High Speed Rail:
http://www.o-keating.com/hsr/
the ICE runs on its own dedicated high speed lines, the main one running from Fulda to Hannover, with a small section of line between Ulm and Frankfurt. Speeds up to 280km/h or 174mph can be achieved. In 1999 the 3rd generation of ICE will be introduced which will be capable of 330km/h or 205mph. However in service it is likely that it will be limited to 300km/h or 186mph. This will be for the Berlin-Hannover line currently being built.
GNER has ordered two Pendolini trains from Fiat Ferroviaria who is the Italian company who has the biggest market share in tilting trains. These tilting trains will run on the East Coast Mainline. If everything goes according to plan they will arrive in the UK in 2000. These trains will suplement the existing 31 Inter City 225 train to improve the timetable. GNER hopes to cut the journey time for the 400 mile journey from London to Edinburgh from 3hours 58 minutes to 3 hours 30 minutes on selected services. At the moment most of the signalling is only suitable for speeds up to 125 mph (200km/h), but there are plans to improve it to 140mph (225km/h) in the near future, and possibly further for the new trains. Even if maximum speeds are not improved, it will still be faster than conventional trains because the Pendolini's will be able to exceed speed restrictions on curves by up to 30% thanks to the tilting mechanism
Webring for high-speed train enthusiasts:
http://p.webring.com/hub?ring=speedtrain