Frecciarossa 1000 high speed train at
Milano Centrale railway station, with a maximum speed of , is one of the fastest trains in Europe. ) at
Venezia Mestre railway station. The earliest European high-speed railway to be built was the Italian
Florence–Rome high-speed railway (also called "Direttissima") in 1977. Other proposed high-speed lines are
Salerno-Reggio Calabria (connected to Sicily with the future
bridge over the Strait of Messina),
Palermo-Catania and
Naples–Bari. The main public operator of high-speed trains (
alta velocità AV, formerly
Eurostar Italia) is
Trenitalia, part of
FSI. Trains are divided into three categories (called "
Le Frecce"):
Frecciarossa ("Red arrow") trains operate at a maximum of on dedicated high-speed tracks;
Frecciargento (Silver arrow) trains operate at a maximum of on both high-speed and mainline tracks;
Frecciabianca (White arrow) trains operate at a maximum of on mainline tracks only. Since 2012, a new and Italy's first private train operator,
NTV (branded as Italo), runs high-speed services in competition with
Trenitalia. Italy is the only country in Europe with a private high-speed train operator. Construction of the Milan-Venice high-speed line began in 2013 and in 2016 the
Milan-Treviglio section has been opened to passenger traffic; the Milan-Genoa high-speed line (Terzo Valico dei Giovi) is also under construction. Today it is possible to travel from Rome to Milan in less than 3 hours with the
Frecciarossa 1000 high-speed train. There is a train every 30 minutes.
France , in 1982 Following the
1955 records, two divisions of the
SNCF began to study high-speed services. In 1964, the DETMT (petrol-engine traction studies department of SNCF) investigated the use of
gas turbines: a diesel-powered railcar was modified with a gas-turbine, and was called "TGV" (Turbotrain Grande Vitesse). envisioning that by 2020, 90 percent of the population would live within of a station served by
AVE. Spain began building the largest HSR network in Europe: , five of the new lines have opened (Madrid–Zaragoza–Lleida–Tarragona–Barcelona, Córdoba–Malaga, Madrid–Toledo, Madrid–Segovia–Valladolid, Madrid–Cuenca–Valencia) and another were under construction. Opened in early 2013, the
Perpignan–Barcelona high-speed rail line provides a link with neighbouring France with trains running to Paris, Lyon, Montpellier and Marseille. , the Spanish high-speed rail network is the longest HSR network in Europe with and the
second longest in the world, after China's.
Turkey In 2009, Turkey inaugurated a high-speed service between Ankara and
Eskişehir. This has been followed up by an
Ankara –
Konya route, and the Eskisehir line has been extended to
Istanbul (European part). In this extension, Europe and Asia were connected by an undersea tunnel,
Marmaray in the Bosphorus. The first connection between two continents in the world as a high-speed train line was made in Istanbul. The last station of this line in Europe is
Halkalı station. An extension to Sivas was opened in April 2023.
North America United States In 1992, the
United States Congress passed the Amtrak Authorization and Development Act that authorised
Amtrak to start working on service improvements on the segment between
Boston and New York City of the
Northeast Corridor. The primary objectives were to electrify the line north of
New Haven, Connecticut, to eliminate
grade crossings and replace the then 30-year-old
Metroliners with new trains, so that the distance between Boston and New York City could be covered in 3 hours or less. Amtrak started testing two trains, the Swedish
X2000 and the German
ICE 1, in the same year along its fully electrified segment between New York City and Washington, D.C. The officials favored the X2000 as it had a tilting mechanism. However, the Swedish manufacturer never bid on the contract as the burdensome United States railroad regulations required them to heavily modify the train resulting in added weight, among other things. Eventually, a custom-made
tilting train derived from TGV, manufactured by
Alstom and
Bombardier, won the contract and was put into service in December 2000. The new service was named "
Acela Express" (renamed the Acela in 2019) and linked Boston, New York City,
Philadelphia,
Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. The travel time was 3.5 hours between Boston and New York and 3 hours between New York and Washington. The original Acela trainsets operated at a maximum speed of , with top speeds being reached on sections in
Rhode Island,
Massachusetts, and
New Jersey. New trainsets, the
Avelia Liberty, entered service in August 2025, raising the top speed to .
Brightline, a private high speed rail venture, started operations in
Florida in early 2018. Trains operate at a top speed of . As of December 2025, the U.S. has two high-speed rail lines under construction:
California High-Speed Rail in
California, and
Brightline West in California and
Nevada.
Expansion in East, Southeast, and South Asia For four decades since its opening in 1964, the Japanese
Shinkansen was the only high-speed rail service outside of Europe. In the 2000s a number of new high-speed rail services started operating in
East Asia.
Southeast Asia also saw, and
South Asia will see their first high-speed rail service in the 2020s.
China High-speed rail was introduced to China in 2003 with the
Qinhuangdao–Shenyang high-speed railway. The Chinese government made high-speed rail construction a cornerstone of the
Chinese economic stimulus program to mitigate the effects of the
2008 financial crisis and the result has been a rapid development of the Chinese rail system into the world's most extensive high-speed rail network. By 2013 the system had of operational track, accounting for about half of the world's total at the time. By the end of 2018, the total high-speed railway (HSR) in China had risen to over . A
Paulson Institute research argued that the net benefit of the high-speed rail is $378 billion and the
return on investment is 6.5%. State planning for high-speed railway began in the early 1990s, and the country's first high-speed rail line, the
Qinhuangdao–Shenyang Passenger Railway, was built in 1999 and opened to commercial operation in 2003. This line could accommodate commercial trains running at up to . Planners also considered Germany's
Transrapid maglev technology and built the
Shanghai maglev train, which runs on a track linking the
Pudong, the city's financial district, and the
Pudong International Airport. The maglev train service began operating in 2004 with trains reaching a top speed of , and remains the fastest high-speed service in the world. Maglev, however, was not adopted nationally and all subsequent expansion features high-speed rail on conventional tracks. In the 1990s, China's domestic train production industry designed and produced a series of high-speed train prototypes but few were used in commercial operation and none were mass-produced. The Chinese Ministry of Railways (MOR) then arranged for the purchase of foreign high-speed trains from French, German, and Japanese manufacturers along with certain technology transfers and joint ventures with domestic trainmakers. In 2007, the MOR introduced the
China Railways High-speed (CRH) service, also known as "Harmony Trains", a version of the German
Siemens Velaro high-speed train. In 2008, high-speed trains began running at a top speed of on the
Beijing–Tianjin intercity railway, which opened during the
2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. The following year, trains on the newly opened
Wuhan–Guangzhou high-speed railway set a world record for average speed over an entire trip, at over . A
collision of high-speed trains on 23 July 2011 in
Zhejiang province killed 40 and injured 195, raising concerns about operational safety. This fatal accident, which happened in the midst of corruption investigations into railway officials, led to greater scrutiny in the Chinese press concerning HSR safety, high ticket prices, financial sustainability, and environmental impact. Following the accident, top train speeds were lowered to . A credit crunch later that year slowed the construction of new lines. But by 2012, the high-speed rail boom had renewed with new lines and new rolling stock by domestic producers that had indigenised foreign technology. On 26 December 2012, China opened the
Beijing–Guangzhou–Shenzhen–Hong Kong high-speed railway, the world's longest high-speed rail line, which runs from
Beijing West railway station to
Shenzhen North Railway Station. The network set a target to create the
4+4 National high-speed rail Grid by 2015, and continues to rapidly expand with the July 2016 announcement of the
8+8 National high-speed rail Grid. In 2017, services resumed on the
Beijing–Shanghai high-speed railway, once again refreshing the world record for average speed with select services running between
Beijing South to
Nanjing South reaching average speeds of . Like Japan, China is also developing maglev system to run trains with even higher speeds. Currently there are two separate high-speed maglev systems being developed in China: • the
CRRC 600, is based on the
Transrapid technology and is being developed by the
CRRC under license from
Thyssen-Krupp. A test track has been operating since 2006 at the Jiading Campus of
Tongji University, northwest of Shanghai. A prototype vehicle was developed in 2019 and was tested in June 2020. In July 2021 a four car train was unveiled. A high-speed test track is under development and in April 2021 there was consideration given to re-opening the Emsland test facility in Germany. With the completion of the Xi’an–Yan’an high-speed railway in December 2025, China’s high-speed rail network surpassed , consolidating its position as the largest high-speed rail system in the world. However, rapid expansion has incurred massive financial losses, including losses of $25 billion from 2020 to 2022 during the COVID-19 pandemic. As of the end of 2023 the system has an accumulated debt of $839 billion due to opaque financing by local governments. In terms of annual operating revenues and expenditures, only six lines break even while the rest have huge losses due to low passenger volumes. Many of the stations on the newest lines are located well outside centers of metro areas and without direct local highway nor light rail connections, as officials have used high-speed rail construction primarily to drive up land value for land sales (especially in third and fourth-tier cities), instead of prioritizing convenience and affordability of ordinary travelers.
South Korea In South Korea, construction of the high-speed line from
Seoul to
Busan began in 1992. The Seoul–Busan corridor is Korea's busiest running between the two largest cities. In 1982, it represented 65.8% of South Korea's population, a number that grew to 73.3% by 1995, along with 70% of freight traffic and 66% of passenger traffic. With both the
Gyeongbu Expressway and
Korail's
Gyeongbu Line congested as of the late 1970s, the government saw the pressing need for another form of transportation. The line known as
Gyeongbu high-speed railway, better known with the
Korea Train Express (KTX) service operating on it, was launched on 1 April 2004, using primarily TGV technology from
France. Top speed for trains in regular service is currently , though the infrastructure is designed for . In 2015 and 2016, high-speed rail services were extended to other parts of the country, with the
Honam high-speed railway connecting
Gwangju, and
Suseo–Pyeongtaek high-speed railway as the second link from Seoul, entered operation.
Super Rapid Train, an open-access operator, started joining the market to operate services on the latter in the same year. Some existing conventional lines, including
Gyeonggang Line and
Jungang Line, are also upgraded to semi-high-speed standard, further expanded the KTX network. The
initial rolling stock was based on
Alstom's
TGV Réseau, and was partly built in Korea. The domestically developed
HSR-350x, which achieved in tests, resulted in a second type of high-speed trains now operated by Korail, the
KTX-Sancheon, which entered into commercial service in 2010. The next generation experimental EMU prototype,
HEMU-430X, achieved in 2013, making South Korea the world's fourth country after France, Japan, and China to develop a high-speed train running on conventional rail above . It was further developed into commercialised variants, namely
KTX-Eum and
KTX-Cheongryong, with respective maximum service speeds of and , which entered into KTX services in 2021 and 2024, respectively.
Taiwan train at
Taichung HSR station. The
Taiwan High Speed Rail system is primarily based on Japanese Shinkansen
Taiwan High Speed Rail's first and only HSR line opened for service on 5 January 2007, using Japanese trains with a top speed of . The service traverses from to in as little as 105 minutes. While it contains only one line, its route covers
Western Taiwan where over 90% of Taiwan's population live; connecting most major cities of Taiwan:
Taipei,
New Taipei,
Taoyuan,
Hsinchu,
Taichung,
Chiayi,
Tainan, and
Kaohsiung. Once THSR began operations, almost all passengers switched from airlines flying parallel routes while road traffic was also reduced. Extension from both of current ends are being studied, and it was announced in December 2024 that the end from Zuoying will be extended to
Kaohsiung city centre and
Pingtung.
Indonesia ) passing through
Bandung Indonesia is the first country in Southeast Asia to operate high-speed rail. The concept was first seriously considered in 2008, leading to discussions at the Asian Investment Summit in 2013, and detailed plans were established in 2015. Plans to begin construction of the
Jakarta-
Bandung HSR were announced by the Indonesian government in July 2015, after the Chinese President and other world leaders visited the Bandung Conference. Both
Japan and
China expressed interest in high-speed rail projects in Indonesia, which highlighted the rivalry between them in their race for Asian infrastructure projects. In mid-September 2015, China announced it would fully meet the Indonesian government's demands and offered a new proposal that did not require Indonesia to assume any fiscal burden or debt guarantee in proceeding with the project. Later that month, Indonesia selected China for the $5 billion project. The construction of the first high-speed rail service, linking two major cities of
Jakarta and
Bandung with a distance of , started in August 2018, with the cost of $7.3 billion to build. The line began trial operation with passengers on 7 September 2023 and commercial operations on 17 October 2023. It is operated with a maximum operating speed of by
Kereta Cepat Indonesia China, a joint venture of Indonesian and Chinese
state-owned enterprises. This route also serves as an initial project for future development plans.
Middle East and Central Asia Saudi Arabia Uzbekistan Uzbekistan opened the
Afrosiyob service from
Tashkent to
Samarkand in 2011, which was upgraded in 2013 to an average operational speed of and peak speed of . The Talgo 250 service has been extended to Karshi as of August 2015 whereby the train travels in 3 hours. As of August 2016, the train service was extended to
Bukhara, and the extension will take 3 hours and 20 minutes down from 7 hours.
Africa Egypt , there are no operational high-speed rail lines in Egypt. Plans have been announced for three lines, aiming to connect the Nile river valley, the Mediterranean coast, and the Red Sea. Construction had started on at least two lines.
Morocco In November 2007, the Moroccan government decided to undertake the construction of a high-speed rail line between the economic capital
Casablanca and
Tangier, one of the largest harbour cities on the
Strait of Gibraltar. The line will also serve the capital
Rabat and
Kenitra. The first section of the line, the
Kenitra–Tangier high-speed rail line, was completed in 2018. Future projects include expansions south to Marrakech and Agadir, and east to Meknes, Fes and Oujda. ==Network==