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French Set Rail Speed Record: 357.2 Mph
France competes with Germany and with Japan for contracts. Earlier Tuesday, Transport Minister Dominique Perben received California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez. The state is studying prospects for a high-speed line from Sacramento to San Diego, via San Francisco and Los Angeles.
When we reached our destination at Champagne-Ardennes train station, people cracked open bottles of champagne _ slicing the necks with swords, a French tradition.
  A French high-speed train, with a souped-up engine and wheels, breaks the world speed record near Grigny, eastern France, Tuesday, April 3, 2007, reaching 574.8 kph (357.2 mph). The black and chrome train with three double-decker cars, named the V150, bettered the previous record of 515.3 (320.2 mph), set in 1990 by the French fast train. However, it fell short of the ultimate record set by Japan's non-conventional magnetically levitated train, which sped to 581 kph (361 mph) in 2003. (AP Photo/Francois Mori) (Francois Mori - AP) PHOTOS |
Technicians on the train had "French excellence" emblazoned on their T-shirts, and President Jacques Chirac agreed, praising the record as "a magnificent demonstration of France's formidable capacities in research and innovation."
A few other people on the train described it as a "nice" ride _ but most of us were glad to get off.
The whole experience left my knees shaky.
Then, the final flourish: we were given a survivors' certificate.
"Ingrid Rousseau participated in a journey at very high speed," it read. "This train established a new world speed record on rails April 3, 2007: 574.8 km/h."
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Associated Press Writer Marco Chown Oved contributed to this report.
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