High-speed trains are a way of life in Asia, and a Redditor shared a jaw-dropping scene recently with a pair of them going toe-to-toe.
The marvelous 30-second video shows one high-speed train easily outrunning another.
It's not clear where this was filmed, though the poster said the slower train was a CRH380CL and that one or both of the units were traveling at 350 kilometers per hour (217 miles per hour).
A handful of countries in Europe as well as Morocco feature superfast rail travel, but it's a safe bet this happened in China — home to the three fastest trains in the world.
The country has focused on high-speed rail for more than a decade now, and the results are astonishing. Its 26,000 miles of lines are many more than the combined total of all other countries, and almost 2,000 miles of that carried cars at 217 miles per hour as of June 2022.
Since the coronavirus pandemic, train travel in China has boomed, Bloomberg reported in November, touting it as a "cheaper, more convenient, comfortable, and ultimately faster" way to travel.
Passengers can also access the internet, which is not always possible on an airplane. China's high-speed railways handled 830 million trips in July and August, compared to airlines' 130 million trips.
It's great news for the environment.
"Commercial air travel emits seven times the carbon emissions per passenger kilometer than [high-speed rail]," according to a 2021 study. "Results demonstrate a strong link between air travel and air carbon emissions. Increases in China's HSR routes have contributed to significant and large negative impacts on air travel and accompanying air carbon emissions. Mode substitution from air travel to HSR has led to an 18% decline in air carbon emissions in recent years, saving the environment an annual 12 million metric tons [13.2 million tons] in net carbon emissions."
Despite concerns that China is engaging in debt-trap diplomacy via its high-speed rail partnerships with other countries, the projects are picking up steam. One of the latest, linking Bandung and Jakarta in Indonesia, turns a 75-mile journey into a 44-minute jaunt, sparking envy in the United States, home to high-speed rail ambition but zilch in the way of trains traveling at blazing speeds.
"So good that it doesn't look real to me," one commenter said.
Another wrote: "The Chinese high speed rail network is a must ride at some point in your life! Especially on some of the rural routes (I rode changsha -> hangzhou) where you pass by the countryside — the views are gorgeous."
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