World rail speed record 2007

• interesting things - kuratkull.com » World rail speed record 2007
  April 30th, 2007 at 1:04 pm

  [...] Original post by Random Good Stuff [...]

• Jason
  April 30th, 2007 at 1:45 pm

  Bah, show me the video of the terminally-ill kid using suction cups to cling to the back of the world rail-speed record run. I find I’m getting increasingly more difficult to impress.

• Justin
  April 30th, 2007 at 4:26 pm

  Wow, hope we will have it here in Canada.
  Justin
  seedubai.blogspot.com

• artbot
  April 30th, 2007 at 7:59 pm

  If they could build one of these for my 4.7 mile trip to work, I could get my tiresome 12 minute commute down to 76 seconds. Let me know when it’s ready.

• Lasse
  May 1st, 2007 at 4:51 am

  What if somebody places a walnut on the tracks?

• intelnm
  May 1st, 2007 at 9:35 am

  i would love to have a 12 minute commute. i have to drive an hour each way to get to work. 50 miles each way on the interstate. i would love to have this train here in NM then maybe i would have a 12 minute commute then

• Sid
  May 1st, 2007 at 12:57 pm

  The problem with pushing train speeds (at least those using semi-conventional tracks) is that they are EXTREMELY vulnerable to terrorism or even “stupid adoloscent hijinks” like stuff on the tracks. It’s impossible to completely patrol the entire stretch of tracks and even a very small charge or weakened piece of track (either almost undetectable — almost invisible if done by properly skilled criminals) would spell disaster. Since kinetic energy is a function of the square of the speed of the object, a train moving at 280 mph will have 16x (!!!) the kinetic energy of a 70 mph train (given the same mass). Combine this vulnerability with the “media prominence” of such a project and it’s a very ripe terrorist target. Al-Quaeda terrorists attacked both Spain’s and England’s conventional railway systems already. Think how they must be licking their chops over this thing.

• ted
  May 1st, 2007 at 6:38 pm

  Look out!
  There goes a terrorist now!
  Let’s get him!

• Sylvain
  May 2nd, 2007 at 1:50 pm

  in my opinion, to have an accident at 280 mph or 100 mph would change nothing … just that my body would be split in smaller pieces but death in all cases… So it will change nothing to put a bomb in a conventional train or a high speed train … even a stopped train would be dangerous with a terrorist’s bomb.

• Sylvain
  May 2nd, 2007 at 1:52 pm

  By the way, this is a French train and it hasn’t broken the world record which has been done by a japan maglev train (585 kph I think).

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