(What was the second high-speed railway?)
'The first' here is of course a relative and thus so is the second, but an interesting subject.
The very first first could be Brunel's Great Western Railway: built with broad-gauge rails, wide curves and lots of superstructure to have small inclinations, and still today forming the spine of the West Coast Mainline, it was definitely a quality jump compared to other railways.
Then in the thirties, while Chicago-Minneapolis, Hamburg-Berlin and British lines got rather fast service, it was Mussolini's Direttissima lines and the Pennsy's Northeast Corridor upgrade that first produced truly dedicated high-speed lines. Still, ones for less than 200 km/h resp. 125 mph.
Then came the Shinkansen, the first truly separated purpose-built high-speed line, but when it started, top speed was barely above 200 km/h.
Italy again pre-empted others in Europe with a dedicated high-speed line, but it didn't yet have the trains to really make much of it -- so the French TGV got the first spot as a full system... *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
The US locos were maintaining their speeds for mile after mile, up hill and down hauling 1000 tons trains. keep to the Fen Causeway
Not quite. It is true that the LNER's Mallard might have briefly touched 125 mph on the way down Essendine bank, while a heavier Milwaukee Road test train maintained 120 mph for over five miles, with a possible maximum of 125 or 126 mph on a slight downgrade, but the best performances with steam Hiawathas were 30 miles or so at 100 mph but not exceeding 110 with at most nine car trains.
But I'm with DoDo in championing the Milwaukee Road as operator of the world's fastest steam engines. (And there's a lot about the Midwest Hiawatha line through Hampshire, Genoa, and Kirkland in my back yard that hasn't been properly investigated.) Stephen Karlson ATTITUDE is a nine letter word. BOATSPEED.
