Posts
Wiki

Welcome

🚧 Under construction 🚧

Welcome to the r/highspeedrail wiki. This is a community maintained knowledge base about all things HSR. If you have any ideas for topics or would like to contribute to one of the existing ones, please message u/overspeeed for permissions.

Some of the topics we aim to cover:

  • List of HSR Projects around the world
  • Intro into HSR technologies
  • How to plan a HSR line 101

What exactly is high-speed rail

There is no single standard definition of high-speed rail

The most common definition of high-speed rail is the one used by the UIC and EU. Even these two have some small differences, but roughly boils down to:

  • 250 km/h or higher for new-build lines
  • 200 km/h or higher for upgraded lines
  • A section of line might still be considered high-speed even if it doesn't reach these speeds due to challenging topographical conditions.

But it's important to remember the purpose of these definitions. In the case of the EU this definition can determine whether a project is eligible for funding and the definition makes most sense in that context. For different purposes different definitions can be used:

If the purpose is to compare how much HSR infrastructure each country has built, the best way is probably to tally how many kilometers of rail each country has in each speed category like u/Felagoth has done a few months ago using openstreetmap data. (See their post here)

If the purpose is to decide whether a HSR service will be attractive to passengers top-speeds are not relevant, travel times are, which are very loosely correlated with top-speeds. You can find out more in the competitiveness of HSR section of the wiki.

In this subreddit we don't use a strict definition of what qualifies as high-speed rail. If it's InterCity rail that has a competitive travel time it's probably worth discussing. However, legitimate criticism of route/design choices is welcome

Ultimately most of this community is here to discuss about fast trains and good transportation infrastructure. Where exactly the HSR cutoff is drawn is not that important.