China is also catching up. Meanwhile in the U.S., the fastest train,known as Acela, reaches less than half those speeds and only operates between Washington, New York and Boston.
VOA: standard.2010.02.15
Similarly, it's only 40 miles from Manchester to Leeds, but thefastesttrain takes nearly an hour.
China already has the world's fastest long-range passenger train(the "Harmony" averages 220mph on the Guangzhou-Wuhan route, compared with 170mph for France's TGV), and soon expects to have the world's largest high-speed rail network too.