Japanese railway clocks new maglev speed record

NAGOYA - JR Tokai, the main railway operator in central Japan, set a new speed record Thursday when the magnetic-levitation train it is testing in Yamanashi Prefecture clocked in at 590kph, breaking its old record of 581kph set 12 years ago.

This new record could be short-lived, however, because JR Tokai intends to gun for 600kph next Tuesday. If it accomplishes that feat, it will submit the event for a Guinness world record.

An L0-series maglev train running Thursday morning on the rail operator's Yamanashi Maglev test line cruised to the new speed standard.

Normal bullet trains on the company's Tokaido Shinkansen line travel at 285kph. When maglev trains come into operation in 2027 they will travel at a top speed of 505kph. The point of the high-speed tests is to collect data necessary for designing equipment.

JR Tokai also set a new distance record two days earlier when the L0-series train travelled 4,064km in a single day. That is more than twice the distance covered in a day by a Tokaido Shinkansen train.

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