The Top 10 High Speed Rail Systems in the World!
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- Опубліковано 15 тра 2024
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Every few years, another high speed rail system opens, whisking passengers across vast expanses at hundreds of kilometres per hour. But what are the world's ten greatest high speed networks? Watch today's video to find out!
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Ever wondered why your city's transit just doesn't seem quite up to snuff? RMTransit is here to answer that, and help you open your eyes to all of the different public transportation systems around the world!
Reece (the RM in RMTransit) is an urbanist and public transport critic residing in Toronto, Canada, with the goal of helping the world become more connected through metros, trams, buses, high-speed trains, and all other transport modes.
Thanks for making this understandable for me. If it's not a top ten list, I just can't make sense of it at all
The race is now on to see who makes the inevitable “Top 10 Transit Expert-made Top 10 Lists” video first
Pin/heart please
I knew this was the gateway drug to RMTransit for you in the first place
@@Urbanhandyman That would actually be an interesting one, I wonder how many you could even find in the world :)
When are we going to see your top 10 urbanist railway stations video?
As someone who has actually visited Inner Mongolia a few times, I would argue that a line between Beijing and Hohhot (the capital of Inner Mongolia) isn't really that much of a stretch given that it's not a super long distance and Hohhot is actually a reasonably large city. It's the line to Urumqi that has a questionable business case IMO due to the huge distance and limited intermediate stops, but then again that line was never built for economic reasons but as an exercise in nation building (just as the new semi-high speed (160km/h) line from Chengdu to Lhasa will be when it is completed in a few years - that line is so incredibly challenging to build and so expensive that it'd never be built if it was just about economics).
Some HSR lines in China are built for national security as they can deploy thousands of soldiers and tonnes of military supplies fast when needed, so not making money is fine.
@@vincentng2392 pollution also gets bad that far north due to colder climates, so an hsr line does well to somewhat mitigate smog.
The city proper of Hohhot is 2.5 million, the metro population is 3 million, so that’s a fairly large city by American standards.
I think the vast majority of Highspeed lines are causing massive economic burdens on local governments in China. Perhaps financing for these lines should've been handled different but that fact alone makes me doubt the sustainability of China's network. Also in order to invest so much into the highspeed network china kinda ignored conventional rail which is a detriment to their freight rail and causes unnecessary amount of cargo to travel by truck.
@@vincentng2392 USA talk about national security but not built hsr to move troops from 1 side to other side of usA
Start of the video: It's not necessarily China
End of the video: But it is China 😅
😂 right
The point was regarding not assuming that China is fist because it has the most kilometers of HSR. He was emphasizing quality over quantity. Apparently, in his educated opinion, China has BOTH!
@@barryrobbins7694 China’s HSR is actually one of the best in terms of quality, it is clean, secure, has zero accidents, it always leaves on time to the seconds…if you erect a coin near the window, it won’t fall down but it failed the test with Japanese HSR. And lastly it is affordable, for example, the distance from Beijing to Shanghai of 1318 km only costs 69 Euro and travel time is 4.5 hours. The HSR train station in China is huge and has up to 40 platforms, bigger than the airports in many countries.
Hi I’m a Chinese citizen who has lived in Shanghai for about ten years. And my hometown, haha, is the place where you said existing overbuild phenomenon of high speed railway network, Hohhot, the capital city of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
The truth I saw and came through by myself is, since the high speed railway has reached my hometown city from Dec.,2019, the Beijing-Hohhot high speed railway line replaced the airline between the two cities above very soon.
Additionally, if I want to go home from Beijing by the high speed trains, I always need to buy tickets ahead for at least 3 days, or I can’t have a seat backing Hohhot😂
Although the passenger flow is lower than those in east of China, like Beijing - Shanghai high speed railway, it is still the first choice of people from Inner Mongolia, especially mid-west area, to go to Beijing and other places of China😅
10th Morocco 1:17
9th UK 2:17
8th Taiwan 3:14
7th Germany 4:25
6th Korea 6:00
5th France 7:59
4th Italy 9:22
3rd Japan & Spain 10:23
1st China 12:24
Very unsurprised but still disappointed there arent any north american trains. Even the best ones like MTL can't compete
Thanks god he mentioned China and those who downloaded his videos to their “UA-cam” Bilibili will be greatly disappointed
@@yemmohater2796 To be fair, the only line which is HSR on the Americas is the NEC and even that is only made out of upgraded tracks (lower requirements for HSR by UIC standards) and on top has a major bottleneck at Connecticut.
@@yemmohater2796 It's high speed rail not metro
@@yemmohater2796hardly surprising given the dysfunctional gov for the past years .. and also lack of priority for important civilian infrastructure, especially for rail
I would consider HS1 in England to be the northern end of the LGV Nord line in France. It is built to French rather than British specifications though they are quite similar, and its main purpose is to allow Eurostar trains to reach London, and Eurostar is basically the international division of SNCF. South Eastern Railways high speed services from London to Kent only exist because the line was built anyway from the Eurostar budget, it has spare capacity, and they may as well use it for something; otherwise it wouldn't have been the top priority for investing in high speed rail services.
Some French specs in terms of sections of signalling and catenary etc. yes, but would have been insane not to build it to those specs considering it was funded by the British government to connect to Paris first and foremost, though a 300 km/h line to Kent would definitely not have been on the list of successive Tory governments otherwise ha (sold their share of Eurostar for spare money lol) -
the Eurostar monopoly needs to die asap with more competition - way underused and overpriced
Having the UK on this list is absurd to me. Sure, travelling on HS1 is great, but it's hardly relevant to 99% of people in the country. While I appreciate the measure is quality rather than quantity, it strikes me that location is part of that equation. As for the 200 km/h lines their quality is pretty poor with a number of operators running some of the most unreliable services in the country, while the fares are at or above those for true high speed on the continent.
I guess getting a whole top ten is difficult though.
@@jockcox When the union disputes are finally settled, maybe we will see a return to reliable train travel. But also the ranking may be based on future developments, in which case HS2 will definitely put the UK in atleast 9th place.
You say that but there is quite a lot more British specifications than French specifications. The was not built with the Eurostar budget, since Eurostar service could happily run on the third rail network into Waterloo. Also HS1 was built for freight traffic which is something which French high speed lines are not built for and also all equipment is to British standards, for example the Interlocking on HS1 is completely different to LGV Nord and the Channel Tunnel. Even the OLE is built to British versions of the French OLE to make sure it would work in britain. Also there was always plans for higher speed Kent services. The colour light signalling is to British Standards on HS1 and not French standards.
As someone who has extensively traveled Japan (just returned from my 17th trip last week....) I might be biased, but I still think they're on a different level from all of the others. Mostly because of the frequency, punctuality and ease of use. Even when not all shinkansen stations are right in the city center (like Shin-Osaka), this is rarely an issue because of the normal rail network. And what good is a high speed rail train if you have to wait an hour before it departs, or have to be early because of additional security checks? Getting from central Tokyo to central Kyoto can be quicker than getting to some of the outskirts of Tokyo....
That said, the network China built is truly impressive, and despite having a few issues Japan doesn't, it still often preferable over air traffic. Most of all, it shows what high speed rail in Europe could have been, if all countries and companies involved would have been on the same page instead of all trying to invent the wheel.
as someone who lived in Japan for 20 years, I agree. It's very easy to forget there's a domestic air network, but the only time I've ever used the plane was to get to places outside the 4 hour rail comfort level-- Tokyo - Fukuoka for example. And the stations that aren't in the traditional city centers like Shin-Osaka and Shin-Yokohama are the defacto second city centers with multiple rail links to their counterpart main stations that come with the journey-- the ticket pops back out of the faregate and you just transfer to the zairaisen like any other train journey.
...Which is the best thing about the Shinkansen-- It's treated as just a faster version of an already established local line-- let's say you have a JR commuter pass between Nagoya and Gamagori on JR Central's Tokaido Line, you could use your pass and pay the high speed express fee to board the shinkansen, then pay a seat reservation fee if you can't find space in the unreserved car (but there's plenty of space for the 20 minutes you'll be on the train usually.) Basically by treating high speed rail as the top level tier in the same network, the frequencies and conveniences are very good.
Japans system is really good, but it still has a lot of the common HSR problems!
Having lived in both Japan and China, I agree that Japan has the better rail network in terms of user experience. However, despite Shinkansen being world famous, I think the true power of Japan's railway system lies in the rest of it. It is the super efficient and unbelievably extensive regular railways that made Japan's system the best in the world, not the HSR part. Also, I say Japan is the best purely based on user experience. In an overall comparison, there are a lot more to it. I also don't think JR can do as good if you through the vast land of China to them. So I agree the ranking in the video.
idk if you've ever used the HSR but the security check doesn't take an hour. I can imagine it taking an hour only on a extreme busy day like Chinese new year maybe, but most days it takes 10 minutes at most. As to whether it is better to locate the train station in the suburbs or the city center, there are benefits to both. The trains are loud especially at high speeds, so one benefit of it not being in the center of cities is it is better for city residents. Besides, most cities have a metro line connecting to the HSR station so you can easily get there on public transportation even if you live downtown
@@RMTransit what common HSR problems do you mean?
Seems generous to put the U.K. in the top ten.
If you count 125mph as HSR, which a lot of people do, then the UK has a big HSR network.
I imagine poland, turkey and morroco will overtake the uk, as hs2 has taken so long to get started and built.
@@kwlkid85 It also is HSR by the UIC standards as upgraded tracks (which most of them are) have a lower requirement to be considered high-speed instead of new tracks (same reason why the US has HSR despite no track surpassing the speed limit of 250+ km/h).
Ey, it has lots of pretty fast trains
Not that many countries have high speed rail
As an Italian, it's not important to be first, it's important to be above France
As a Spaniard, I sympathise 😂😂
@@Albert24346 OH...GROS MECHANTS!,..
In Spain we have security to boarding high-speed trains due to the terrorist atacks of 2004, the fear of having an explosion at 290 Km/h was very significant and they decided to have security, however, is much faster that airports, no more than 2 minutes.
This is partly why it was also introduced extensively in China (2014 Kunming Station Terrorist Attack, among others). Entering the railway system in China was a lot easier prior to that attack
@@SeranPC I'd complain as well ... and being German I definetly see HSR quite often (and used to ride it on a daily basis) ...
That sorta fear is just pointless. It's an inconvenience for everybody and won't stop anybody determined since it's far too casual to actually be secure. It's the sorta "we must show we're doing something!" policy. Doesn't make sense. Do it anyway.
@@_SpamMe I don't think that's true. there's a clear barrier of difficulty caused for someone trying to bring a backpack filled with 12 kg of nitroglycol. backpacks have to be put through the scanner, without them nobody would detect those bombs. it's not just fear-mongering, it's an actual effort to stop future catastrophic events.
@@danny8371 So instead put them on train tracks. Or right outside the security barriers at busy times. Or use non-detectable or harder to detect methods (that youtube probably won't appreciate talking about), or just plain force.
And most obviously just don't do it on a highspeed train; do it elsewhere then. How about a school? Maybe a bus? A busy market?
It's nonsense. This achieves nothing; there's no point in special protection for this one specific case of terrorist attack that hasn't even happened yet (was local trains after all) and that has no specific reason to occur over any alternative ...
The most frustrating thing about HS2 is that the people most vociferously opposed to it were the ones directly responsible for driving up the costs so much, which they then use as evidence why it should be scrapped. Environmentalists and NIMBYs formed an unholy alliance to challenge it at every turn, massively increasing the legal and land acquisition costs of the project, and forcing more of it to be laid in expensive tunnels as a response to their (mostly) bogus concerns.
Still others whine "the money could be spent on improving local and regional services", completely failing to understand that HS2 is designed to relieve congestion on the West Coast Main Line, allowing more capacity for local services.
Damn nimbys, I hate them so much.
Absolutely, the West Coast Mainline is full and no amount of "digital railways" will fix it. The other thing they also miss out is removing the "fast trains" from the West Coast will vastly increase the number of local and intermediate journey trains the line can carry. The biggest miss here is not taking HS2 under Manchester Piccadilly allowing east-west travel to other destinations and NPR. There's only one west/north facing terminating platform in Manchester city centre (which can only take a 4 carriage train). Meaning almost all journeys to the north or west need to be through trains adding to the unreliability of services.
What’s a nimby
@@user-op8fg3ny3j Not In My Back Yard
@@user-op8fg3ny3j Not In My Back Yard
@@user-op8fg3ny3j "Not in my backyard"
As a Spanish I can say that airport security is not really "airport security". In just 5 minutes you've gone past it, is like the security at the entrance of official government places, just a bag scanner and a police officer there watching.
The reason Spanish stations have airport-style security is because of the Madrid terrorist bombings of commuter trains back in 2004. Japanese stations don't do this because they obviously don't have this problem. That aside, we are proud of the high-speed system of our southern Korean brothers. We hope that when we reunify, the system will be able to expand to the rest of the peninsula. And a huge kudos to China's HSR network. Being able to expand so fast, on top of accounting for two-thirds of ALL of the world's HSR, is an incredible feat. They've shown that being a big country with different environments doesn't matter and built a huge network anyway. They believed and never gave up. This should be a wakeup call for the US to follow.
Also, you missed the Seoul to Gangneung portion of the KTX map at 6:11 that was opened for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang! That helped so many people get to the Games!
I remember identifying three kinds of HSR-system shapes. Leaving aside the smaller systems,
1. Linear: Japan, Italy
2. Hub-and-spoke: France, Spain, S Korea
3. Network: China, Germany
This is in order of least to most construction needed for good coverage. One can easily see why Germany has such an inadequate HSR system, and what was necessary for China’s HSR success.
非常非常有见地
As a Brit currently in China, I've been so impressed by the trains here.
What's just as impressive is the supporting infrastructure they've built to make the network so well connected. They've built endless bridges and tunnels in the most difficult places.
Yes, there is a security check, but it's pretty quick. Just like in Spain.
wait. How did you get access to youtube in china. Isnt it banned
@@uzin0s256 vpn
Indeed, currently working in China and just got back from a 21 days business trip 3 days ago, the distance between stations to the city centre is quite different, it all depends on the planning of the local government and the economy of the local area. For bigger cities, the stations are located closer to the city centre and for smaller cities the stations are much farther away. The stations located in Beijing, Shanghai, Jinhua, etc are situated in the city centre or are very close to it. Major cities would also have multiple stations, with various distances from the city centre. Most noticeably when I first went to Jinan, I bought a ticket to the Jinan East Station, It was a two-hour drive to the city centre, and the second time I went there I bought the ticket to the Jinan Station, I walked to my hotel (took me 10 min).
@@uzin0s256 It's never banned, you just can't access it without VPN because Google doesn't want to keep Chinese user data on Chinese soil and Chinese government also has a strict policy over nude/violent content which Google doesn't want to comply.
@@uzin0s256 I am Chinese and I am in mainland of china,youtube is illegal here,so i use some technological tools
As a Spaniard I must say our airport style security check at stations isn't that much of a problem, it usually takes less than 15 minutes in the worst of cases which is a bit disturbing but won't make much of a difference
And with your history of terrorist attacks I get why you want some extra security on trains
Well, high speed trains in Spain have never suffered terrorist attacks, the only succesful attacks that we know happened on commuter trains.
@@chukty That's exactly the reason why Spanish commuter networks suck and HSR works so well
similar case in China, at least for now security checks for trains is alot quicker than that of planes. there are annoying exceptions though, but most of the times arriving 30min before departure is enough.
@@myles_c5062 Also location wise, Chinese hsr stations are still located far closer to city center than Chinese airports
The thing about Germany is that citys are many but not that big. I believe that it makes it difficult to build high speed rail lines, since there are so many places to either through or around
A lot has to do with line congestion and nowhere to put new right of way, Germany has probably the most extensive conventional rail network in the world so most of their HSR buildout is doing incremental improvements to LZB corridors to allow increased speeds usually of 250km/h.
While visiting relatives in 2018, we took the high-speed rail from Beijing to Shanghai. The experience was incredible. The distance was the same from Detroit to Jacksonville, Florida, and it took four hours! My wife left a cup of water on the windowsill, and there was not even a ripple from any sort of train shaking. To me, it is the standard for high-speed rail!
You erected a coin there near the window, it won’t fall down.😅
for italy, the new messina straight bridge is being built as of right now and it will also have high speed lines that will connect palermo (the capital of sicily) to the rest of the network and the rest of europe, also, the new naples-bari line is almost done and about to open
It is a bit upsetting to constantly hear you have to go through "airport style security" to ride a high-speed Spanish train. It is basically a scanner for your baggage, you have to get rid of your coat, period. You do not have to go yourself through a scanner, get rid of your belt, or any of that. It takes 2 minutes, as anyone who has tried it can attest. Hardly the inconvenience people seem to think it is.
And some recognition of the 2004 Madrid train station bombings that killed 193 and injured 2,000 people would have been good
China is basically the same. It's nowhere near the same as airport security.
I see airport style as anything which requires me or my stuff to go through a machine. It's just not part of riding trains in a large part of the world and I think it's fair to bring it up! Lots of airport security is effectively just a baggage scan too.
I have *definitely* been held up by it for more than 2 minutes as well, and I think it's fair for me to voice that as an inconvenience.
Nobody is censoring that you mention it as an inconvenience if you feel it like that. It does exist, so it is fair to bring it up, you have all the right to do so, hey, it is your channel. But an accurate depiction of what is like should be given. Airport security is most definitely NOT just a baggage scan, it implies more than that, you are personally searched and all your belongings need to go through the scanner. Plus you need to arrive way before boarding. This is not what you have to do before boarding these trains, that is my point.
I think mostly peoples only regular experience needing to go through an organized security process is at an airport, thus why I bring it up. I think the main difference is between being able to walk right in and to your trains and having to go through any kind of screening process.
Bit of a controversial opinion perhaps, but I'm a big fan of prioritizing fast conventional rail over true high speed rail. Conventional rail does a great job of serving much larger numbers of people, making trains much more accessible for large parts of the country. In fact, I'd argue that conventional rail is an absolute prerequisite for good high speed rail service, since it makes it easier to access those high speed trains all the while serving huge numbers of different trips. HSR also has a very dangerous "flashiness factor" that makes it a very appealing prestige project for politicians. Not a single politician is gonna put "several incremental improvements that ensure better and more consistent train service to a larger number of people" on their resume, which is kinda the point. HSR has the risk of draining the rest of the train network of resources.
I'd use Acela if our *regional* rail were better at getting me there.
You can do both (if you can afford it naturally). In italy for example we also have intercity services serving the same routes as high speed trains but running on conventional tracks at speed up to 200 kph, and stopping at medium/big cities not served by high speed
That is exactly the problem systems like the one in spain and france have. They have a great high speed system but the rest of the public transportation outside the big cities is really lacking and constantly underfunded. Thats great for tourists and business travelers but wont help a single bit towards getting more people to switch their primary mode of travel away from the car
@@antoniovitellaro China also has a large conventional rail system with some trains running up to 160km/h, as well as D trains that run up to 250km/h that can run on a mix of dedicated high speed lines and conventional lines.
@@Urbanhandyman I did that on purpose, since speed really isn't the only factor in what makes trains fast. A frequent train that serves a lot of stops can be a fast way of travelling, even if it doesn't reach crazy speeds. Here in the Netherlands, most trains don't exceed 140 ish km/h, but we have a good backbone intercity network, and local trains that make every stop, meaning it's often comparable to cars, or fast enough.
A HSR line without a good supporting network is basically handicapped from the start. It's s car- and plane-brained transit solution.
A comment on HSRs in Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang here. HSRs to those provinces serves as a diversion of passenger services off major freight corridors. Inner Mongolia is a major producer of coal, so the regular railway lines are saturated with trains moving coal out from that province. The trunk railway line in Xinjiang is part of the BRI Sino-European freight route, which is saturated with container traffic. This diversion means both the passengers and the goods get better and more frequent services.
It’s amazing that there can even be a top 10 HSR video. 20 years ago it would have been a much different discussion. Were there even 10 HSR countries back then? I wonder what the world will look like 20 years from now.
There are curently in preparation HSR projects in Poland and Czech Republic. And Rail Baltica is curently under construction.
Rest assured, it will still be China in 20 years, China will build high-speed rail to 70,000 km by 2035, now it is 4.5w km. By 2025, China will run 450-600 km/h high-speed rail, and China's high-speed rail ticket price is the cheapest and most stable in the world.
As a Spaniard, I take 2nd-3rd with pride, and I think our network is gonna get a lot better in the next few years with the mediterranean corridor and some other projects. Funny that it started as something very criticized, as something that we don't need and was too expensive, a waste of money. But as soon as the line Madrid-Sevilla was finished, everybody wanted it for their region, and like that, it's has grown slowly but steadely and today quite a lot of capitals are connected. Now nobody complains about how expensive it is, now people complain because it's not big enough, the mediterranean corridor has not finished yet, it's still too madrid-centric and there are still some zones that are not connected.
Love your videos and how generous yet factual you are in your analysis.
I live in bcn and I can't wait for the line to Valencia to open🥰
also, the reason we have similar albeit not as harsh, airport like security for our trains is that sadly we suffered a really vicious, massive terrorist attack in 2004 that put that security risk chip on our shoulder
It is funny, but something similar happened in Japan. The first shinkansen lime went something like 4x overbudget (similar proportion as the pajares variant here in Spain) and people were very upset and not at all hopeful. Then the like finished, and suddenly nobody cared if it was 4x or 10x overbudget.
As a French, I definitely think Spain deserves more recognition when it comes to HSR, public transit or urban design
Similar story in italy, aldough there still are vocal opponents of some projects (Torino-Lyon and Napoli-Reggio Calabria)
Native Korean here. Some pointers to the rail network of this country, perhaps incorrect in this vid:
1. The KTX to Gangneung, which passes through Pyeongchang and opened just in time before the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, is missing in the map. There are one or two minor lines also missing here and there, but let’s let that pass.
2. South Korea did start its high-speed tech from the French TGV, yes, and it was also quite late to EMUs. What should be corrected though, is that it’s already developed its own EMU - the KTX-EUM, aka the EMU-260. As implied in its name, it has a maximum operating speed of 260 km/h and commenced services in 2021.
3. The KTX line to ICN was ceased because it didn’t exactly offer that much of a speed advantage - yes, it was convenient for foreigners visiting directly to places with KTX connections other than Seoul, but for everyone else, it wasn’t that much an advantage. It used existing conventional rail lines to make the trip between ICN and Seoul, sharing part of its tracks with the Airport Express (AREX) which already links Seoul Station to ICN - so the speed isn’t that faster if you’re on a KTX. Not to mention the already-existing AREX that already makes the trip in a similar amount of time, yeah… it’s not so much an advantage.
Regardless, though, it is pleasant to see South Korea’s high speed network receiving such coverage outside the country - after all, it is quite an underappreciated network, and - this comes from the guy who took the Acela from DC to Boston - it’s a billion times better than anything the Acela is going to offer anytime soon.
living in Tainan, one of the city in Taiwan that has the HSR service. like you mention, most of the station here are quite far from the downtown area. One of my friend who live in Kaohsiung(the city below tainan) always says to me that we should name the station to '' north kaohsiung '' instead of '' tainan '' , cause he can get to the station faster than us.
OMG, the first time I went to Tainan on the HSR and was like "where am I? Where's the city? Why is it so dark?!" Then had to ride the TRA train into Tainan proper. I was pretty surprised how far away it was!
Yeah the station locations ought to be improved in the future!
I visited Tainan last month, and I had to run to catch Fuxing shuttle to go to Tainan proper, which is like every 20 minutes.
However, just like mainland China, Guiren district is developing fast. I see a mall and housing projects are under construction surrounding the Tainan HSR / Shalun.
However, I think this is the only weirdly placed HSR station, the rest like Kaohsiung (Xin Zuoying) and Taichung are pretty close to downtown.
@@RMTransit the two biggest misses, for me, are Taoyuan International Airport (the main international airport serving Taipei and rest of Taiwan) and Hsinchu (main tech center). The airport is a 20 minute MRT ride from the Taoyuan highspeed station. The Hinschu highspeed station isn't even in the city, but in Zhubei. And the high speed station is not co-located with the existing Zhubei train station. There's a rail spur line that will take you from the highspeed station to the Hsinchu main station in the city center, which takes 21 minutes.
As a Moroccan, I am grateful for including my country in your top 10 list. While I acknowledge the potential benefits of directing the funds towards updating the existing rail infrastructure, I must emphasize that our current system has been incredibly successful among both domestic riders and international visitors. In fact, it has prompted the government to expand the system further, reaching other major cities and tourist destinations, including the southern regions of the country. These expansion efforts will be implemented alongside the existing conventional rail infrastructure in Morocco.
Good reasoning for a lot of these!
Suggstions inspired by watching.
1. After the remark about the lack of high speed integration in Germany: Would love a video on DB in general. I have seen few videos on its network compared to Switzerland, Italy, or France.
2. Mentioning poor connection to Germany: Video discussing the integration high speed rail services in Europe (and to coutnries next to Euroep), in terms of timetable, train standards, and fares.
3. Also would love video on potential of high-speed sleeper trains! This absolutely needs to be considered in US (but in Europe too) for trips like NY-Florida, NY-Chicago, NY-Toronto, NY, San Francisco-LA, etc.
High speed trains are extremely noisy machines. Having them functioning in the middle of the night would create massive problems for surrounding communities.
Sleeper trains don't need to be high-speed. In 8-10 hours you can get across all of Europe with 200km/h even with stops. You just need sleeper trains that do those 200km/h on the HSR network
@@Desi365 This isn't totally untrue. I am curious, though, do you have this opinion because you live next to a rail line?
The other thing is, you could apply the same logic for highways (the current US alternative to night trains), which are arguably louder to nearby residences, and where cars and trucks can come by constantly all night.
The thing about high speed night trains is that 1) at most they would only come through an area couple times per night, the noise only lasting ten or so seconds.
Also, if trains were passing through residential areas, they would likely have to slow down anyway, mitigating a lot of the potential noise. I find it unlikely that new grade seperated high speed rail capable routes will be driven through dense neighborhoods where there would be big disruption.
Just my opinion, not saying your wrong, no hard feelings.
@@J-Bahn no, i don't live next to a train line. But the SNCF had a study years ago showing that having high speed trains circulating during the night was unfeasable, in reality. The idea was to transport mail, i think.
Lots of good ideas! Stay tuned!
In my opinion Germany had to ranked higher because the quality of the trains is great with a restaurant, good seats and high speed lines all over the country. And the international lines aren‘t that bad. Usually every hour starts a train to every neighbour country😉 But the delays… But in general it‘s a good video!
I would agree. The complexity of the network within Germany is outstanding.
And yes. Due to cost cuts 20 years ago the infrastructure of today does not provide enough capacity for all the services Deutsche Bahn has to ensure. So it's going to be a process of like 10 or 20 years to fix all the weak points.
Yeah, you might only be doing short 5-10 min bursts of high speed as you jump in and out of LZB corridors and they're literally always late as is normal for DB but you do have a very nice and luxurious train to ride in.
A suggestion for the next Top 10 video. Top 10 Tram/Light rail systems in the world.
Cologne for the win! Or not because the city is to poor to make the Stadtbahn actually good
Interesting idea!
As a Moroccan, I can only be proud of what my country has achieved so far. More Highspeed lines are being built in the Casablanca-Marrakech-Agadir axis in preparation of the very likely 2030 World Cup hosted by Morocco, Portugal and Spain
Like Germany's system the most, not the fastest in absolute terms, but the best trains imo and does manage to connect a lot of cities, which are much closer together/denser than other countries so does what its designed to do.
Plus it's pretty affordable, especially compared to France
@@thomastschetchkovic5726 it is? wow i always thought it was pretty expensive if you can't get early booking discounts etc. which then it is really good. like 50€ -70€ from Hannover to Munich is really affordable. but the regular price is more like 130-150€
The thing about DB prices is: if you book in advance, prices will be pretty low already and if you travel just 2 or 3 times a month you can get discounts with the BahnCard. And if you travel super frequently you can get a monthly subscription that works for every train in all of Germany and I think even first class. But that's super expensive obviously and only reasonable for really frequent users of the network
Germany does some unique things for sure, and I still think Berlin HBF is my favorite station in the world
@@RMTransit Berlin Hbf is quite impressive, but the slow & undersized elevators really suck.
Not sure if ranking HSR Systems like this makes sense.
Yes, China's HSR is impressively fast if you need to go from one end-point to the other. On the other side, the German ICE system for example is simply not designed to do that - it was never the desired to go non-stop from Hamburg to Munich and skipping all the big cities in between. If you want to fo from a medium-sized to another medium-sized town, for example, your connection is likely much better in Germany than in France or China.
There are simply very different conditions and very different goals here, so that the two systems can simply not really be compared.
Fully agree with your comment. Also, in cases like Italy and France you see what happens, if you only focus on high speed but need ages to get to your final destination because local trains are underdevelopped or non-existent.
What even made you think Chinese HSR goes from end-point to end-point non-stop? It is freaking ridiculous considering your whole point is based on such absurd assumptions purely out of wishful ignorance. It is like you made whole point because you don’t like China being ranked No.1 on his list therefore literally made things up and stretched an argument because you don’t actually know anything about the subject matter.
@@nehcooahnait7827but I'm pretty sure that the Chinese HSR doesn't stop in what feels like hundreds of cities that have less than 1 million inhabitants. And that IS the case in Germany.
Still however there are the ICE Sprinter trains and many more planned that will connect all the major cities even faster than they already do currently by skipping many smaller stops.
I think the great thing about UA-cam is that I can make a video like this in the first place.
@@RMTransit Indeed, thanks for the great video and making the effort of ranking. whats more we learn a lot about the different HSR-strategies in the ranked countries. I would rank this as being the most interesting point.
Me in the US realizing that Morocco built a high speed rail line before the country with the largest GDP in the world.
Indian train's are more speed than....US train 🤭🤭
Good high speed rail is ridiculous
Sad that u missed some Korean HSR corridors in the map, such as Gyeonggang-line from Gangneung to Seoul, but still a very good summary of pros and cons of the whole system!
Korea have long been a very capitol-centric country, especially after the economic crisis in late 1990s. Governmental organisations and major businesses started to invest almost exclusively in Seoul and surrounding cities. Since then, population is rapidly growing in nearly all cities in Seoul Area, while all the other regions are facing severe decrease in number of residents, due to lacking infrastructure and job opportunities.
Recently (already quite late tho) the government noticed the importance of 'balanced' national development, trying to invest in regions outside of the Greater Seoul. Such investments involve several railway projects - including high-speed rebuilding of Gyeongjeon-line, an east-west railway corridor in Southern part of the country. These investments are still far from enough considering how much money is being poured into the Seoul region at the same time, but can be a good starting point.
+ about the KTX to Incheon airport: the KTX heading to the airport used to take a huge detour, stopping at at least one major station in the Seoul city centre. (despite being called as 'Seoul'-Incheon int'l airport, the airport itself is located in a seperate municipality) For a better airport connection, local governments are planning to create a second air-rail link, cleverly named 'second airport express railway', from the airport to Incheon station. From there, the line is also planned to be connected with existing HSR network through Suin-Bundang line.
Very cleverly named! Yes, my Korea HSR map was a little incomplete. :(
I thought the 2nd airport rail link will be the GTX Line D from Incheon Airport to Gangnam district because there is currently no direct airport connection to Gangnam. I read before that GTX-D will be a Y-shaped line with one branch going to Incheon airport. Is this still going to push through?
@@lawrencebautista1 GTX-D's extension to ICN airport is being considered as a seperate project than second airport rail express, with a totally new undersea tunnel!
I personally think extension of GTX is a bit of overkill and the budget should be spent on the rest of the country, since line 9 and current AREX is still working on their through-running project, which allows the direct connection bw airport and Gangnam. tho no one knows when, and considering the potential demand, GTX-D can be feasible for Gangnam aswell.
@@Lowspecgames-lr2qz oh I see. So Line 9 is planned to have 'through service' with AREX line hence this necessitates extending Line 9 westward to link with AREX. I'm a bit skeptical about this because Line 9 is already notorious as the most congested subway line in Seoul since it only operates maximum 6 cars. And it took a while before it was expanded from 4 to 6 cars. Although the side tracks and platforms of Line 9 for express services can also be used by a Line 9 airport express.
As a Taiwanese, really impressive that you mentioned our high speed rail system but it only operates at 300km/h. Also the Taiwan high speed rail has the highest percentage over the world in terms of punctual rate.
Isn't Switzerland or Netherlands the most punctual?
(Although Netherlands don't count for me bcs of the way the calculate punctuality stats)
@@RobertDoornbosF1 To be honest, I think Japan might beat everyone else here...
@@awwmanboi9791 The Shinkansen recorded a punctual rate of 99.54% and 30 seconds of average delay while THSR has only 21 seconds. (No favoritism, I even like their Shinkansen better on my frequent trips to Japan.)
@@yentaiyang6393 I see, so the Taiwan HSR is indeed the most punctual in the world. On another note though, Taiwan's traditional rail system definitely has a lot more room for improvement.
@@awwmanboi9791 the Shinkansen system being a lot more extensive. The comparison might be correct but a bit unfair, isn't it ?
5:44 You mentioned "excessively strict technical standards". Could you maybe list some of them? Or if there is enough weirdness/difference could you make a video about that? I'm genuinely curious what those standards are and how/why they are excessive/different
A big reason why Germany doesn’t rank higher on this list is the German car industry lobby. Germany invests too much in highways compared to the rail network.
Spain has excellent high roads and excellent hst network
@@axwleurope9519 They don't have a (large) automobile industry like Germany does. Germany is really biased towards cars, if you asked me.
What you didn't mention about France is that those TGV lines are very busy. Like a fully packed double decker TGV train leaves Gare de Lyon every 5 minutes or so. All the services to Switzerland and Italy leave that station, as well as the most of the lines going south. There's also few long distance slow trains in France, because for the vast majority of trips the TGV is so fast it makes sense to go all the way to Paris up one arm of the TGV network and then down another. Because of the frequency of the TGV trains, they have a very high minimum speed for all trains on those lines. They want to keep the slower tracks for local services and freight. They also do a great amount of integration with buses, so if there's a small destination near a train station, there's probably a dirt cheap bus that can get you there.
Forgot to add that there is long-distance, cheap, slow service in France. It's called a bus lol
Wasn't a key motivation for TGV to increase capacity on some lines that the government saw getting congested?
Yeah, I agree. I’m not too sure why Italy above France is on his list. I would swap them around, based on what you’ve mentioned about the service frequencies and the HS trains overall in France, especially with the different types of TGVs with the single only deck and double deck trains
@@iiExplosionz12 Even Spain is questionable, France saw four times the ridership of Spain's high speed lines!
It’s funny to see French pride over totally normal stuff
@@DavidVargasCarrillo Justified when you look at the numbers, like he mentioned lol
I really liked your video, you approached it objectively. I'm Italian, to answer the semi-question about the fact that high speed is lacking in southern Italy, it's because Calabria is sparsely populated and building an infrastructure in a sparsely populated and mountainous area doesn't make much sense, that's why they're working to improve the service and in certain places creating variations to the route to avoid secondary stations, for this reason it is defined as a "High Capacity-High Speed" project aimed at improving journey times and increasing the frequency and quality of the trains. In southern Italy there are lines such as the HSR "Napoli-Bari" partly open partly under construction which is a quadrupling of the track with new variants and straighter corridors. In 2008 they inaugurated the "Napoli-Salerno" HSR which allows to lighten the traffic in the Naples hub. On the other hand, if Sicily is considered, which is very populated but only in certain areas, works are being carried out to double the main lines. While not in southern Italy, the worst-performing regions are Valle d'Aosta where they are already carrying out electrification works but not doubling considering that it is a sparsely populated region (120k inhabitants), and Sardinia where, despite having a good Expressways, the railway network is not electrically powered and 3/5 are narrow gauge. On the two main sections they have been carrying out for years construction works of variants and doublings such as Cagliari-San Gavino and Cagliari-Iglesiente and they are starting the works for the electrification of the Cagliari-Oristano which have been talking about it for 50 years, considering the rolling stock of the FS , already use hybrid trains and Pendolini. In the north, on the other hand, the line is rooted to lighten the main lines also due to the fact that, for example, Milan guarantees communications between Western and Eastern Europe both by cargo and by passengers. Prices are low also thanks to the presence of several carriers that guarantee competition and therefore also convenient prices and excellent service. We also have the operator and manager RFI-FS which is the world leader in rail transport, considering the presence and management of infrastructures, services and contracts abroad such as in Greece and in many other countries, they have the third most important service in Germany , have succeeded in making the Italian Frecciarossas preferable both to the French on the Paris-Lyon, Lyon-Milan, Lyon-Nice routes, and to the Spanish on the Seville-Madrid-Barcelona and Valencia-Madrid routes, thanks to a less expensive and more complete service and quality. The problem in Italy is to look at transport off the main lines, there Italy is worse than many countries like Romania... Great video!!!
Incredible review of the Italian system, Tante grazie!
Frecciarossas are my favourite trains right now in spain. bests trains and best services at a really competitive price.
One country that deserves more attention than it gets is Belgium. It's a small country that doesn't really have long journeys where high speed rail is that big of a deal domestically, but the way it has built its high speed lines with the specific goal of integrating into the networks of neighbouring countries shows how HSR has the potential not only to compete with domestic air travel, but international air travel too. While not a top end country, I'd rank it above the UK or Morocco.
He mentioned it: France is 5th
😛
yeah Belgium definitely is up there, also shares the Dutch system of using regular IC services over your HSRs to fill up spare capacity, which is really neat
The downside is that HSL1 is basically LGV Nord HSL2 is actually a proper national HSR, HSL3 is just a fast bypass for the hilly ardenne section between Liege and Aachen, and HSL4 is just the southern tip of the Dutch HSL-Zuid
so a lot of it is internationally focussed, if well used for national services (except HSL1)
You could make a case that Belgium should be above the UK
Honestly it is just really congested to be out there. When you go AMS- Paris the slowest part is always in Belgium, because it has to share it with everything else.
As a general rail it is probably better, but if you compare it as a high speed rail for passengers then you cannot really beat Morocco and it’s dedicated line (plus doing it from scratch in Africa deserves some brownie points :)). With the UK I guess it’s just bc the country is bigger so it deserves more praise.
So happy you mentioned Taiwan! It was so exciting for us when we went straight from a run of the mill TRA / aging standard rail to beautiful, clean, Japanese style high speed rail. many of the larger cities have good last mile transit, too.
Nice to see Morocco in the top-ten! With its high-speed rail system and working towards developing huge solar and wind farms for energy sources, Morocco is definitely a role model for the rest of Africa to follow. Also, Euro Disney was only the name of the resort from 1992 to 1994. Since 1994, it's Disneyland Paris! But yes, glad you briefly mentioned it as it remains the only Disney resort with a high-speed rail station! Most Disney resorts have a transit station on property like Hong Kong with Disneyland Resort Line or Tokyo with Maihama...ironically the ones that don't are the two American resorts, Disneyland (though the Intermodal Center is 3 miles away) and WDW. WDW was close to having a Brightline station on property but Disney backed out.
Wasn't mentioned here but a very underrated system is Uzbekistan. Because let me ask ya, when you think of high-speed rail, you wouldn't think of Uzbekistan now would you? And that's my point, Uzbekistan's the first in Central Asia to step up to the plate and build the Tashkent-Samarkand and Samarkand-Bukhara lines using Russian gauge lines that were upgraded for it. And that's just the first two lines as thanks to an over one hundred million dollar loan from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (the Chinese government), the 465km line between Bukhara and Khiva can be electrified for HSR treatment which will launch in 2024, as well as a HSR extension to Nukus.
To be fair it wasn't Disney that backed out of the Brightline station at WDW, it was DeathSantis's cronies that have control of the Reedy Creek board that killed it off on the orders of DeathSantis. Disney is still talking to Brightline and will probably proceed once their lawsuit succeeds and DeathSantis's cronies no longer control what Disney is and isn't allowed to do with its own property.
Big cities in China tend to have more than one train station one of which is usually centrally located. So, if one was planning to travel in China and preffered to arrive at a central location then they should look for a suitable option. It could cost more than a trip from /to one of the staions from the periphery and availability is usualy limited.
市中心的那个火车站往往是最老的，运行旧式绿皮火车，城市扩大了，旧车站就变成了在市中心，城市边缘的往往是新修的车站，大多运行高铁
Trains in Taiwan don't run 350km/h, it's 300km/h. System length on the other hand is 350km.
About Southern Italy:
The HS network (250>km h) ends in Salerno, south of Naples. However, from Salerno to Reggio Calabria (the southernmost point of peninsular Italy) there is already a very modern and fast railway of 200kmh. Within the year they will start building two new tracks, for 1/3 of the entire section, at HS 300kmh. Thus the Salerno - Reggio section will be a railway with speeds of 300kmh for 1/3 and 200kmh for the remaining 2/3.
To the east of Naples, in the direction of Puglia, the Naples - Bari AV/AC is already under construction and the works should end in 2027. This line will have a maximum speed of 250kmh and the longest railway tunnel in Italy will be present on the section (27km) on a par with the "Genova Milano HS" tunnel, also 27km long
In Sicily, on the other hand, they are building a new and modern regional line (Palermo-Catania-Messina) with speeds of 160-200kmh and it is hoped that it will be connected to the national high-speed network via the "strait bridge" more than 3km long
So basically Sicily's 5 million inhabitants are not getting any true HS. Idk why but we tend to forget that the busiest domestic air routes are the ones from Rome to Palermo (5th largest city in the country) and Catania (10th largest), and simply the absence of true HS on these corridors makes them a valid connection only to Reggio Calabria, 150k inhabitants. Let's add that the line also passes through Naples and connects Sicily to the most industrialized metropolis and educational centre (of the South, ofc).
The Naples-Bari is basically a faster conventional line that ends in Foggia, half way to Bari. From then on, you travel on the line covering the most populated area in northern Apulia. That's why it will take 2 hours for 260 km.
Sicily is basically getting its convential railways upgraded to standards that are normality in the mainland under the name of high speed. Great marketing operation, not the best for the island.
And that just concerns the South, we're not even talking of the Adriatic, of the North-East, of Liguria or of Sardinia that has it worst of all of us. Yay
@@lorenzopassero8509 In sicilia per ora non ha senso una AV perchè mancano ancora le linee convenzionali. La AV si fa dove ci sono già due binari che hanno quasi raggiunto la saturazione e per questo motivo se ne costruiscono altri 2 in aggiunta a quelli esistenti per separare il traffico regionale da quello lunga percorrenza, poi viene da se che se devi costruire due nuovi binari in aggiunta a quelli esistenti, quelli nuovi li fai predisposti per l'AV.
Considera poi che l'alta velocità funziona fino a determinate distanze, superate queste, l'aereo è il mezzo più logico.
Esempio:
AV
Milano - Roma 570km 3h
Catania - Roma 800km 5h/5h 30 (con Salerno - Reggio AV + Ponte + nuova Messina/Catania in costruzione)
Come vedi la distanza Catania/Palermo - Roma è troppa per far si che il treno vinca di netto sull'aereo ma è comunque sufficiente per creare un traffico ferroviario importante. Però, anche con tutte le opere necessarie, un viaggio in treno dalla durata di 5/5h30 non può scalzare il viaggio in aereo.
Considera poi, tornando alla questione "perchè non fanno una vera AV in sicilia?", che a fare la differenza sui tempi di percorrenza sulla tratta sicilia - roma che oggi si fa in 10h (Intercity Catania-Roma) é:
1) ponte sullo stretto: risparmio di 1h e 30/2h
2) Lotti essenziali Salerno - Reggio C: risparmio di circa 1h
3) Meno fermate (Ipotizzando un servizio frecciarossa con poche fermate): risparmio ipotetico di circa 30/40 minuti
4) Nuova Catania - Messina: risparmio di 30minuti
Una AV 300kmh Catania - Messina (95km), al massimo farebbe risparmiare altri 10 minuti ma ad un costo spropositato.
90 km di nuova AV in un contesto orografico complicato come quello tra messina e catania verrebbe a costare circa non meno di 8 miliardi!
Ha senso spendere questa cifra per risparmiare 10 minuti di tempo?
Le uniche due cose utili per velocizzare i collegamenti in Sicilia, oltre a quello che si sta già facendo o che è in programma di realizzazione, sono il completo raddoppio tra Catania e Palermo e il raddoppio completo e velocizzazione tra Palermo e Messina. Non serve nessuna vera linea AV, bastano le velocizzazioni fino a 200 km/h...
@@d1234as esattamente, chissà quanto tempo deve passare ancora per il raddoppio completo della Palermo - Messina. Credo che rimarrà con quel buco di 80km a binario singolo per ancora tanto tanto tempo
One of the perks of Italian high speed rail network is that even if it's small, due to the peculiar shape of our country it still manages to connect most important cities. And this is incredibly great on its own because in many other countries they need several lines to do so. Not to mention that our cities attracts lots of tourists and HSR basically put these cities on a single line. Sure, the South is not connected yet, but it will, the project is ongoing. Currently there is another line in construction connecting Napoli to Bari.
And they are also profitable, they contributed to the bankruptcy of Alitalia!
as Swiss i was really impressed by the Italian high speed trains, quality, service, comfort and to my surprise😁on time!
@@askallois Alitalia was bankrupt for the whole 30 years previous.
The State tried magic tricks and to summon demons in order to save that company. But never worked.
In the end the best thing we can do is leave it fail and make a new one.
No doubt the best high speed train network is in Japan.
no！The best is china
In the comment section, some people who have never been to China are commenting on China's high-speed rail. China operates 4,500 EMUs every day, with a punctual departure rate of 99% and an punctual arrival rate of 98%. After the epidemic, Seat vacancy rate is 0.
I wouldn't call Spain's security system 'airport style', unless you are referring to airport security from the 90's. I found it to be pretty straightforward. Toss your bag onto a conveyor and walk through a metal detector. Took about 2 minutes.
Suprise not to mention Italy as the first country to open the high speed rail market for competition.
While China has high speed sleeper, it's service is limited to only a few lines and no more new trains are built, which I think should deserve more focus as this is perhaps the only way to compete with planes in such large distance in China such as Guangzhou - Beijing
No company wants to operate there...
@@axwleurope9519 because italo and Trenitalia are competitive and have good prices for what they offer
Devastated that the USA didn’t make this list, Acela is obviously the best high speed rail system in the world.
Yep, agreed. LOL
High speed rail is dumb good the world doesn’t use them
Reese, please do a video on the best examples of train station architecture (functional & esthetics).
Spain has a massive and super-efficient high-speed network, you can travel from one point of the country to another in less than 3h, it has the world's second-biggest network just behind China and it is currently upgrading all the trains and stations making it looking top-notch. The reason why you have to go to security as the airport (even tho it's not quite like it) it's due to the 2004's terror attacks in Atocha -Spain's main high-speed hub in Madrid-, it's currently the worst terror attacks in the history of whole Europe, around 200 died.
Wow!
These are some amazing high speed rail systems!
Finally, the video I was wondering if you would ever make, providing credit to China for committing and innovating. What you should followup with is how China has integrated Urban Metro, High Speed Rail and electrification of Bus, Trolly & Taxis/DiDi. By the end of the decade it is likely the virtually all public transportation in China will be electrified.
The HS trains and metro connections in China is absolutely stunning
Every other country: our network should be higher on the list!
Germans: our network isn’t rated low enough!
Jokes aside it would be a good idea to detangle the regional and intercity network even with new highspeed corridors of disruptions occur on legacy tracks into a station the delays can spread through what feels like half of the entire country… Aside from the tracks having been bottle necks for like 20 years into cologne for example and work on cologne deutz to add 2 more highspeed platforms to bypass at capacity cologne central doesn’t seem to move along at all
Correction coming from an Italian: the high speed trains do serve southern Italy. In 2020 they started putting Frecciarossa and Italo on the line from Salerno to Reggio Calabria. Before then it was only possible by taking an Intercity or a Frecciargento in Napoli. Since Frecciargento and Frecciabianca are slowly being scrapped because Trenitalia shifted all their focus on Frecciarossa, now you see trains that were previously Frecciargento painted red and branded as Frecciarossa (they are just more suitable for those lines). They're currently working on a few additions: connecting Napoli to Foggia (at the moment you can take a Frecciarossa in Bologna that reaches Lecce going over the Adriatica line), you can take a Frecciarossa to Sibari (on the ionian coast of Calabria and sadly that is the only way of directly reaching that part of Calabria), and they're overall improving and renovating the existing lines down there. Hopefully, if the debate over the Messina strait bridge ever gets settled, it will be possible to take a Frecciarossa from Milano to Palermo
Great video! Maybe you've done one already I couldn't find it but there's a lot of exciting things happening and planned with night trains in Europe, I'm doing Ams to Zurich soon and very excited
Oh wow Morocco, impressive. Outperformed the US, Russia, India. Maybe spend more money on trains rather than nukes for a moment, that would be a good idea probably...
Also, it would be great if you do a video on Africa
India doesn't have true HSR at the moment, but thats going to change~!
Regarding the use of powercars instead of distributed motors in France: Locomotive hauled trains (which powercars are this for this purpose) excell the best with limited decelerations like few stops (this is something you mentioned in your American HSR explainer, for that matter) but there is another advantage for using them instead of multiple units: They aren't restricted by the train's floor height. Low-floor trains (which most bi-level trains are), though great for level boarding with low platforms, don't leave much space for engine stuff and more powerful engines require more space. Only few EMUs like the Stadler SMILE manage to drive at high-speed operation while the rest are high-floor.
Notice that although there is a single level AGV (EMU version of the TGV, most notably used by Italo), there are no bi-level AGV for this reason, you can only order one with power cars only. And with SNCF's decision to use bi-level trains for the HSR network, the TGV is bound to powercar trains.
Using power cars was also the only way to reduce weight enough to meet the strict axle loading regulations of France's high speed track while using double decker trains. In addition with a non emu you can make the platform shorter to not have to account for the length of the power cars. Ultimately the TGVs have the highest capacity of any high speed train, while still being on Jacobs bogies and thus very comfortable and safe.
@@user-kw9qu2gz8v I wouldn't say it's the "only" way. JR East operated E1 & E4 MAX dual-decker EMUs for several decades (the 100 and 200 series also had a couple of double decker EMUs in their sets, but those were for green cars). Nor is the 17t axel loading limit an issue. The original Shinkansen was built to that spec, and they've only gotten lighter since (13t on E5s, and 11t on N700A/S series). Likewise having ridden a CR400A (Beijing to Shanghai) at 350 kmph and a TGV Duplex at 320 kmph-both with a 17t axel load limit, I can say there's no perceivable difference in smoothness between the two despite the latter running on Jacobs bogies. Likewise there has been a fatal derailment on the TGV, none of the 3 derailments in the Shinkansen (2 due to earthquakes and one a blizzard) have led to any fatalities. So I find the common claim of Jacobs bogies being safer and smoother being largely theory and not in practice (at least when it comes to high speed rail).
As for highest capacity, I don't think the TGV is even close. The EuroDuplex sets can get up to 550'ish seats, with the 8 car being densest at 92 passengers. In fact the largest TGV derivative sets are in South Korea which operate larger 20 car sets and can carry around 930-960 passengers. Whereas on the Tokaido Shinkansen, 16-car 1300'ish passenger sets have been the norm since the 0-series first started operating (with highest density single decks being 100 passengers). Likewise for density, the E1 and E4 series double deckers had carriage capacities of 124 passengers in the densest carriage.
Each TGV Duplex can carry up to 634 passengers in the densest configuration (2+2 seats in every car) and TGV are frequently running coupled, that means up to 1268 passengers per train. That's not bad considering that the loading gauge of French rail network is considerably smaller that Shinkansen network.
And Shinkansen trains have a 3+2 seating configuration in ordinary cars, few people like having the middle seat. Legroom is way better in Shinkansen trains though.
@@archie4oz Aside what the previous commentor mentioned, I also have to note that while the E1 and E4 MAX are bilevel, they only had a max speed of 240 km/h which is not true high speed (that starts at 250 km/h).
Great video + super informative
I rode quite a few of these systems. The latest one is the Shinkansen, as my mission team rode the Hayabusa 107 train from Tokyo to Sendai, where we are serving in. We left Sendai after two weeks of mission work on the Hayabusa 108 train.
About France not using EMUs. I love the TGV as the fact that there are fewer boggies and no motors on the cars, the noise level is way more pleasant. I tried some EMUs and although it is not bothersome, I noticed that I had an overall better experience on the TGV.
the shinkansen is about as quiet as the tgv and both the shinkansen, as well as the ice have more space ...
@@amduser86 the shinkansen has been engineered to go on its own track all the way. Most high speed trains end up one way or another on conventional tracks and a this point most of the experience is not that great. Also I may have traveled in badly maintained trains.
@@lanfeust
the tvg also runs mostly on in it's on tracks. and i did travel last week the first time on a duplex tvg.the single door per wagon is just a nightmare. it takes ages disembark the train und there is next to no place comapared to the ice or shinkansen. bevore that i only did know old tvg (run by thales). they are poorly maintained, but at least they have space.
@@lanfeust In that case, shouldn't we even introduce EMU, which has faster acceleration? In general, conventional lines have many restrictions, and the greater the acceleration after exiting the curve, the faster the time will be. The N700 series has an initial speed of 2.6 km/h/s, which is comparable to a commuter train, and can accelerate to 270 km/h in just 3 minutes. If AGVs had similar acceleration, they would be able to operate more frequently and faster.
Great video. I’ve travelled on 7 of those 10 high speed networks. China’s is great, but Japan really takes some beating!
It is always on time and never late for a minute based on my experience….and it is affordable, for example, the HSR from Beijing to Shanghai (1318 km in distance) only costs 70 Euro.
I'm going to spain in a couple weeks and riding many high speed trains i cant wait
A video about Stuttgart would be cool! Both because of the complete restructure of rail infrastructure going on right now and the weird u-bahn/tram hybrid :)
Cool video! I kinda disagree about HSR to Inner Mongolia being excessive, apparently the region has 24 million people and it's not that far from Beijing so it doesn't seem like a long shot. Certainly overbuilding is better than underbuilding (looking at you US and Canada)
Interesting insights, as always!
However I definitely wouldn't rank Spain as highly as Japan. I only have limited experience of the Spanish system, but the whole experience of using the trains (the scheduling, the location of stations, the quality of station buildings themselves, the ticket buying experience, having to go through security, etc) all seemed quite poor to me compared to the Shinkansen in Japan.
Great video! More high speed network maps next time please
We love the Train to Busan references 😊
Taiwan, which is usually ignored in these lists, definitely deserves its spot here so great work there! The "flytoget" in Oslo (although a very short line) is also very neat although I'm not sure it would qualify as a high-speed line. I would also add Turkey personally, as I used it a lot between Istanbul and Ankara and it was one of the finest high speed journeys in my life with top-notch and very clean trains and a breathtaking scenery. But I understand why it didn't get a spot here as the train doesn't use the legacy train terminals, such as the ones in Germany do -instead the terminal stations are at the outskirts of the city. That's a big minus. PLUS they still don't travel internationally as the ones in France or Germany do. The line connecting Turkey with the rest of Europe (through Edirne) is being constructed though and should enter service soon.
Surprised nobody's showed up yet to remind us all that "Taiwan" is China.
@@clayton97330 I just wrote this. I'm sure someone will pop up soon.
I mentioned Flytoget in my Oslo video, its really cool!
@@clayton97330 Republic of China. ;)
@@clayton97330 He used the word "system" to avoid any potential problem.
Great video as usuale, Reece! Congrats from Italy, where work is going on to finally complete that Milan - Venice hsr section, among others in southern Italy. I can't wait to see all of them completed; you will have to make another video about it when the work is over.
New line
Napoli Bari 2027
Milan genoa 2025/6
Brescia Verona padova 2026
Salerno reggio Calabria 2030/203...
Bologna rimini bari 2040
Messina bridge 2032
Italy has done incredible work with it's HSR system.
@@RMTransit 💪💪
Security in CRH stations is abundant and quick. That said, better plan 10 minutes in busy periods. Stations are often in the suburbs, but the reason for that is the size of these stations typically will not fit in already populated downtowns (where they do fit, it is certainly nice!), but a mitigating factor is the stations typically have multiple urban Metro lines as feeders. The China is not done building HSR, driving it to more remote cities, and adding line to mega cities. One topic I suggest you take is how China turned it's fledgling HSR system, that naysayers ridiculed as a boondoggle project and/or rich man's toy, into a system for the masses that is making some of it's airports look ridiculous (IMHO).
But let's be realistic, the security at CRH stations is there to catch people who's social credit scores are too low to be allowed on the trains, not to keep dangerous people off the trains as in general crime is pretty low in China (one of the few things brutal, oppressive regimes manage to be good at)
Reece,
Can you make a video on top 10 upcoming hsr systems to know which nation has the best vision
Makes me think of my country Australia. A proposal for HSR linking Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne is decades old and keeps being put off.
I'm Italian, I agree with your top 10! Certainly in Europe Spain has the best high speed network.
Just a clarification: in Spain they also use Italian trains, in fact the Iryo company uses "Frecciarossa 1000".
Is Hitachi Italian?
@@axwleurope9519 is Trenitalia italian...
I don't see anything wrong with having the station be outside of the city for the HSR line, so long as there is good transit to said station, Japan did it with Shin Osaka and Shin Yokohama, and the city eventually grew to those locations, but even in cases where we know the city will never reach the station like at Shin Hakodate Hokuto, or Shin Aomori, they both still have great transit to the city center on a slower rail line.
But there is no reason to put HSR stations outside of the city center, the trains can just transfer over to commuter lines for the last few miles to a city center station, which is what France and Germany do. Though Germany lacks a lot of true high speed track, with ICE trains often only going 200-230km/h which is the speed of their "slow" intercity trains and often just loafing along at 160km/h when they're out of LZB territory, especially in eastern Germany. The main true 300km/h high speed lines are Munich>Frankfurt, Kassel>Wurzburg and Frankfurt>Koln.
Super content. 🤗
Totally agree that it's hard to do a ranking, because they are so many factors. For instance: I really enjoy the punctuality in Japans Shinkansen network, but it is expensive and only covers major cities on a long straight with a few branches.
So yeah, the overall speed between Tokyo and Osaka is without any doubt higher than let's say between Berlin and Munich. But once you wanna travel between other cities, it's a totally different story. For example, the 224 km from Tsu (Mie) to Tottori, both prefectural capitals in Japan with 190-270k inhabitants each, takes a whole 4:30-5:15 hours by train (~50 km/h on average).
In the end, useful infrastructure should reflect the circumstances. Most of Japans major cities are lined up beautifully? Go for it and build that line! Germanys population is really spread out? Build a grid instead of a line. Even if it's a 160 to 200 km/h grid, instead of a 300 km/h line^^
I mostly concur with your ranking, although i don't quite get, why Japan wouldn't be at least tied on first place with China, due to the better positioning of the stations and their accessibility.
And i would like to know what exactly the map of Germany is depicting... The red lines are hsr of at least 250 kph, but the newly built section between Stuttgart and Ulm is missing and the not yet existing section between Bamberg and Nuremberg is already there (and it will only allow 230kph service i believe). And what the purple lines mean, I really don't understand 😅
Nevertheless, some of those purple lines will be turned into highspeed or will get new tracks with shorter routes within the next 20 years, which could definitely knock Germany up a few places on this list in the future. ^^
It's all part of this great plan called "Deutschlandtakt", Germanys plan for a nationwide integral timetable (which would make for a very interesting video imo!)
UK does not really have a HS Network, just a line.
You can have a 15min ride on Acela where the speed exceeds 200km/h.
All the 125mph lines aren't nothing!
@@RMTransit The East Coast Mainline and Great Western Mainline will get 140mph running in the not to distance future.
I've been on the hsr in Italy, France and Japan. All are pretty good. Australian hsr is 150kmh and expensive.
One fact about the UK's rail network that is relevant to this video...
The UK's east coast mainline isn't "true" high speed rail as it only has a top speed of 200km/h. It takes 2h28m to go London to Newcastle (about 450km)
Meanwhile Thalys has a top speed of 300km/h and so is "true" high speed rail, but it'll take you 3h15m minutes to get from Paris to Amsterdam (about 480km)
Why this discrepancy? Thalys also runs on some slower sections (such as between Brussels and Antwerp) which slows the overall speed, and the ECML is also extremely geographically direct for rail line, so the total distance is less. Plus the train pathing on the ECML is pretty impressive (some stretches of line Thalys travels on are very congested)
Not making a particular point here other than top speeds and fixing on what is "true" high speed rail can be misleading!
Couple notes: Taiwan's trains do 300km/h, not 350km/h; Siemens is pronounced Zeemens (pretty common Anglo mispronunciation); there is at least a fast train service from ICN to Seoul Station to catch a KTX (though a direct service would've still been nice, yes).
@@Urbanhandyman Siemens is not an English word; saying seamans instead of zeemans is just as much a mispronunciation as Porsch instead of Porsche
@@Urbanhandyman if it wasn’t a proper noun it wouldn’t be a big deal, but….Btw, it also bugs me when people say Shaenghai and not Shanghai, Darfur instead of Darfoor, etc. It’s about respecting others’ languages as a means of respecting their culture. Additionally, it’d be one thing if it was just in casual conversation, but this channel aims to make high-quality content on a specific subject matter; I’m sure Reece would rather be pronouncing things correctly if he’s not already.
Yes that was a slip of the tongue re Taiwan.
I'm pronouncing Siemens how people pronounce Siemens in English because I am an English speaker. People working at Siemens generally say Siemens to me the way I said Siemens in this video.
@@RMTransit I don't mean to nitpick, really; excellent video otherwise, as usual!
Generally, I agree with your rankings. I still prefer the Shinkansen in Japan, which I have ridden 100s of times. So impressive! 16 car trains at least every 10 minutes between Tokyo and Shin-Osaka. You can almost always just show up at the station and go. Integration with conventional rail and transit is great. And, judging from videos and other reports, Morocco puts the UK and Americas to shame.
Yeah, it really doesn't make sense to rank China higher than Japan.
The central location of the stations and the quick and easy access to the trains, without airport style security is a HUGE advantage over the chinese System.
Japan's HSR lines being rather lean makes sense, since over 90% of it is tunnel or overpass, both of which are time-consuming and costly to construct, not to mention making sure the overpasses are indomitable to earthquakes and the tunnels resistant to floods, mud-/rockslides, and avalanches. It may seem almost unfair looking at other countries that build much of their vast HSR network on level land.
The convenience of no airport style security for shinkansen is understated in this video, I think.
The impressive part is that they managed to build the world's first HSR network, in Japan, a country that is known for its rugged and mountainous terrain. A vast difference from the flatlands of central France or Germany. Or the absolutely endless flatlands of the midwestern US.
You forgot one line in Korea that goes Seoul to Gangneung, It's not 300km/h but still, its 250km/h. That line was built for Olympic. (about a quater of buget alocated for Olympic was constructing this line) The sole reason why Inchean Airport KTX existed was Olympic.
Although, that line exceeded expected ridership after Olympic as Gannueng became new hot local tourist spot, since now its closer to see ocean compared to Busan from Seoul. It carried more people after Olympic the next year of Olympic.
I live in South Korea, but they don't centralize everything in Seoul, but you will have to take the other trains like ITX or Mugunghwa to arrive in the more small cities. KTX connects the largest cities.
Including new EMU-150 trains to be deployed in a year or two
This ranking could be a bit controversial as it's mostely based on opinions and the perception of the product by a foreign viewer. To me, it's almost impossible to rank such different services based on all their features combined.
Each country decide to develop it's high speed network based on their need and constraints. For exemple:
- Spain needs is to connect it's territory to the rest of Europe so they decided not to build a 1668mm network but to adapt it to the western Europe standards. As a consequence, running on legacy lines is rare.
- France is a centralised contry so a big part of passengers needs is to connect provincial citys to Paris. So the network is designed for it.
- On the contrary, Germany is a fully decentralised country and no corridor really stand out of the crowd like the Paris Lyon Marseille one in France. So their strategy is to uprade one by one each corridor with high speed lines or higher speed on conventionnal lines.
To me, the only thing we can question is how the "high spped response" meets the needs of their territory. It's a very deeper question that maybe needs a 20 minute video for each country.
The most important corridor in Germany is along the Rhine! From the Netherlands to the Ruhr Valley, Cologne and the former capital Bonn over the middle Rhine valley which has two lines along each river's bank that are both at maximum capacity and another HSR line from Cologne to Frankfurt directly that is actually exclusively HSR. Then from Koblenz, the end of the middle Rhine valley, to Frankfurts Metropolitan area and also Darmstadt, Ludwigshafen, Mannheim... From there you travel along Freiburg, nearly hit Straßburg and finally finish at Basel. It's the densest and most industrial area in all of Europe, mostly located in Germany. And still the HSR network is lacking... Though there are upgrades on their way in the Ruhr valley (RRX Expansion If you want to look it up) and from Mannheim to Basel the line is also being expanded to 4 tracks and upgraded for 250km/h. But still, the linke Rheinstrecke from Cologne to Koblenz doesn't have ANY upgrade plans. And ETCS upgrades are progressing also quite slow to say the least
He has done lots of videos based on each individual HSR system. This video is his subjective opinion backed by objective observations about each.
Yep, it's just a UA-cam video! But, I think with some well founded opinions and observations.
as a note on what you said about spain, its true they have an airport type control but it is really quick and easy, and even in the biggest stations like atocha in Madrid i have arrived less than 10 minutes before my train starts and made it easily if you know the station a bit
As a german, I am really looking forward to our High-Speed Trains, because there are a lot of building projects on its way.
I'm so looking forward to the transit explained on Seoul Metropolitan Subway
As am I!
Whilst the UK may lack High speed rail, the various 90/100/125mph lines do give the UK alot of faster trains, even on some more rural lines
Unfortunately most of them are diesel powered…
there's a very good reason why France doesn't do EMUs : duplex trains. You can't fit all the propulsion system in a bi-level carriage so the TGVs keep their locomotives and duplex carriages separated. This way the train carries way more people for a given lenght than an single-level EMU.
And shared bogies are safer
You hit out of the park Reese
Great video as always! I disagree on your comment on Inner Mongolia, it has 23 million people with the provincial capital (Hohhot) having 2.3 million. Considering that the amount of people is half the total of most of the countries on this list, I'd say it's a pretty valuable high speed connection. Not to mention it's pretty close to Beijing so it out competes flights which can only be a good thing.
El Pato is in the house
It's glorious
Too bad Talgo lost the rights to the design of the front. The Talgo AVRIL G3 prototype looked great; the production AVRIL for Renfe looks as generic as they come.
I'd argue that China actually needs HSR in the middle of nowhere... so it stops being the middle of nowhere. American towns started to spread along train lines, which fed the train lines more passengers. Train networks were often designed to mitigate social and economic disparities. Sometimes it's the entire point of a metro line, so why not for regular trains ?
So true about the NIMBYs in Germany 😅 And they are not just preventing rail infrastructure but also power lines and wind power plants.
and highway (or streets in general) networks?
@@dinohermann1887 Not that much. One of the largest protests were the ones against the A49 but these weren't NIMBYs. I guess most of the NIMBYs are SUV drivers who need a lot of roads 😅