How Fast Can China Go? On June 30, China had the first official run of a $32 billion high-speed train line between Shanghai and Beijing. "Faster (820 miles in 288 minutes) and sleeker than any other, the needle-nosed CRH380A symbolizes China’s accelerating pace, even as it faces questions about safety, and taps into an ancient rivalry with Japan." On page four, the article discusses what happened less than a month afterwards on July 23rd: the country's first accident involving a bullet train that killed 40 people near Wenzhou. As a result, 54 high speed trains were recalled, train speeds were reduced and an overhaul of the high-speed rail system was launched by Chinese authorities. [more inside]
posted by zarq on Sep 13, 2011 - 25 comments

Working on the railroad; 5.17 flash video that is strangely hypnotic.
posted by bwg on May 27, 2011 - 37 comments

Just keep going, you've got nothing to lose. [more inside]
posted by zooropa on Mar 29, 2011 - 46 comments

From Shinosaka to Tokyo (ver. 2)
posted by crunchland on Dec 10, 2010 - 5 comments

"In all my slow-motion work so far, I’ve used a static camera to capture a high-speed event. But, I wondered, what would happen if the camera was the fast-moving object? For instance, if you use a 210fps camera at 35mph, on playback at 30fps it’ll seem to the observer that they’re moving at walking pace- but everything observed will be operating at 1/7th speed." [more inside]
posted by gman on Nov 25, 2010 - 44 comments

On 27th November, Norwegian broadcaster NRK broadcast a 7.5 hour documentary showing every minute of the scenic train ride between Bergen on the Norwegian west coast, crossing the mountains to Oslo. Now, after removing all extraneous interviews, music clips and fancy trickery from the documentary, they are offering the entire, clean, 7 hour continuous front-camera version for free Creative Commons download. All 22Gb of it. Here's a fantastic 10 minute taster on YouTube.
posted by Beautiful Screaming Lady on Dec 21, 2009 - 97 comments

Railway TV. Live video from the front of a train in Japan. [more inside]
posted by brownpau on Dec 10, 2007 - 14 comments

A window to the world by car or train. Passingby: Videos uploaded to Youtube, showing various parts of the world, from the vantage point of someone just passing by. (Flash, video, youtube link)
posted by zabuni on Nov 26, 2007 - 7 comments

London to Brighton in Two Minutes (2006) [HI Apple Quicktime, LO Adobe Flash] preceeded by London to Brighton in Three-and-a-Half Minutes (1983) [RealMedia, context] preceeded by London to Brighton in Four Minutes (1953) [RealMedia, context]
posted by riotgrrl69 on Oct 1, 2006 - 21 comments

Riding the Maglev: The japanese super-train has been undergoing tests for a number of years (previous MeFi-post). The Shanghai Maglev Train is already in service. What is now just a run on the test track could become the second maglev route in service and perhaps eventually replace the famous Shinkansen bullet train? 500 km/h: from Tokyo to Osaka in an hour?
posted by bering on Jan 16, 2006 - 38 comments