Fastest Train

This episode reveals the engineering breakthroughs behind the world's fastest train.

The French 'Train à Grande Vitesse', known as the TGV regularly reaches speeds exceeding 300 kilometers per hour. In a special test, which cost 30 million Euro to develop, the train has been pushed to 575 kilometers per hour making it by far the fastest train on the planet.

But the TGV wasn't designed and built in a day.

It stands on the shoulders of historic engineering achievements that have allowed it to travel so fast. This film charts the stories of four historic inventions, embodied by landmark machines — giants of the railways.

One by one — travelling up the scale — this film reveals the incredible stories behind these machines and the inventions that drove them ever faster. Four ingenious leaps forward that enabled trains to evolve … from the world's first steam passenger train to the fastest train on the planet.

The film investigates how the engineer of the Rocket, Robert Stephenson, needed to develop a brand new boiler to get the most out of a steam engine. The film shows how he created the world's first steam powered passenger train, breaking speed records in the process and revolutionising travel. The episode explores how engineer Nigel Gresley made a breakthrough in aerodynamics to enable the UK's Mallard to go as fast as possible. We reveal the inventions that stabalise the high-speed Bullet Train designed by Tadashi Matsudaira in Japan.

At every stage the film shows how each invention is applied to the TGV as we follow the record breaking train in action. The film reveals how the train copes with huge shock waves when traveling through tunnels by clever aerodynamic design. It explores techniques for ensuring that the train is constantly in contact with the electric lines which provide power, even with the train traveling at speeds approaching half the speed of sound. The film investigates how designers of the TGV install revolutionary sensors to bring the speeding train to a stop in the event of an emergency.

Stunning CGI animations bring the four inventions and landmark machines to life. Combined with practical demonstrations this film provides the ultimate explanation of how ingenious technology enabled the train to evolve into a machine that can travel faster than 570 kilometres and hour, the French TGV.

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