Editing Rail transport (section)

===High-speed rail===
{{Main|High-speed rail}}

Although steam and diesel services reaching speeds up to {{Cvt|200|km/h}} were started before the 1960s in Europe, they were not very successful.

[[File:Shinkansen type 0 Hikari 19890506a.jpg|thumb|0-Series [[Shinkansen]], introduced in 1964, triggered the intercity train travel boom.]]
The first electrified [[high-speed rail]] [[Tōkaidō Shinkansen]] was introduced in 1964 between [[Tokyo]] and [[Osaka]] in Japan. Since then [[high-speed rail]] transport, functioning at speeds up to and above {{Cvt|300|km/h}}, has been built in Japan, Spain, [[TGV|France]], Germany, Italy, the People's Republic of China, [[Taiwan High Speed Rail|Taiwan]] (Republic of China), the [[High-speed rail in the United Kingdom|United Kingdom]], [[Korea Train Express|South Korea]], Scandinavia, Belgium and the Netherlands. The construction of many of these lines has resulted in the dramatic decline of short-haul flights and automotive traffic between connected cities, such as the London–Paris–Brussels corridor, Madrid–Barcelona, Milan–Rome–Naples, as well as many other major lines.{{Citation needed|reason=
If this is correct, it's a strong argument in favor of building more high-speed rail lines. It would help to have quantitative estimates of the magnitude of this effect including as a function of distance with credible sources for those estimates. For example, could similar effects be obtained from high-speed rail between San Francisco and Los Angeles, where the distances are 60 percent more than between [[London]], [[Paris]] and Brussels?|date=December 2013}}

High-speed trains normally operate on [[standard gauge]] tracks of [[continuously welded rail]] on [[Grade separation|grade-separated]] [[Right-of-way (transportation)|right-of-way]] that incorporates a large [[Minimum railway curve radius|turning radius]] in its design. While high-speed rail is most often designed for passenger travel, some high-speed systems also offer freight service.