186mph or 300km/h is currently as fast as trains go, and these types of speeds are what's making railways important again as a way for people to travel, as travelling by car will often mean many multiples of the train journey time.
It is worth pointing out that 300km/h is very very fast, at these speeds it takes only 18 seconds to travel a mile, and 12 seconds to travel one kilometre.
Obviously France, who has been operating TGVs at these speeds daily since 1989. Now there are literally hundreds of TGV trainsets in France capable of this speed.
Pictures
Recenlty the latest breed of Bullet trains, the Shinkansen introduced in 1996 can run at 300 km/h
Pictures
Since 1996 Italian EMUs have been able to run at 300km/h
Pictures
The Spanish AVE which is essentially a TGV built to spanish railway specifications runs at 300 km/h in Spain
Pictures
In 1999 the next generation of ICE trains will be introduced, running at up to 330km/h (206 mph)
The Eurostar will be able to run at 300km/h in Britain once the high speed rail link is completed in 2003. There are currently no plans for domestic services at 300km/h
Pictures of the Eurostar
The St-Petersbourg to Moscow link will have trains running at 250km/h (155 mph) and at 350km/h (220 mph) in 1999
Once the high speed railway lines are complete, International trains such as the Eurostar and the Thalys will be able to run at 300km/h. There are currenlty no plans for domestic services at 300km/h.
Pictures of the Thalys
Amtrak has talked about getting high speed rail in the USA by buying French TGVs. Whether or not anything will materialise is down to politics. For more information: American TGVs
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