Five years later, a line opened between Liverpool and Manchester and launched a spectacular boom in railway building that by 1855 had created vast rail networks all over Europe and North America. High speed trains The future of railways has been transformed by the introduction of high-speed electric trains. The first high-speed train was the Japanese Bullet Train or Shinkansen, built in 1964, which hurtles the 1176km from Tokyo to Fukuoka in under 6 hours. It is planned to build huge networks of these trains all over Europe to carry people from city to city at speeds which rival aeroplanes. Further in the future, trains may not run on wheels at all but glide smoothly at incredible speeds just above a special track, held there by the force of magnetic repulsion.
Experimental maglevs are already in operation.
Some maglevs may be propelled by jet engines like those of aeroplanes.