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	TGV is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.
	This article appeared on Misplaced Pages's Main Page as Today's featured article on January 15, 2006.
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long tons, short tons, stones, and furlongs per fortnight

Why does an otherwise acceptable article have to be polluted with a bunch of unit conversions? The trains were all designed and operated in SI, so those are the only units we should see. 41.63.137.173 (talk) 08:38, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't see those units used anywhere in the article ("ton" does appear twice, but it is unfortunately not clear whether or not those are meant to be metric tonnes). If you are instead referring to the somewhat more common units of feet and miles per hour, then their usage is recommended by Misplaced Pages's manual of style, particularly the section regarding unit conversions. Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 17:47, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Chinese trains, speed restrictions, and records

There seems to be a bit of a dispute. Shall we try to find some kind of consensus on the talkpage, rather than editwarring?
The original text of the article said that TGV had lost its record for the fastest scheduled train service (a Chinese rail service took the record). FlyAkwa then changed that to say that TGV still holds the record, due to the announcement that the Chinese rail minister had ordered a slowdown of rail services during the crash. I think this is wrong, because:

1. The first source cited by FlyAkwa explicitly contradicts them and supports my point; timetables still show trains scheduled at higher speeds than 279 km/h. I'm glad that FlyAkwa asked me to read this; if FlyAkwa had read it they would not have assumed that it supported their point.
2. The second source cited by FlyAkwa is about a cap of maximum speeds, not average speeds between stops on a timetable. 300 is still significantly higher than 279. The source says nothing about the speed cap being permanent, and nor should it, as a kneejerk reaction following a rail accident.
3. Neither source retrospectively changes the speed of trains which have run for the last couple of years.

As and when a reliable source actually says that the TGV has regained its record, I would be happy to update the article accordingly. I expect more details will be available in the media in the next few weeks... bobrayner (talk) 15:57, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

From 2008 to July 2011, speed on the Wuhan-Guangzhou High-Speed Railway was 350 km/h. The best time was "Wuhan-Guangzhou North" in about 2h56, with an average speed of 313 km/h and max speed of 350 km/h.
Actual timetables give us as best time Wuhan-Guangzhou South (no more North) in about 3h33, with an average speed of 275 km/h and max speed of 300 km/h.
I have lot of other sources about this subject, but in french, it's why I don't cite them.
In my sources, lower speed is definitive, with reasons :
- To reduce too high energy-consumption
- To reduce too high wear
- To reduces prices (for travelers)
- To raise security.
I must be noted that fastest travel from departure to terminal station is still Chinese (it's the travel Wuhan-Guangzhou South, average 275 km/h), but fastest travel from station to station is french (Lorraine TGV - Champagne TGV, average 279 km/h).--FlyAkwa (talk) 20:14, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

If you have sources in French that are better than what you're working with now, then feel free to present them. See the guideline on citing non-English sources. Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 20:21, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

OK.
• Here is an extract in french of a news published in the major paper "" : "Pour rendre les trains plus sûrs mais aussi moins onéreux, le ministère des Chemins de fer a limité, à compter du 1er juillet, la vitesse maximale de l’ensemble des trains à 300 km/h, contre 350 km/h auparavant."
• On this tour operator portal  : "On est loin du triomphalisme des dirigeants chinois annonçant il y a moins d’un mois des vitesses de croisière de 380 km/h pour ces trains ! On a dû réduire (à 300 ou 250 km/h) la vitesse… soit-disant « pour faire des économies » mais le pouvoir lui-même dut reconnaître après quelques jours d’exploitation que c’était « pour améliorer la sécurité ». "
• In this official Chinese online paper "" : "ministre Liu Zhijun, a dit que les trains à grande vitesse rouleront à une vitesse de 300 km/h à compter du 1er juillet prochain, contre les 350 km/h annoncés précédemment.seules les quatre lignes principales Est-Ouest et Nord-Sud du réseau ferré à grande vitesse seront équipées de trains roulant à 300 km/h."
• On this news website dedicated to ecology, we can read "La nouvelle qui circulait depuis le début du mois a été confirmée officiellement par le ministère des chemins de fer. Les trains qui circulent aujourd’hui à 350 km/h sur les trajets Wuhan/Canton, Zengzhou/Xian et Pékin/Tianjin par exemple vont passer à partir de juillet à 300 km/h."
Etc. If you want more links, don't hesitate to ask.
I'm sorry, the TGV Duplex/POS is REALLY actually the fastest train in the World.--FlyAkwa (talk) 09:49, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

I will add this anecdote : the new "LGV Est" Paris-Germany, is limited to 320 km/h, and is used by french TGV POS and Germans ICE 3. In fact, ICE 3 have lot of difficulty to travel this speed, with lot of reliability problems and fragility. The chinese CHR2 is an ICE3.--FlyAkwa (talk) 09:49, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

The CRH2 is based on the Shinkansen... -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 10:13, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, CRH3, not CRH2. Theoretically capable of 350 km/h, but in fact 300 km/h is the limit for profitable use.--FlyAkwa (talk) 12:18, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

If you look at the timetable between the various stops the Chinese train is only about 2km/h slower between stops even now, so I've taken it out of a note. Its perfectly possible that the Chinese will raise the speed slightly on some of their services and become ahead. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:37, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

OK I've gone and checked the data again and according to the French Misplaced Pages the distance between Lorraine and Champagne stations is 167.5km. The fastest train I can see takes 37 minutes between those two stations. This gives an average speed of 271.6km/h. This is slower than the Wuhan Line which has a maximum speed of 275km/h and slower than the Beijing Shanghai line between Beijing South and Nanjing which takes 3 hours and 39 minutes on train G1 which according to the Misplaced Pages article is 1018.6km which works out at an average speed of 279.1 km/h. Thus the Chinese are still faster I'm afraid. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:04, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry : the TGV n°5400/5401 from Lille-Europe to Strasbourg, on 17 and 24 September, achieve the 167.5 km in 35 mn, with an average speed of 287 km/h, far beyond your Chinese trains. You can verify with Voyage SNCF. --FlyAkwa (talk) 17:29, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

And that previous speed is slower than speeds achieved by Chinese trains in recent months. What is the basis for your comparison? Timetabled speeds next week? The fastest operational speed achieved in the past? Or something else? bobrayner (talk) 18:02, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

OK I downloaded the timetable and the French do have a service at 8:23 on a saturday morning from Champagne to Lorraine which only takes 35 minutes. However its only one train a week in one direction. It could easily be that someone made a mistake with the timetable, or that the French want to win the contest of having a scheduled train that's the fastest in the world. Either way while it meets the letter of the criteria (and even that's dubious as they only manage that speed in one direction, if you add the fastest journey times in each direction they get to 279.2km/h) it doesn't really meet the spirit - the Chinese have several trains a day which are as fast as the G1 and they all run every day.

There is also the issue that the timetable only goes to the nearest minute and really for the kind of detail being requested here you need a more accurate timetable for the French - the Chinese not so much as their fastest run is for 1000km which is much further so the average speed doesn't change as much, but even so it would probably be useful.

I think the best solution is to say that the French lost the record in 2009 which is true and then not worry about the later record as basically both trains are equally fast. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:18, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Guys, we are speaking of fastest schedule. Not fastest daily, hourly, monthly, yearly links. Else we can detail for every days, or every minutes. Schedule = somewhere in the timetables.
Actually, in the timetables, the TGV has, for certain dates, a relations in 35mn for 167 km. SNCF travel-times are often different every days, without real "cadencement" like Swiss or China.
I'm working for SNCF, and I can assure you there is no mistakes in the timetables.
At least :
•this article is about TGV, and does not become a support for China propaganda or advertising.
•As we are unable to decide between the fastest trip
•As we are playing with one more or less minutes on a travel (35, 36, 37mn)
•as you haven't NO RELIABLE SOURCE (Chinese source is not reliable)
I propose to delete this entire paragraph.
--FlyAkwa (talk) 09:37, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

With regards to the schedule sure, but with speed records you always go both ways down the track so I fail to see why we shouldn't with the schedule records as well. With regards to mistakes, while there may be no known errors its guaranteed that there are errors in the timetable - no-one could possibly create such a document without errors. With regards to Chinese sources they are perfectly reliable for this kind of thing. Watches aren't illegal in China. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:17, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm puzzled by the argument that "Chinese source is not reliable" on the subject of Chinese trains, especially since FlyAkwa originally brought Chinese sources. bobrayner (talk) 18:28, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Also the bit that's unclear is the status from 2011 which I suggest we avoid mentioning. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:21, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure things will become clearer over time. Probably best to avoid mentioning the current situation directly; when sources start giving us a clearer message we can update the article again. No? bobrayner (talk) 19:24, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Dear FlyAkwa, I have edited the sentences which are the subject of this discussion, where you have raised some valid points (see below). I believe that my August 20 revision states the facts objectively.

On a related issue, to FlyAkwa: the French Misplaced Pages article "Accident ferroviaire de 2011 a Wenzhou" is very weak, the French Misplaced Pages administrators are requesting that the article be improved. The English Misplaced Pages article "Wenzhou train collision" is much better (confession: I wrote the "signalling" section of this article). As a fluent French speaker, perhaps you might be interested in expanding the French article, using info in Wenzhou train collision as a source? This is an important issue - the Wenzhou accident has caused a major slow-down of China's high-speed rail program, which is a competitor to the TGV.Prospero10 (talk) 18:13, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Hello Prospero10. Thank you for your intervention, and for reverting the pages, against Chinese propagandists.
As you says in your last sentence, all speed in china has been lowered in two steps :
• After the supplanting of railways minister Liu Zhijun, maximum speed has been lowered from 350 to 300 km/h for lot of reasons (high energy-consumption, high wear, prices, low security).]
• Following the Wenzhou accident, << Sheng Guangzu, the Minister of Railways, said that railways with a maximum speed of 350 km per hour (kph) will run at 300 kph, while those with a maximum speed of 250 kph will run at 200 kph. He added that railways whose speeds have been lifted to 200 kph will be slowed down to 160 kph>> ].
You're right about the "Wenzhou accident" french page, and I will try to work on it, from the English version.
I will add a personal opinion : Chinese uses (or copy) European and Japanese technology, but in these countries, maximum speed is 300 kph. But Chineses don't wonder about that. --FlyAkwa (talk) 20:50, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

What a controversy! I updated the sentence in 'Milestones' on 'highest scheduled speed' on August 20, WITHOUT CONSULTING THIS TALK PAGE (sorry!) but using the up-to-date 'China Train Guide' timetable which gives a fastest Wuhan-Guangzhou time of 3 hours 33 minutes. The helpful French links given above indicate that this slowdown occurred as of July 1st, and not following the Wenzhou train collision of July 23 as I thought.

I suggest that we cool down this battle, it's not a major issue. Since July 1st, 2011, the fastest Chinese trains have the same cruising speed of 300 km/h as do nearly all TGV's, except on the TGV Est where 320 km/h is authorized. Differences in point-to-point speeds are no longer major.

In the future, it will be interesting to see whether the Chinese trains are speeded up over 300 km/h. Both Siemens (CRH3 trains)and Kawasaki (CRH2 trains) have reportedly warned that this would create risks. Again, I suggest we tone down this discussion.Prospero10 (talk) 00:32, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

km/h to mph inconsistency

Throughout the article, 320km/h has been converted to both 199mph and 200mph (likewise 160km/h has been converted to 99mph and 100mph). I think there should be more consistency. Best part is, 320/1.609~=198.88, so I'd say 199mph is more accurate than 200 (even though it's so tempting to use a "nice" number such as 200)... Nineko (talk) 04:21, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

One of Misplaced Pages's finest templates is {{convert}}; I've corrected all the velocities to use this template so at least all the conversions will be consistent. There's still tons of manual distance conversions that still need updating to {{convert}}. I feel bad for whoever did all of those conversions manually... Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 17:57, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

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