TGV

The TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse, French for "high-speed train"), is a category of high speed trains. They are used in France. They are also used for some travel between France and England, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Spain. The trains normally travel at speeds between 270 km/h and 320 km/h. They were the fastest normal trains in the world, their average travel speed is at 279,4 km/h.^[1]

In 2007, a special TGV set the speed record for rail vehicles, reaching 574,8 km/h.^[2][3][4]

Inside France, there are the following high speed lines

• Paris to Lyon, later to Valence, Avignon and Marseille.
• Paris to Tours and Le Mans. Also used to run trains to Poitiers and Bordeaux.
• Paris to Lille, later Brussels (known as Thalys) and Calais, Dover, London (known as Eurostar).
• Paris to Strasbourg, sometimes to Frankfurt am Main, Basel and Zürich. The first part of this line has been built. The high-speed track ends at a station, about half-way between Nancy and Metz. Strasbourg is currently reachable from Paris is about two and a half hours, Basel takes 3.20, and Zürich about 4.30. The extension of the line to Strasbourg has been started,

Lines to Spain and Italy are being planned. A High speed line to Germany is being built.

The building of the network has made travel times much shorter. Paris to Marseille (750 km) can now be done in 3 hours. Two thirds of the traffic volume is done by the TGV, only one third is done by airplanes.

1. ↑ "World Speed Survey: New lines boost rail's high speed performance". Railway Gazette International. 2007-09-04. Archived from the original on 2008-09-07. Retrieved 2009-05-01.
2. ↑ "Aboard the fastest TGV in the world". The Times. 2007-03-04. Retrieved 2009-05-08.^{[permanent dead link]}
3. ↑ Associated Press (2007-04-04). "French train breaks speed record". cnn.com. CNN. Archived from the original on 2007-04-07. Retrieved 2008-01-10.
4. ↑ Fouquet, Helene; Viscousi, Gregory (2007-04-03). "French TGV Sets Record, Reaching 357 Miles an Hour (Update2)". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2007-09-19.