title: Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation

text: MBC launched TV broadcasting on 8 August 1969 (call sign: HLAC-TV, output: 2 kW), and started to broadcast its main news program MBC Newsdesk on 5 October 1970. It reached affiliation deal with 7 commercial stations (in Ulsan, Jinju, Gangnueng, Chuncheon, Mokpo, Jeju, Masan) between 1968 and 1969, and started nationwide TV broadcasting through its 13 affiliated or regional stations. In 1974, FM radio was launched, and MBC took over the Kyunghyang Shinmun (daily newspaper company).


title: Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation

text: The first colour TV broadcasting was started on 22 December 1980. MBC was separated from the Kyunghyang Shinmun according to the 1981 Basic Press Act. In 1982, it moved into the Yeouido headquarters. That same year, the network founded its baseball team, MBC Cheong-ryong (Blue Dragon), which entered the KBO League as a charter team, in addition to the network being the first home of the league's TV broadcasts. With the live coverage of the 1986 Seoul Asian Games and the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games, MBC made a great advancement in scale and technology.


title: Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation

text: After rapidly growing into a large corporation, covering major international events, MBC established specialized companies for each value chain (MBC Production, MBC Media Tech, MBC Broadcast Culture Center, MBC Arts Company, MBC Arts Center) and spined them off as subsidiaries to become a more efficient corporation amid fiercer competition in the multimedia era. ※ MBC Production and MBC Media Tech were merged into MBC C&I in August, 2011.


title: Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation

text: As the convergence of broadcasting and communications becomes full-fledged, MBC made its subsidiary iMBC (internet MBC) an independent corporation and pursued various internet-related business. Furthermore, it started cable TV (MBC Plus Media,) satellite TV, new DMB broadcasting and full daytime broadcasting on terrestrial television. In 2007, MBC established digital production centre Ilsan Dream Center, which is equipped with high-tech production facilities. In September 2014, it completed the construction of a new headquarters building and moved from Yeouido to Sangam-dong, opening a new era of Sangam MBC.


title: Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation

text: In 2001, MBC launched satellite and cable television broadcasting. As part of this expansion it created MBC America, a subsidiary based in Los Angeles, United States, to distribute its programming throughout the Americas. On 1 August 2008, MBC America launched MBC-D, a television network carried on the digital subchannels of KSCI-TV, KTSF-TV, and WMBC-TV. The service was planned to be launched in Atlanta, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. by the end of the year. In northeast metro Atlanta, it aired on WKTB-CD channel 47.3, but as of 2011 is on WSKC-CD channel 22.1.


title: Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation

text: In March 2013, computer shutdowns hit South Korean television stations, including MBC. The South Korean government asserted a North Korean link in the March cyberattacks, which has been denied by Pyongyang.


title: Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation

text: MBC is an active member of international organizations such as ABU (Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union), IATAS (International Academy of Television Arts & Science) and INPUT (International Public Television Screening Conference), and is affiliated with 21 broadcasters in 13 countries.


title: Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation

text: It is engaged in various global business through overseas corporations in Los Angeles and Shanghai, and bureaus in North America, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East as well as Asia, in close cooperation with major global media groups.


title: Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation

text: MBC is devoted to entering foreign markets and expanding the business area. It maintains a close relationship with foreign buyers by participating in major content markets every year such as MIP-TV, MIPCOM, NATPE, BCWW and ATF. It operates an English website which introduces various MBC content to the overseas buyers and viewers so that they can easily access its content.


title: Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation

text: MBC drama "What on Earth Is Love?" is the first Korean Wave drama which sparked the K-drama boom across China, when it was aired on CCTV in 1997. Since then, numerous MBC dramas, entertainment shows, and documentaries have been exported to different countries. The drama "Dae Jang Geum" was shown in as many as 91 countries around the world. More recently, MBC is widening its content business area by exporting show formats such as "I Am a Singer", "We Got Married" and "Dad! Where Are We Going?" to other countries.


title: Fast Five

text: Fast Five (also known as Fast & Furious 5 or Fast & Furious 5: Rio Heist) is a 2011 American action film directed by Justin Lin and written by Chris Morgan. It is the sequel to "Fast & Furious" (2009) and the fifth installment in the "Fast & Furious" franchise. It stars Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Matt Schulze, Sung Kang, Tego Calderón, Don Omar, Gal Gadot, Joaquim de Almeida and Dwayne Johnson. In the film, Dominic Toretto (Diesel) and Brian O'Conner (Walker) recruit a team to steal $100 million from a corrupt businessman while being pursued for arrest by U.S. Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) agent Luke Hobbs (Johnson).


title: Fast Five

text: While developing "Fast Five", Universal Pictures deliberately departed from the street racing theme prevalent in previous films in the series, to transform the franchise into a heist action series involving cars. By doing so, they hoped to attract wider audiences that might otherwise be put off by a heavy emphasis on cars and car culture. "Fast Five" is considered the transitional film in the series, featuring only one car race and giving more attention to action set pieces such as brawls, gun fights, and the central heist. The production mounted a comprehensive marketing campaign, with the film being advertised through social media, virtual games, cinema chains, automobile manufacturers, and at NASCAR races.


title: Fast Five

text: Lin, Diesel, and Walker's returns were finalized in February 2010, and principal photography began that July and lasted until that October, with filming locations including Atlanta, Puerto Rico, and Rio de Janeiro. Brian Tyler, the composer of the previous two installments, returned to compose the score. The film is notable for primarily featuring practical stuntwork as opposed to computer-generated placements seen in other entries in the franchise.


title: Fast Five

text: "Fast Five" premiered at the Cinépolis Lagoon in Rio de Janeiro on April 15, 2011, and was theatrically released worldwide on April 29. The film received generally positive reviews, with praise for Lin's direction, the action sequences, and the performances of the cast. "Fast Five" grossed $626 million worldwide, becoming the seventh-highest-grossing film of 2011, the then-highest-grossing film in the franchise, and set records related to Universal's highest-grossing opening weekend in several international markets. The sequel, "Fast & Furious 6", was released in the United States on May 24, 2013.


title: Fast Five

text: As Dominic Toretto is being transported to Lompoc Prison by bus, his sister Mia Toretto and friend Brian O'Conner lead an assault on the bus and free Dom. While the authorities search for them, the trio escapes to Rio de Janeiro. Awaiting Dom's arrival, Mia and Brian join their friend Vince and other participants on a job to steal three cars from a train. Brian and Mia learn that agents from the DEA are also on the train and that the cars are seized property. When Dom arrives with his accomplices, he realizes that their leader Zizi is only interested in stealing the Ford GT40. Dom has Mia steal the car herself before he and Brian fight Zizi and his henchmen, during which Zizi kills the DEA Agents. Brian and Dom are captured and brought to crime lord Hernan Reyes, the owner of the cars and Zizi's boss. Reyes orders the pair interrogated to discover the car's location, but they escape to their safehouse.


title: Fast Five

text: Dom, Brian, and Mia are framed as the murderers of the DEA Agents, and the U.S. government sends a team of Diplomatic Security Service Agents, led by DSS Agent Luke Hobbs and assisted by local officer Elena Neves, to Rio to arrest them. While Brian, Dom, and Mia examine the car to discover its importance, Vince arrives and is caught removing a computer chip from it. He admits he was planning to sell the chip to Reyes on his own, and Dom forces him to leave. Brian investigates the chip and discovers it contains financial details of Reyes' criminal empire, including the locations of in cash. Hobbs and his team arrive at Dom's safehouse, but find it under assault by Reyes' men searching for the chip. Brian, Dom and Mia escape after a chase across the favelas. Dom suggests they split up and leave Rio, but Mia announces she is pregnant with Brian's child. Dom agrees to stick together, suggesting they steal Reyes' money to start a new life. They organize a team to perform the heist: Han, Roman, Tej, Gisele, Leo, and Santos.


title: Fast Five

text: To centralize the cash, Dom's team attacks one of the locations and burns the money in front of Reyes' staff. Afraid of further attacks, Reyes consolidates the remaining money in an evidence vault inside a police station. Dom's team does surveillance, buys equipment, and acquires Reyes' handprint. After their fastest cars prove to be too slow for security cameras, they steal four 2010 Dodge Charger police cars to blend in. Vince rejoins Dom's team after saving Mia from Reyes' men. Hobbs' team eventually finds and arrests Dom, Mia, Brian, and Vince. While transporting them for extradition to the United States in a Gurkha LAPV, the convoy is attacked by Reyes' men. Dom, Brian, Mia, and Vince help Hobbs and Elena escape the ambush, but the rest of Hobbs' men and Vince are killed. Wanting to avenge their murdered team, Hobbs and Elena agree to help with the heist. The gang breaks into the police station with the LAPV and uses two of the Chargers to tear the vault holding Reyes' money from the building, dragging it through the city. Han and Roman arrive to disrupt police vehicles on their trail.


title: Fast Five

text: Advancing on the bridge after an extensive chase, Dom has Brian continue without him while he turns around, smashing the police and Reyes' vehicles with the vault. Reyes is badly injured by Dom's assault, and Brian returns and kills Zizi. Hobbs arrives and executes Reyes in retribution for his team. Though Hobbs refuses to let Dom and Brian go free, he gives them a 24-hour head start to escape on the condition they leave the vault as it is. When Dom and Brian depart, however, Hobbs finds the vault empty, as Dom's crew switched it via a trash truck before they reached the bridge. After splitting the cash and giving Vince's family his cut, Dom's team go their separate ways. On a tropical beach, Brian challenges Dom to a final, no-stakes race to prove who is the better driver. In Washington, D.C., Hobbs is given a file by Monica Fuentes concerning the hijack of a military convoy in Berlin, where he discovers a recent photo of Dom's former girlfriend Letty, who had been presumed dead.


title: Fast Five

text: The central cast is rounded out by Puerto Rican singers Tego Calderón and Don Omar as Leo and Santos respectively, members of the heist team. Michael Irby plays Reyes' right-hand man Zizi. Alimi Ballard, Fernando Chien, Yorgo Constantine, and Geoff Meedy portray Hobbs' team members Fusco, Wilkes, Chato, and Macroy. Michelle Rodriguez appears in photographs as Letty Ortiz, Dominic's girlfriend who is presumed dead following the events of "Fast & Furious". Eva Mendes appears in an uncredited cameo as Agent Monica Fuentes, reprising her role from "2 Fast 2 Furious".


title: Fast Five

text: By February 3, 2010, it was confirmed that a fifth film, referred to as "Fast Five", was going into production in the "Fast and Furious" series, and that a sixth film was being planned. It was also confirmed that Diesel, Walker, writer Chris Morgan and producer Neal H. Moritz would all return to their roles for the new installment. Moritz said that, following the success of "Fast & Furious" (2009), which had reunited Diesel, Walker, Rodriguez and Brewster from the original film, the production wanted to bring them back again for the next one. Diesel felt that the story between the characters portrayed by himself and Walker should continue, envisioning it as three chapters, of which "Fast Five" would be the last. Diesel also wanted to bring back a variety of characters that had been in previous films without interacting, put them together and "have a lot of fun".


title: Fast Five

text: The production had originally intended to film on location in Rio de Janeiro. However, the Puerto Rican government offered tax incentives totaling nearly $11 million, influencing the decision to film there, using Puerto Rico to represent Rio de Janeiro.


title: Fast Five

text: Universal intended to transform the series from street-racing action into a series of heist films with car chases in the vein of "The Italian Job" (1969) and "The French Connection" (1971), with "Fast Five" as the transitional movie. In April 2011, Universal chairman Adam Fogelson said:


title: Fast Five

text: The question putting "Fast Five" and "Fast Six" together for us was: Can we take it out of being a pure car culture movie and into being a true action franchise in the spirit of those great heist films made 10 or 15 years ago?


title: Fast Five

text: Fogelson said that the racing aspect had put a "ceiling" on the number of people willing to see films in the series, and that, by turning it into a series where car driving ability is just one aspect of the film, he hoped to increase the series' audience.


title: Fast Five

text: Lin wanted to explore the elements of "freedom and family" in the film and collaborated with Morgan towards that ideal, both having worked together on previous installments of the franchise. Morgan worked with Diesel to produce a story arc that would further explore and develop Diesel's character. An idea involving heisting a large safe had been conceived by Morgan during the production of "Fast & Furious", but that film's premise did not work with how Morgan envisioned it. He later incorporated it into "Fast Five".


title: Fast Five

text: On a budget of $125 million, the shooting of "Fast Five" was scheduled for July and August 2010. Shooting had started by July 14, 2010.


title: Fast Five

text: Three film units worked simultaneously. The main cast were required to travel to Rio at the behest of Lin, who felt it important to understand the area and its culture to give the film a good sense of place. Diesel agreed that it was important to shoot key scenes in Brazil, commenting "we were able to shoot where other productions might not be able to shoot because our franchise has such good street cred."


title: Fast Five

text: The Rio film unit captured aerial shots of the city including Sugarloaf Mountain, Fort Copacabana, Ipanema Beach, the Dona Marta lookout point and the Christ the Redeemer statue. Establishing shots of the heist team members were taken as each arrived in Rio. Gibson was filmed arriving in character at Galeão International Airport but, when it became publicly known that a scene was being shot at the airport, the cast and crew were mobbed. A similar situation occurred while Ludacris was shooting a scene in which his character buys a car to drive around the city. A scene where the completed heist team walk down a beach was filmed in Copacabana.


title: Fast Five

text: The rooftop chase across favelas was filmed in Puerto Rico, where the production could have more control over the area. The main and second filming units began filming in and around the capital, San Juan. The island's mixture of tropical greenery and wide streets allowed the production to re-create the densely populated favelas of Rio while completing the larger action and external scenes without incident. Production designer Peter Wenham had the task of transforming Puerto Rico and Atlanta into the previously scouted Rio locations in four weeks, as the production deemed Rio unsuitable for filming many of the larger scenes. Wenham had to reinforce buildings to support the heavy camera equipment, and to alter the colors of more than 30 buildings in the city to make them suitable for filming. His team needed to alter the buildings and strew debris to make the area look disheveled and appear as a Rio favela. Wenham remarked that, though the development was difficult, in part due to the heat, it was "a walk in the park" compared with filming in the Rio favelas themselves. Wenham aimed to maintain a monochromatic color scheme for the film, with muted blacks and grays, including his choice of colors for the cars used. He only chose to add a multitude of colors in the favela set. The Teodoro Moscosco bridge connecting San Juan to neighboring Isla Verde was used to film the final showdown between Dom and Reyes, while a U.S. Navy base pier 60 miles outside San Juan stood in for the bridge for scenes involving the vault smashing cars. Action scenes were also filmed in the Hato Rey and Río Piedras districts of San Juan.


title: Fast Five

text: A foot pursuit in which Diesel, Brewster and Walker are chased across favela rooftops by Johnson and his team was filmed over the course of a week in the small hillside town of Naranjito, Puerto Rico. The scene was considered difficult to shoot, as pathways were slippery from moist tropical heat and the scene involved actors and stunt doubles running while avoiding dogs, chickens and other stray animals loose in the area. To capture the scene, a 420-foot cable-camera rig was used to allow for a fast moving, birds-eye view of the action, and cameras on cranes were set up on rooftops and in alleyways. Walker and Brewster made multiple takes of the conclusion of the scene, requiring them to jump nearly 30 feet from a building onto a waiting safety mat. In total the production employed 236 technicians, 13,145 extras, and generated 16,824 room nights at hotels, contributing $27 million to the Puerto Rican community.


title: Fast Five

text: Filming moved to Atlanta, Georgia, for the final phase. Wenham and his team transformed a defunct train yard into an abandoned auto plant used by the protagonists as their headquarters. Redesigning the train yard took place over several months. It was required to allow enough space for stunt drivers to drive into the building, and it had to include an integrated lighting system. The design team removed walls, hauled out old railway cars, suspended rusted car parts and auto-plant car rails, and constructed smaller buildings within the main building to transform the site. With twenty-five pages of script to shoot in a limited time, cinematographer Stephen Windon and his team spent three weeks setting up a series of high-powered, motorized lights in the rafters of the building, that could be controlled remotely to allow lighting to be altered quickly while fully illuminating the set. An exterior scene involving Diesel and Walker attending a car party, involving several high-performance cars, was filmed near the Georgia Dome. The train heist scene was filmed in Rice, California over three weeks.


title: Fast Five

text: A brawl scene between Johnson's and Diesel's characters was considered difficult to choreograph. The characters were written to be equally formidable, so the fight was punctuated with moments of character development, as Moritz felt this made the fight more exciting. The scene required several weeks of rehearsal and more than a week of filming by the actors and their stunt doubles, who incurred several minor injuries.


title: Fast Five

text: The climactic vault heist required four weeks of preparation with every scene and camera angle determined in advance. The filmmakers hired stunt director Spiro Razatos and stunt coordinator Jack Gill to direct the second-unit action filming. The pair initially began research for the stunt by testing the capabilities of the prop vaults and the Dodge Chargers driven by Diesel and Walker. Filmed on the streets of Hato Rey, the chaotic scene demanded specific timing that had to be synchronized with the various character interactions also occurring during the scene. Razatos chose to use a series of camera cars including a crane-mounted camera atop a Porsche Cayenne, which allowed him to film from a variety of angles and heights while the vehicles were in motion, and a Subaru Impreza with a steel cage built around it that allowed for tracking shots. The Subaru's driver Allen Padelford would occasionally accidentally collide with the vault, creating a shower of sparks that inadvertently became useful footage. Padelford also developed a top-mount dual-drive system for the Chargers that allowed a stunt driver to control the vehicle from the roof, while the actor focused on their performance inside the car.


title: Fast Five

text: Six versions of the 8-foot high vault were built, each with specific uses. One of the vaults was a façade built onto the front of a semi-truck and was used for filming close shots of the vault destroying street cars. Another vault was a reinforced, four-wheel self-drive vehicle that was connected to cables and dragged through the streets of San Juan by the two stunt Dodge Chargers. The vault was driven by stunt driver Henry Kingi, who had to wear a temperature-controlled suit to compensate for the temperatures within that could exceed . A scene where the vault tumbled as the cars rounded a corner was a practical effect, and the result was more violent than the filmmakers had anticipated. Over 200 vehicles were destroyed by the vault during filming. Several stunts had to be cut including a final scene that would have seen the vault hanging over the edge of the Teodoro Moscoso Bridge. This stunt was abandoned when it was determined that even the powerful Chargers would not be able to support the vault's weight.


title: Fast Five

text: The train heist presented several challenges. The filmmakers were required to effectively purchase a length of working railroad for filming and the trains necessary to ride the tracks. Then trucks had to be built that could race the train and meet the needs of the heist itself. Lin also required that the cars being carried on the train be able to jump out of the train at full speed. The scene took precise execution. The filmmakers chose to use cars they could cheaply replicate for the train heist—a 1972 De Tomaso Pantera, a 2007 Chevrolet Corvette GS Roadster, and a Ford GT40—to avoid the expense of replacing a genuine $2 million Ford GT40.


title: Fast Five

text: The film soundtrack was released on iTunes on April 25, 2011, and on CD on May 3, 2011, by ABKCO Records. It features many reggaeton and rhythmic Latin tracks, including songs by Don Omar, Busta Rhymes and many others, with three pieces from Tyler's original score for the film: "Assembling the Team", "Mad Skills" and "Fast Five Suite". Music guide AllMusic awarded the album 3 stars out of 5, commenting that "The goal here is to accompany a picture that, as usual, is packed with driving sequences involving flashy cars, beautiful, scantily clad women, and muscled men. That goal is accomplished with this beat-heavy music and the gruff, aggressive Latin rapping." Ludacris collaborated with Slaughterhouse and Claret Jai for the soundtrack's lead single, "Furiously Dangerous".


title: Fast Five

text: The film score was released on May 3, 2011, by Varèse Sarabande. The release has 25 tracks and plays for 78 minutes. The score spent four weeks on the "Billboard" 200, peaking as high as number 60 and reaching number 24 on the digital albums chart and number 5 on the soundtrack-only chart.


title: Fast Five

text: The Facebook game "Car Town" by Cie Games and the theater chain Regal Entertainment Group (REG) collaborated with Universal in a cross-media marketing promotion. "Car Town" allowed players to view the trailer for the film in an , in-game drive-in theater and race around a virtual Rio de Janeiro. The game also featured missions and locations based on the plot of the film, while allowing players to race against "Fast Five" characters and take part in a bank heist. REG offered players of "Car Town" the ability to purchase tickets in-game via Fandango for films at REG theaters. By buying these tickets in-game, players were given promotional codes which in turn allowed them to unlock a virtual 1970s Dodge Charger, used by Diesel's character in the original film. REG promoted the partnership between the film and the game in their theaters across 37 states, online and through social media, while Universal promoted it via their own Facebook, Twitter and YouTube sites. In October 2011, it was claimed that over 200 million races had taken place within the virtual Rio de Janeiro environment in the six months since the campaign's April launch.


title: Fast Five

text: Automobile manufacturer Dodge collaborated with Universal in marketing the film, supplying several Dodge Chargers to use in it. The partnership with Dodge included the "Fast Five" Dodge Charger driven by Robby Gordon in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series throughout April 2011 – the opening month of "Fast Five". Dodge also sponsored the world premiere of the film in Rio de Janeiro.


title: Fast Five

text: "Fast Five" was originally planned to be released on June 10, 2011, before being pushed forward to April 29. The film held its world premiere at the Cinépolis Lagoon theater in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on April 15.


title: Fast Five

text: On August 2, 2011, USA Network purchased the rights to the United States network premiere of "Fast Five". The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray in the United Kingdom on September 5, 2011, and in the United States on October 4, 2011, in 2.35:1 aspect ratio with DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 sound. A triple pack was also released containing a Blu-ray, DVD, and digital copy of the film in either Blu-ray or DVD packaging. The Blu-ray versions contains several exclusive additional features, including behind-the-scenes footage, cast and crew interviews, a "virtual car garage" that provides further details on the vehicles used in the production, and music tracks from the film. Both the DVD and the Blu-ray contain a theatrical cut of 130 minutes and extended cut of 132 minutes of the film, director commentary, deleted scenes, a gag reel and features on the three central characters. Commenting on the extended cut, Lin said "this is the version that I prefer." During first week sales in the United States the DVD was the number 1 selling DVD, the number 1 rental DVD, and the number 2 selling Blu-ray disc behind the Blu-ray re-release of "The Lion King". 57% of the total first week disc sales of "Fast Five" were the Blu-ray disc version.


title: Fast Five

text: To promote the release of the DVD and Blu-ray, Universal Studios Home Entertainment sponsored the first race of the NASCAR "Camping World Truck Series", at the Chicagoland Speedway. The event, renamed as the ""Fast Five 225"", took place on September 16, 2011, with Gibson and Brewster as Grand Marshals; Gibson sang the American national anthem for the event and Brewster acted as honorary starter. The event served as the kickoff for the first weekend of the Chase for the Sprint Cup and was won by Austin Dillon. The deal marked the first time that a film promotion had been allowed to take over a NASCAR race as a title sponsor. Continuing the partnership with "Car Town", the game was used as the exclusive means of pre-ordering the Blu-ray/DVD combo release at Walmart, via players clicking on a Walmart-themed truck, which in turn provided the player with "Fast Five" branded in-game rewards.


title: Fast Five

text: "Fast Five" grossed $209.8 million (33.5%) in the United States and Canada and $416.3 million (66.5%) in other territories for a total of $626.1 million. Worldwide, it is the seventh highest-grossing film of 2011. It achieved a worldwide opening weekend of $109.6 million. The film reached a peak of number 55 on the list of all-time highest-grossing films worldwide in October 2011. It became the highest-grossing film in the Fast & Furious franchise in worldwide grosses (as well as separately in the US and Canada, and outside the US and Canada) but was out-grossed in all three cases by "Fast & Furious 6".


title: Fast Five

text: According to Box Office Mojo, "Fast Five" is one of the most successful sequels of 2011, when taking into account that it is one of few to have outperformed the immediately-preceding installment of its franchise in the US and Canada.


title: Fast Five

text: "Fast Five" opened in the United States on April 29, 2011, in 3,644 theaters, It took $3.8 million in midnight showings, setting new records for the "Fast & Furious" series and Universal (both records overtaken by "Fast & Furious 6"). By the end of its opening day, it had accrued a total of $34.4 million (including midnight earnings), setting an April opening-day record, replacing "Fast & Furious" ($30.5 million), and marking the third largest Friday outside of the summer and holiday period, behind "The Hunger Games" and "Alice in Wonderland". In total, "Fast Five" earned $86.2 million during its opening weekend, an average of $23,655 per theater, with IMAX showings contributing over $8 million. It thus set an opening-weekend record for the "Fast & Furious" series, for Universal (both records overtaken by "Fast & Furious 6"), and for films released in April (the record was surpassed in 2014 by ""). It also achieved the third-largest spring opening, behind "The Hunger Games" and "Alice in Wonderland". The film also set an opening-weekend record among films starring Diesel, Walker, Brewster, Johnson, Moritz and Lin, records overtaken in all cases by "Fast & Furious 6".


title: Fast Five

text: The film opened dropped 62% on its second weekend, earning $32.4 million, and ranking second behind "Thor". This result was partially attributed to the reduction in IMAX and large-format screens showing the film (reduced from 244 to 20), since IMAX contributed only $510,000 to the film's second-weekend gross. On June 4, 2011, 37 days after release in the US, the film became the first of 2011 to accrue more than $200 million. The film received a one-week re-release in IMAX theaters on September 30, 2011.


title: Fast Five

text: The film drew revenues of US$209,837,675 in the US and Canada, $416,300,000 elsewhere, for a worldwide total of $626,137,675. The box office ranking peaked at number 1 for all films of 2011 (, ranked at number 6), number 103 for all-time US films (, ranked number 197), and for all-time worldwide films number 55 (, at number 151).


title: Fast Five

text: "Fast Five" was initially released in Australia on Wednesday, April 20, 2011 – nine days before the release date in North America – followed by releases in the UK, South Korea and New Zealand. The earlier start in these countries was timed to coincide with their Easter holidays and avoided competition from forthcoming summer films, although this placed it in direct competition with "Thor" in some countries. By the end of its opening weekend, the film had accrued a total of $23.4 million from these countries. On its second weekend, "Fast Five" earned $46.3 million across 3,139 theaters in 14 countries, ranking first at the box office in each of its ten new markets. For the overall weekend, it ranked second behind "Thor". In the third weekend of release, "Fast Five" topped the box office in a further 44 countries, playing in a total of 6,979 theaters across 58 countries. It ranked first during the weekend with $85.8 million. It set an opening-weekend record in the United Arab Emirates ($1.65 million), holding this record for two weeks before being out-grossed by "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" ($2.24 million).


title: Fast Five

text: Across all markets, the film scored Universal's highest-grossing opening weekend in Russia, Spain, Turkey, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, France, India, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.


title: Fast Five

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, "Fast Five" has an approval rating of with an average rating of based on reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "Sleek, loud, and over the top, "Fast Five" proudly embraces its brainless action thrills and injects new life into the franchise." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 66 out of 100, based on reviews from 41 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Fast Five

text: Roger Ebert gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, praising it as "a skillfully assembled 130 minutes at the movies, with actors capable of doing absurd things with straight faces, and action sequences that toy idly with the laws of physics", while Richard Corliss of "Time" considered it "maybe the first great film of the post-human era". "The New York Times" said it deftly combined action and humor, stating "The only time you won't be watching the screen is when your eyes have squeezed shut because you're laughing so hard." "The Telegraph" appreciated the presence of Johnson and Diesel together, calling it a "cosmic event", and added that director Lin had revitalized the series, saying "the start and finish here, defying every imaginable law of physics, are series highs." "Empire" also heaped praise on Johnson, saying "How to re-ignite an ageing franchise? Drop [Johnson] on it. The best thing, by far, in "Fast Five" ... Dwayne Johnson hulks through the movie leaving testosterone trails in his wake." However, "Empire" took the view that the film itself was "not, by any normal criteria, a good film", arguing that it was too long, although conceding that the action scenes, in particular the final car chase, made the film "the most entertaining in the series." Anna Smith of "Time Out London" also commented that the film was too long and criticized the simplistic characters and dialog, but she called the film "slick" and stated that these criticisms could be overlooked because "it doesn't take itself too seriously." "Variety" focused on the roles of Johnson and Diesel, lamenting the current lack of 1980s-style "brawny" leading men and of the "manly men" typical of the 1950s and 1960s, and calling their pairing "a welcome injection of tough-guy vigor". "Variety" commented that, based on "Fast Five", a "sixth entry could be something worth waiting for". "The New Yorker" called the action scenes "spectacular", praising director Lin by saying his "direction and the sharp editing never confuse or lose momentum", but also found the film too long and criticized the dialog, labeling it "subpar "Ocean's Eleven"-style banter". On the characters, "The New Yorker" considered Walker and Diesel "serviceable", but singled out Johnson for praise for bringing a "hip, comic knowingness to his role ... his enjoyment is infectious and keeps the movie speeding along."


title: Fast Five

text: "Total Film" welcomed the return of Ludacris and Tyrese Gibson to "[inject] the film with much-needed laughs" and felt that Johnson fit into the established cast with ease, though it believed the film itself was "no mould-breaker." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone", who disliked the previous movies, gave the film 2.5 stars out of 4, praising the transformation of the series into a heist film ("Damn it, it works"), commenting favorably on scenes between Johnson and Diesel, and judging that ""Fast Five" will push all your action buttons, and some you haven't thought of." The "Los Angeles Times" felt that scenes shared by Diesel and Johnson were the "best moments" and appreciated the humor, but considered the pacing a "strange mix", switching between exposition, comedy scenes and then sudden action. The reviewer echoed other critics' sentiments concerning the running time of the film, but concluded that "the sheer audacity of "Fast Five" is kind of breathtaking in a metal-twisting, death-defying, mission-implausible, B-movie-on-steroids kind of way", labeling it the "best" of the series.


title: Fast Five

text: Both "Empire" and "Variety" noted that the final chase scene of "Fast Five" contained allusions to "Bad Boys II" (2003): Variety stated that the scene "seems inspired in part by a similarly spectacular scene in "Bad Boys II""; "Empire" said that it "nearly out-Bad-Boys-2s Bad Boys 2".


title: Fast Five

text: Not all reviews were positive. Film4 criticized both the film's long running time and its treatment of female characters, remarking "Some cameo strikingly in buttock form. Others actually have first names". But Film4 praised Johnson's role as DSS agent Luke Hobbs, saying he "provides a more credible anti-antagonist to our anti-heroes than the straight up villains can manage". The "Boston Herald" gave a more mixed reaction: it derided the lack of realism as removing any sense of threat to the protagonists, but conceded that "these films may be robustly anti-intellectual and deplorably commercialized, but they are the envy of the rest of the world." Despite giving the film a positive review and praising the action, "The Hollywood Reporter" was critical of its stars, saying "it's clear the budget wasn't used on acting lessons for the cast." "Time Out New York" stated that "The "Fast and the Furious" movies haven't exactly gotten better as they've gone along" but gave the director a backhanded compliment, saying "Justin Lin, taking his third turn behind the franchise's wheel, is at least a competent hack." Ebert was more complimentary, saying "Justin Lin is emerging as a first-rate director in this second-rate genre" and "Rolling Stone" managed "Justin Lin, who misdirected the last two sequels, finds his pace this time, staging dynamite action."


title: Fast Five

text: Brazilian reviewers criticized the use of Rio de Janeiro in the film, claiming it was stereotyped as "dominated by heavily armed drug traffickers, corrupt police, and sexy women". "O Globo" accused the producers of using "aerial shots and quick editing" to "deceive the viewer" into believing that the criminal acts take place in Rio. "Globo" also reacted negatively to the use of "foreigners" to represent Brazilians, "speaking Portuguese with laughable accents". "Veja" agreed with "O Globo", saying, "The city of Rio and the Rio Film Commission supported the production. But the image that will spread across the world is exactly what the city doesn't want."


title: Fast Five

text: Tyler's score for "Fast Five" earned him an award at the 2011 BMI Film Music Awards. The marketing components of "Fast Five" were nominated for three Golden Trailer Awards, winning one for Best Summer Blockbuster 2011 TV Spot. For the 2011 Teen Choice Awards, "Fast Five" received five nominations, including Choice Action Movie and Choice Action Movie Actress. Three of the five available nomination slots for Choice Action Movie Actor were taken by actors from "Fast Five": Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson and Paul Walker. The film ultimately received one Teen Choice Award, for Choice Action Movie. The film received two nominations for the 2011 People's Choice Awards for Favorite Action Movie, and Favorite Action Movie Star for Diesel. Diesel was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture. The film's sound and music editing was nominated for a Golden Reel Award for Sound Effects and Foley in a Feature Film by the Motion Picture Sound Editors society. The film also received two Saturn Award nominations from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films for Best Action/Adventure Film and Best Editing for Kelly Matsumoto, Fred Raskin, and Christian Watner.


title: Fast Five

text: In December, 2011, Richard Corliss ranked the film number 10 on his list of the Top 10 Best Movies of 2011, saying, "A carnival of roguish heroes and pretty girls, car chases and cliffhangers, "Fast Five" is as much a tribute as "The Artist" or "Hugo" to the cinema's primal thrills." "Empire" placed the film number 20 on its list of the Top 20 Films of 2011, while IGN named it the "Best Action Movie" of 2011. "Fast Five" was listed as the number 1 most illegally downloaded film of 2011 on BitTorrent with approximately 9.3 million downloads.


title: Fast Five

text: A sixth film in "The Fast and The Furious" series was planned in February 2010 as development on "Fast Five" began, and in April 2011, it was confirmed that Morgan had begun work on a script for the potential sixth film. Diesel and Moritz returned as producers for the film and Lin would return to direct. "Fast & Furious 6" was released on May 24, 2013.


title: High-speed rail

text: High-speed rail (HSR) is a type of rail system that runs significantly faster than traditional rail, using an integrated system of specialised rolling stock and dedicated tracks. While there is no single standard that applies worldwide, lines built to handle speeds above or upgraded lines in excess of are widely considered to be high-speed. The first high-speed rail system, the Tōkaidō Shinkansen, began operations in Japan in 1964 and was widely known as the bullet train.


title: High-speed rail

text: High-speed trains mostly operate on standard gauge tracks of continuously welded rail on grade-separated rights of way with large radii. However, certain regions with wider legacy railways, including Russia and Uzbekistan, have sought to develop a high speed railway network in Russian gauge. There are no narrow gauge high-speed trains; the fastest is the Cape gauge Spirit of Queensland at .


title: High-speed rail

text: Many countries have developed, or are currently building, high-speed rail infrastructure to connect major cities, including Austria, Belgium, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Morocco, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Uzbekistan. Only in continental Europe and Asia does high-speed rail cross international borders.


title: High-speed rail

text: High-speed rail is the fastest and most efficient ground-based method of commercial transportation, however due to requirements for large track curves, gentle gradients and grade separated track the construction of high-speed rail is more costly than conventional rail and therefore does not always present an economical advantage over conventional speed rail.


title: High-speed rail

text: China currently accounts for over two-thirds of the world's total high speed rail, with over of high speed rail on their networks.


title: High-speed rail

text: The European Union Directive 96/48/EC, Annex 1 (see also Trans-European high-speed rail network) defines high-speed rail in terms of:


title: High-speed rail

text: A third definition of high-speed and very high-speed rail (Demiridis & Pyrgidis 2012) requires simultaneous fulfilment of the following two conditions:


title: High-speed rail

text: The UIC prefers to use "definitions" (plural) because they consider that there is no single standard definition of high-speed rail, nor even standard usage of the terms ("high speed", or "very high speed"). They make use of the European EC Directive 96/48, stating that high speed is a combination of all the elements which constitute the system: infrastructure, rolling stock and operating conditions. The International Union of Railways states that high-speed rail is a set of unique features, not merely a train travelling above a particular speed. Many conventionally hauled trains are able to reach in commercial service but are not considered to be high-speed trains. These include the French SNCF Intercités and German DB IC.


title: High-speed rail

text: The criterion of is selected for several reasons; above this speed, the impacts of geometric defects are intensified, track adhesion is decreased, aerodynamic resistance is greatly increased, pressure fluctuations within tunnels cause passenger discomfort, and it becomes difficult for drivers to identify trackside signalling. Standard signaling equipment is often limited to speeds below , with the traditional limits of in the US, in Germany and in Britain. Above those speeds positive train control or the European Train Control System becomes necessary or legally mandatory.


title: High-speed rail

text: Railways were the first form of rapid land transportation and had an effective monopoly on long-distance passenger traffic until the development of the motor car and airliners in the early-mid 20th century. Speed had always been an important factor for railroads and they constantly tried to achieve higher speeds and decrease journey times. Rail transportation in the late 19th century was not much slower than non-high-speed trains today, and many railroads regularly operated relatively fast "express" trains which averaged speeds of around .


title: High-speed rail

text: 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: 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 Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft" (AEG), that were tested on the Marienfelde–Zossen line during 1902 and 1903 (see Experimental three-phase railcar).


title: High-speed rail

text: 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: In 1891 the engineer Károly Zipernowsky proposed a high-speed line Vienna–Budapest, bound for electric railcars at . In 1893 Dr. Wellington Adams proposed an air-line from Chicago to St. Louis of , at a speed of only .


title: High-speed rail

text: 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, however, less than of arrow-straight track was finished. A part of the line is still used as one of the last interurbans in the US.


title: High-speed rail

text: 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: Further development allowed the usage of these "Fliegenden Züge" (flying trains) on a rail network across Germany.


title: High-speed rail

text: The "Diesel-Schnelltriebwagen-Netz" (diesel high-speed-vehicle network) had been in the planning since 1934 but it never reached its envisaged size.


title: High-speed rail

text: 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: 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 .


title: High-speed rail

text: 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 .


title: High-speed rail

text: Many of these streamliners posted travel times comparable to or even better than their modern Amtrak successors, which are limited to top speed on most of the network.


title: High-speed rail

text: 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: With some 45 million people living in the densely populated Tokyo–Osaka corridor, congestion on road and rail became a serious problem after World War II, and the Japanese government began thinking seriously about a new high-speed rail service.


title: High-speed rail

text: Japan in the 1950s was a populous, resource-limited nation that for security reasons did not want to import petroleum, but needed a way to transport its millions of people in and between cities.


title: High-speed rail

text: Japanese National Railways (JNR) engineers then 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). JNR engineers returned to Japan with a number of ideas and technologies they would use on their future trains, including alternating current for rail traction, and international standard gauge.


title: High-speed rail

text: In 1957, the engineers at the private Odakyu Electric Railway in Greater Tokyo Area launched the Odakyu 3000 series SE EMU. This EMU set a world record for narrow gauge trains at , giving the Odakyu engineers confidence they could safely and reliably build even faster trains at standard gauge. The original Japanese railways generally used narrow gauge, but the increased stability offered by widening the rails to standard gauge would make very high-speed rail much simpler, and thus standard gauge was adopted for high-speed service. 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: The new service, named Shinkansen (meaning "new trunk line") would provide a new alignment, 25% wider standard gauge, continuously welded rails between Tokyo and Osaka using 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 .


title: High-speed rail

text: After initial feasibility tests, the plan was fast-tracked and construction of the first section of the line started on 20 April 1959. 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 320-mile stretch between Tokyo and Ōsaka. As a result of its speeds, the Shinkansen earned international publicity and praise, and it was dubbed the "bullet train."


title: High-speed rail

text: The first Shinkansen trains, the 0 Series Shinkansen, built by Kawasaki Heavy Industries—in 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: 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 as of March 2020, with a further of extensions currently under construction and due to open in stages between March 2023 and 2031. 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.)


title: High-speed rail

text: 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).


title: High-speed rail

text: After decades of research and successful testing on a test track, JR Central is now 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: It will link Tokyo and Osaka by 2037, with the section from Tokyo to Nagoya expected to be operational by 2027. Average speed is anticipated at . The first generation train can be ridden by tourists visiting the test track.


title: High-speed rail

text: 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: After the successful introduction of the Japanese Shinkansen in 1964, at , the German demonstrations up to in 1965, and the proof-of-concept jet-powered Aérotrain, SNCF ran its fastest trains at .


title: High-speed rail

text: In 1966, French Infrastructure Minister Edgard Pisani consulted engineers and gave the French National Railways twelve months to raise speeds to . The classic line Paris–Toulouse was chosen, and fitted, to support rather than . Some improvements were set, notably the signals system, development of on board "in-cab" signalling system, and curve revision.


title: High-speed rail

text: The next year, in May 1967, a regular service at was inaugurated by the TEE "Le Capitole" between Paris and Toulouse, with specially adapted SNCF Class BB 9200 locomotives hauling classic UIC cars, and a full red livery. It averaged over the .


title: High-speed rail

text: 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 .


title: High-speed rail

text: 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 .


title: High-speed rail

text: 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 2019 it is still the fastest diesel-powered train regular service. The train was as 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.. As of 2019 many of these trains are still in service, private operators have often preferred to rebuild the units with new engines rather than replace them.


title: High-speed rail

text: The next year, in 1977, Germany finally 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: 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). It reached in 1967, and served as a basis for the future Turbotrain and the real TGV. At the same time, the new "SNCF Research Department", created in 1966, was studying various projects, including one code-named "C03: Railways possibilities on new infrastructure (tracks)".


title: High-speed rail

text: In 1969, the "C03 project" was transferred to public administration while a contract with Alstom was signed for the construction of two gas-turbine high-speed train prototypes, named "TGV 001". The prototype consisted of a set of five carriages, plus a power car at each end, both powered by two gas-turbine engines. The sets used Jacobs bogies, which reduce drag and increase safety.


title: High-speed rail

text: In 1970, the DETMT's Turbotrain began operations on the Paris–Cherbourg line, and operated at despite being designed for usage at . It used gas-turbine powered multiple elements and was the basis for future experimentation with TGV services, including shuttle services and regular high rate schedules.


title: High-speed rail

text: In 1971, the "C03" project, now known as "TGV Sud-Est", was validated by the government, against Bertin's Aerotrain. Until this date, there was a rivalry between the French Land Settlement Commission (DATAR), supporting the Aérotrain, and the SNCF and its ministry, supporting conventional rail. The "C03 project" included a new High-Speed line between Paris and Lyon, with new multi-engined trains running at . At that time, the classic Paris-Lyon line was already congested and a new line was required; this busy corridor, neither too short (where high speeds give limited reductions in end to end times) nor too long (where planes are faster in city center to city center travel time), was the best choice for the new service.


title: High-speed rail

text: The 1973 oil crisis substantially increased oil prices. In the continuity of the De Gaulle "energy self-sufficiency" and nuclear-energy policy, a ministry decision switched the future TGV from now costly gas-turbine to full electric energy in 1974. An electric railcar named "Zébulon" was developed for testing at very high speeds, reaching a speed of . It was used to develop pantographs capable of withstanding speeds of over .


title: High-speed rail

text: After intensive tests with the gas-turbine "TGV 001" prototype, and the electric "Zébulon", in 1977, the SNCF placed an order to the group Alstom–Francorail–MTE for 87 TGV Sud-Est trainsets.


title: High-speed rail

text: They used the "TGV 001" concept, with a permanently coupled set of eight cars, sharing Jacobs bogies, and hauled by two electric-power cars, one at each end.


title: High-speed rail

text: In 1981, the first section of the new Paris–Lyon High-Speed line was inaugurated, with a top speed (then soon after). Being able to use both dedicated high-speed and conventional lines, the TGV offered the ability to join every city in the country at shorter journey times. After the introduction of the TGV on some routes, air traffic on these routes decreased and in some cases disappeared. The TGV set a publicised speed records in 1981 at , in 1990 at , and then in 2007 at , although these were test speeds, rather than operation train speeds.


title: High-speed rail

text: Following the French TGV and the ETR 450 and Direttissima in Italy, in 1991 Germany was the third country in Europe to inaugurate a high-speed rail service, with the launch of the Intercity-Express (ICE) on the new Hannover–Würzburg high-speed railway, operating at a top speed of . The German ICE train was similar to the TGV, with dedicated streamlined power cars at both ends, but a variable number of trailers between them. Unlike the TGV, the trailers had two conventional bogies per car, and could be uncoupled, allowing the train to be lengthened or shortened. This introduction was the result of ten years of study with the ICE-V prototype, originally called Intercity Experimental, which broke the world speed record in 1988, reaching .


title: High-speed rail

text: The earliest European high-speed railway to be built was the Italian Florence–Rome high-speed railway (also called "Direttissima"). The railway was built between 1978 and 1992 and was served by trains pulled by FS Class E444 3 kV DC locomotives. However, it was not until the late 1980s that a more complete high-speed rail network was planned. The initial project envisaged the development of the network on two main axes: the Turin-Trieste one and the Milan-Salerno via Rome one. Today, of this project, the sections between Turin and Brescia, between Padua and Venice and between Milan and Salerno have been built whereas the long section between Brescia and Padua is still under construction. In the meantime new sections have been planned, such as the Turin-Lyon high speed railway, which includes the construction of the international Mont d'Ambin Base tunnel, Naples-Bari, Milan-Genoa, Salerno-Reggio Calabria and Palermo-Catania-Messina (in Sicily) as the main work; these last two sections could be connected following a possible construction of the Strait of Messina Bridge.


title: High-speed rail

text: In Italy, the characteristics of high-speed lines are rather unique. In fact, the network was conceived with the aim of "high capacity" (in Italian ""alta capacità""), in addition to that of "high speed". The "high capacity" consists of a series of technical characteristics (in particular concerning the monitoring of railway traffic and the increase in the capacity of the tracks) that allow the passage of freight at high speed. This last characteristic (also present in China, but with different technologies) and the characteristics of the particularly mountainous territory of the Italian peninsula have caused a very high increase in construction costs (20/68 million € per km). Furthermore, unlike the networks of other countries, such as France, the high-speed railways have been built completely independently from the normal networks, following very straight and linear trajectories. Only in the development of more recent lines (like the Napoli-Bari or the Palermo-Catania-Messina) it was preferred to intervene on existing lines, speeding them up by increasing their performance with more linear deviations.


title: High-speed rail

text: The trains services on the high-speed lines in Italy are the Frecciarossa, the Frecciargento and the Italo (the latter of the private company Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori).


title: High-speed rail

text: In 1992, just in time for the Barcelona Olympic Games and Seville Expo '92, the Madrid–Seville high-speed rail line opened in Spain with 25 kV AC electrification, and standard gauge, differing from all other Spanish lines which used Iberian gauge. This allowed the AVE rail service to begin operations using Class 100 trainsets built by Alstom, directly derived in design from the French TGV trains. The service was very popular and development continued on high-speed rail in Spain.


title: High-speed rail

text: In 2005, the Spanish Government announced an ambitious plan, (PEIT 2005–2020) 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: In 1992, the United States Congress passed the Amtrak Authorization and Development Act that authorized 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: 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 DC. 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: The new service was named "Acela Express" and linked Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington DC. The service did not meet the 3-hour travel time objective between Boston and New York City. The time was 3 hours and 24 minutes as it partially ran on regular lines, limiting its average speed, with a maximum speed of being reached on a small section of its route through Rhode Island and Massachusetts.


title: High-speed rail

text: As of November 2021, the U.S. has one high-speed rail line under construction (California High-Speed Rail) in California, and advanced planning by a company called Texas Central Railway in Texas, higher-speed rail projects in the Pacific Northwest, Midwest and Southeast, as well as upgrades on the high-speed Northeast Corridor. The private higher speed rail venture Brightline in Florida started operations along part of its route in early 2018. Speeds are this far limited to but extensions will be built for a top speed of .


title: High-speed rail

text: For four decades from 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: The Chinese government made high-speed rail construction a cornerstone of its economic stimulus program in order to combat the effects of the 2008 global 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: Over 1,713 billion trips were made in 2017, more than half of China's total railway passenger delivery, making it the world's busiest network.


title: High-speed rail

text: 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: 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 .


title: High-speed rail

text: A collision of high-speed trains on 23 July 2011 in Zhejiang province killed 40 and injured 195, raising concerns about operational safety. A credit crunch later that year slowed the construction of new lines. In July 2011, top train speeds were lowered to . 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: 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 .


title: High-speed rail

text: In South Korea, Korea Train Express (KTX) services were launched on 1 April 2004, using French (TGV) technology, on the Seoul–Busan corridor, Korea's busiest traffic corridor, 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: Construction began on the high-speed line from Seoul to Busan in 1992 with the first commercial service launching in 2004. Top speed for trains in regular service is currently , though the infrastructure is designed for . 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. The next generation KTX train, 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 .


title: High-speed rail

text: 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 which resides over 90% of Taiwan's population; all four of larger Taiwanese metropolitans: Taipei, Taichung, Kaohsiung, Tainan, and Taiwan's technology core Hsinchu City are connected. Once THSR began operations, almost all passengers switched from airlines flying parallel routes while road traffic was also reduced.


title: High-speed rail

text: In 2009, Turkey inaugurated a high-speed service between Ankara and Eskişehir. This has been followed up by an Ankara – Konya route, and the Eskișehir line has been extended to Istanbul (Asian part).


title: High-speed rail

text: 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.


title: High-speed rail

text: Continuous welded rail is generally used to reduce track vibrations and misalignment. Almost all high-speed lines are electrically driven via overhead lines, have in-cab signalling, and use advanced switches using very low entry and frog angles.


title: High-speed rail

text: The road-rail parallel layout uses land beside highways for railway lines. Examples include Paris/Lyon and Köln–Frankfurt in which 15% and 70% of the track runs beside highways, respectively.


title: High-speed rail

text: In China, high-speed lines at speeds between may carry freight or passengers, while lines operating at speeds over are used only by passenger CRH/CR trains.


title: High-speed rail

text: In the United Kingdom, HS1 is also used by regional trains run by Southeastern at speeds of up to , and occasionally freight trains that run to central Europe.


title: High-speed rail

text: In Germany, some lines are shared with Inter-City and regional trains at day and freight trains at night.


title: High-speed rail

text: The cost per kilometre in Spain was estimated at between €9 million (Madrid-Andalucía) and €22 million (Madrid-Valladolid).


title: High-speed rail

text: In the 2010s, costs per kilometre in France ranged from €18 million (BLP Brittany) to €26 million (Sud Europe Atlantique). The World Bank estimated in 2019 that the Chinese HSR network was built at an average cost of $17–21 million per km, a third less of the cost in other countries.


title: High-speed rail

text: At £309 million per mile, the UK's High Speed 2 line—currently under construction—is the most expensive high-speed line in the world as of 2020.


title: High-speed rail

text: All high-speed trains have been designed to carry passengers only. There are very few high-speed freight services in the world; they all use trains that were originally designed to carry passengers.


title: High-speed rail

text: During the planning of the Tokaido Shinkansen, the Japanese National Railways were planning for freight services along the route. This plan was later discarded.


title: High-speed rail

text: The French TGV La Poste was for a long time the sole very high-speed train service, transporting mail in France for La Poste at a maximum top speed of 270 km/h, between 1984 and 2015. The trainsets were either specifically adapted and built, either converted, passenger TGV Sud-Est trainsets.


title: High-speed rail

text: In Italy, Mercitalia Fast is a high-speed freight service launched in October 2018 by Mercitalia. It uses converted passenger ETR 500 trainsets to carry goods at average speeds of 180 km/h, at first between Caserta and Bologna, with plans to extend the network throughout Italy.


title: High-speed rail

text: In some countries, high-speed rail is integrated with courier services to provide fast door-to-door intercity deliveries. For example, China Railways has partnered with SF Express for high-speed cargo deliveries and Deutsche Bahn offers express deliveries within Germany as well as to some major cities outside the country on the ICE network. Rather than using dedicated freight trains, these use luggage racks and other unused space in passenger trains.


title: High-speed rail

text: Key technologies include tilting trainsets, aerodynamic designs (to reduce drag, lift, and noise), air brakes, regenerative braking, engine technology and dynamic weight shifting.


title: High-speed rail

text: While commercial high-speed trains have lower maximum speeds than jet aircraft, they offer shorter total trip times than air travel for short distances. They typically connect city centre rail stations to each other, while air transport connects airports that are typically farther from city centres.


title: High-speed rail

text: High-speed rail (HSR) is best suited for journeys of 1 to 4½ hours (about ), for which the train can beat air and car trip time. For trips under about , the process of checking in and going through airport security, as well as travelling to and from the airport, makes the total air journey time equal to or slower than HSR. European authorities treat HSR as competitive with passenger air for HSR trips under 4½ hours.


title: High-speed rail

text: HSR eliminated most air transport from between Paris–Lyon, Paris–Brussels, Cologne–Frankfurt, Madrid–Barcelona, Naples–Rome–Milan, Nanjing–Wuhan, Chongqing–Chengdu, Tokyo–Nagoya, Tokyo–Sendai and Tokyo–Niigata.


title: High-speed rail

text: China Southern Airlines, China's largest airline, expects the construction of China's high-speed railway network to impact (through increased competition and falling revenues) 25% of its route network in the coming years.


title: High-speed rail

text: European data indicate that air traffic is more sensitive than road traffic (car and bus) to competition from HSR, at least on journeys of and more. TGV Sud-Est reduced the travel time Paris–Lyon from almost four to about two hours. Market share rose from 40 to 72%. Air and road market shares shrunk from 31 to 7% and from 29 to 21%, respectively. On the Madrid–Sevilla link, the AVE connection increased share from 16 to 52%; air traffic shrunk from 40 to 13%; road traffic from 44 to 36%, hence the rail market amounted to 80% of combined rail and air traffic. This figure increased to 89% in 2009, according to Spanish rail operator RENFE.


title: High-speed rail

text: According to Peter Jorritsma, the rail market share "s", as compared to planes, can be computed approximately as a function of the travelling time in minutes "t" by the logistic formula


title: High-speed rail

text: According to this formula, a journey time of three hours yields a 65% market share, not taking into account any price differential in tickets.


title: High-speed rail

text: In Japan, there is a so-called "4-hour wall" in high-speed rail's market share: If the high-speed rail journey time exceeds 4 hours, then people likely choose planes over high-speed rail. For instance, from Tokyo to Osaka, a 2h22m-journey by Shinkansen, high-speed rail has an 85% market share whereas planes have 15%. From Tokyo to Hiroshima, a 3h44m-journey by Shinkansen, high-speed rail has a 67% market share whereas planes have 33%. The situation is the reverse on the Tokyo to Fukuoka route where high-speed rail takes 4h47m and rail only has 10% market share and planes 90%.


title: High-speed rail

text: In Taiwan, China Airlines cancelled all flights to Taichung Airport within a year of Taiwan high-speed rail starting operations. Completion of the high-speed railway in 2007 led to drastically fewer flights along the island's west coast, with flights between Taipei and Kaohsiung ceasing altogether in 2012.


title: High-speed rail

text: Travel by rail is more competitive in areas of higher population density or where gasoline is expensive because conventional trains are more fuel-efficient than cars when ridership is high, similar to other forms of mass transit. Very few high-speed trains consume diesel or other fossil fuels but the power stations that provide electric trains with electricity can consume fossil fuels. In Japan (prior to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster) and France, with very extensive high-speed rail networks, a large proportion of electricity comes from nuclear power. On the Eurostar, which primarily runs off the French grid, emissions from traveling by train from London to Paris are 90% lower than by flying. In Germany 38.5% of all electricity was produced from renewable sources in 2017, however railways run on their own grid partially independent from the general grid and relying in part on dedicated power plants. Even using electricity generated from coal or oil, high-speed trains are significantly more fuel-efficient per passenger per kilometer traveled than the typical automobile because of economies of scale in generator technology and trains themselves, as well as lower air friction and rolling resistance at the same speed.


title: High-speed rail

text: High-speed rail can accommodate more passengers at far higher speeds than automobiles. Generally, the longer the journey, the better the time advantage of rail over the road if going to the same destination. However, high-speed rail can be competitive with cars on shorter distances, , for example for commuting, especially if the car users do experience road congestion or expensive parking fees. In Norway, the Gardermoen Line has made the rail market share for passengers from Oslo to the airport (42 km) rise to 51% in 2014, compared to 17% for buses and 28% for private cars and taxis. On such short lines−particularly services which call at stations close to one another−the acceleration capabilities of the trains may be more important than their maximum speed.


title: High-speed rail

text: Moreover, a typical passenger rail carries 2.83 times as many passengers per hour per meter width as a road. A typical capacity is the Eurostar, which provides capacity for 12 trains per hour and 800 passengers per train, totaling 9,600 passengers per hour in each direction. By contrast, the Highway Capacity Manual gives a maximum capacity of 2,250 passenger cars per hour per lane, excluding other vehicles, assuming an average vehicle occupancy of 1.57 people. A standard twin track railway has a typical capacity 13% greater than a 6-lane highway (3 lanes each way), while requiring only 40% of the land (1.0/3.0 versus 2.5/7.5 hectares per kilometre of direct/indirect land consumption). The Tokaido Shinkansen line in Japan, has a much higher ratio (with as many as 20,000 passengers per hour per direction). Similarly, commuter roads tend to carry fewer than 1.57 persons per vehicle (Washington State Department of Transportation, for instance, uses 1.2 persons per vehicle) during commute times.


title: High-speed rail

text: High-speed rail usually implements electric power and therefore its energy sources can be distant or renewable. This is an advantage over air travel, which currently uses fossil fuels and is a major source of pollution. Studies regarding busy airports such as LAX, have shown that over an area of about downwind of the airport, where hundreds of thousands of people live or work, the particle number concentration was at least twice that of nearby urban areas, showing that airplane pollution far exceeded road pollution, even from heavy freeway traffic.


title: High-speed rail

text: Airplanes and airstrips require trees to be cut down, as they are a nuisance to pilots. Some 3,000 trees will be chopped due to obstruction issues at Seattle–Tacoma International Airport. On the other hand, trees next to rail lines can often become a hazard during winter storms, with several German media calling for trees to be cut down following autumn storms in 2017.


title: High-speed rail

text: HSR is much simpler to control due to its predictable course. High-speed rail systems reduce (but do not eliminate) collisions with automobiles or people, by using non-grade level track and eliminating grade-level crossings. To date, the only two deadly accidents involving a high-speed train on high-speed tracks in revenue service were the 1998 Eschede train disaster and the 2011 Wenzhou train collision (in which speed was not a factor).


title: High-speed rail

text: In general, travel by high-speed rail has been demonstrated to be remarkably safe. The first high-speed rail network, the Japanese Shinkansen has not had any fatal accidents involving passengers since it began operating in 1964.


title: High-speed rail

text: In 1998, after over thirty years of high-speed rail operations worldwide without fatal accidents, the Eschede accident occurred in Germany: a poorly designed ICE 1 wheel fractured at a speed of near Eschede, resulting in the derailment and destruction of almost the entire set of 16 cars, and the deaths of 101 people. The derailment began at a switch; the accident was made worse when the derailed cars travelling at high speed struck and collapsed a road bridge located just past the switch.


title: High-speed rail

text: On 23 July 2011, 13 years after the Eschede train accident, a Chinese CRH2 travelling at collided with a CRH1 which was stopped on a viaduct in the suburbs of Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, China. The two trains derailed, and four cars fell off the viaduct. Forty people were killed and at least 192 were injured, 12 of them severely.


title: High-speed rail

text: The disaster led to a number of changes in management and exploitation of high-speed rail in China. Despite the fact that speed itself was not a factor in the cause of the accident, one of the major changes was to further lower the maximum speeds in high-speed and higher-speed railways in China, the remaining becoming 300, becoming 200, and becoming 160. Six years later they started to be restored to their original high speeds.


title: High-speed rail

text: In July 2013, a high-speed train in Spain travelling at attempted to negotiate a curve whose speed limit is . The train derailed and overturned, resulting in 78 fatalities. Normally high-speed rail has automatic speed limiting restrictions, but this track section is a conventional section and in this case the automatic speed limit was said to be disabled by the driver several kilometers before the station. A few days later, the train worker's union claimed that the speed limiter didn't work properly because of lack of proper funding, acknowledging the budget cuts made by the current government. Two days after the accident, the driver was provisionally charged with homicide by negligence. This is the first accident that occurred with a Spanish high-speed train, but it occurred in a section that was not high speed and as mentioned safety equipment mandatory on high-speed track would have prevented the accident.


title: High-speed rail

text: On 14 November 2015, a specialised TGV EuroDuplex was performing commissioning tests on the unopened second phase of the LGV Est high-speed line in France, when it entered a curve, overturned, and struck the parapet of a bridge over the Marne–Rhine Canal. The rear power car came to a rest in the canal, while the remainder of the train came to a rest in the grassy median between the northern and southern tracks. Approximately 50 people were on board, consisting of SNCF technicians and, reportedly, some unauthorised guests. Eleven were killed and 37 were injured. The train was performing tests at 10 percent above the planned speed limit for the line and should have slowed from to before entering the curve. Officials have indicated that excessive speed may have caused the accident. During testing, some safety features that usually prevent accidents like this one are switched off.


title: High-speed rail

text: On 13 December 2018, a high-speed passenger train and a locomotive collided near Yenimahalle in Ankara Province, Turkey. Three cars (carriages/coaches) of the passenger train derailed in the collision. Three railroad engineers and five passengers were killed at the scene, and 84 people were injured. Another injured passenger later died, and 34 passengers, including two in critical condition, were treated in several hospitals.


title: High-speed rail

text: On 6 February 2020, a high-speed train travelling at derailed at Livraga, Lombardy, Italy. The two drivers were killed and 31 were injured. The cause as reported by investigators was that a faulty set of junction points was in the reverse position, but was reported by the signaling system as being in the normal - i.e. straight - position.


title: High-speed rail

text: High-speed rail ridership has been increasing rapidly since 2000. At the beginning of the century, the largest share of ridership was on the Japanese Shinkansen network.


title: High-speed rail

text: In 2000, the Shinkansen was responsible for about 85% of the cumulative world ridership up to that point.


title: High-speed rail

text: This has been progressively surpassed by the Chinese high-speed rail network, which has been the largest contributor of global ridership growth since its inception.


title: High-speed rail

text: As of 2018, annual ridership of the Chinese high-speed rail network is over five times larger than that of the Shinkansen.


title: High-speed rail

text: The speed record for a pre-production unconventional passenger train was set by a seven-car L0 series manned maglev train at on 21 April 2015 in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan.


title: High-speed rail

text: Since the 1955 record, where France recorded a world record of speed of 331 km/h, France has nearly continuously held the absolute world speed record. The latest record is held by a TGV POS trainset, which reached in 2007, on the newly constructed LGV Est high-speed line. This run was for proof of concept and engineering, not to test normal passenger service.


title: High-speed rail

text: Many of these trains and their networks are technically capable of higher speeds but they are capped out of economic and commercial considerations (cost of electricity, increased maintenance, resulting ticket price, etc.)


title: High-speed rail

text: The Shanghai Maglev Train reaches during its daily service on its dedicated line, holding the speed record for commercial train service.


title: High-speed rail

text: The fastest operating conventional trains are the AGV 575 and the Frecciarossa 1000 with maximum commercial speed of . As these trainsets are both running on the Italian high speed network they are limited to the national track speed of for commercial use.


title: High-speed rail

text: The second fastest operating conventional trains are the Chinese CR400A and CR400B running on Beijing–Shanghai HSR, after China relaunched its 350 km/h class service on select services effective 21 September 2017. In China, from July 2011 until September 2017, the maximum speed was officially , but a tolerance was acceptable, and trains often reached . Before that, from August 2008 to July 2011, China Railway High-speed trains held the highest commercial operating speed record with on some lines such as the Wuhan–Guangzhou high-speed railway.


title: High-speed rail

text: The speed of the service was reduced in 2011 due to high costs and safety concerns the top speeds in China were reduced to on 1 July 2011. Six years later they started to be restored to their original high speeds.


title: High-speed rail

text: Other fast conventional trains are the French TGV POS, German ICE 3, and Japanese E5 and E6 Series Shinkansen with a maximum commercial speed of , the former two on some French high-speed lines, and the latter on a part of Tohoku Shinkansen line.


title: High-speed rail

text: The China Railway G403/4, G405/6 and D939/40 Beijing–Kunming train (, 10 hours 43 minutes to 14 hours 54 minutes), which began service on 28 December 2016, are the longest high-speed rail services in the world.


title: High-speed rail

text: The early high-speed lines, built in France, Japan, Italy and Spain, were between pairs of large cities. In France, this was Paris–Lyon, in Japan, Tokyo–Osaka, in Italy, Rome-Florence, in Spain, Madrid–Seville (then Barcelona). In European and East Asian countries, dense networks of urban subways and railways provide connections with high-speed rail lines.