Global Railway Networks and High-Speed Rail

High-speed passenger rail began with Japan's Tokaido Shinkansen, which opened on 1 October 1964, just days before the Tokyo Olympics, connecting Tokyo and Osaka at initial operating speeds of around 210 kilometers per hour, a service that halved travel time on Japan's busiest corridor and demonstrated that dedicated, grade-separated track could make rail competitive with domestic air travel. France followed in September 1981 with the TGV (Train a Grande Vitesse) Paris-Sud-Est line between Paris and Lyon, built with Alstom-manufactured trainsets running at up to 260 kilometers per hour on newly constructed dedicated track rather than shared conventional lines, a model subsequently adapted across France's national network and exported to Spain's AVE and South Korea's KTX systems.