Railways were the first form of rapid land transportation and had
an effective monopoly on passenger traffic until the development of the motor
car and airliners in the early-mid 20th century.
Speed had always been an important factor for railroads and they
constantly tried to achieve higher speeds and decrease journey times. Rail
transportation in the late 19th Century was not much slower than non-high-speed
trains today and many railroads regularly operated relatively fast express
trains which averaged speeds of around 100 km/h (62 mph). High-speed rail is a type of
rail transport that operates significantly faster than traditional rail
traffic, using an integrated system of specialized rolling stock and dedicated
tracks. The first such system began operations in Japan in 1964 and was widely
known as the bullet train.
In
the present book, fifteen typical literatures about High-speed
Railway published on international authoritative journals were selected
to introduce the worldwide newest progress, which contains reviews or original
researches on transportation system, technology,
ect. We hope this book can demonstrate advances in High-speed
Railway as well as give references to the researchers, students and
other related people.