China is the world’s leader in high-speed rail, boasting a robust network that has sprung up practically all within the last two decades. Now, the country has revealed the world’s first passenger train made completely from carbon fiber, Interesting Engineering reported. The new train could significantly cut down on pollution, largely thanks to its hugely reduced weight.
“In the field of rail transit, a key technology is to reduce the vehicle’s body weight and its energy consumption while ensuring vehicle performance towards a greener, low-carbon future,” Qingdao Sifang, the company behind the train, wrote on Chinese social media app WeChat, as reported by the South China Morning Post.
Qingdao Sifang reported that the train has already completed factory testing and will begin operations in a coastal city later this year.
The train has achieved a top speed of 87 mph, and Qingdao Sifang estimated that it will use 7% less energy than a standard steel train.
Even before this innovation, studies have shown that high-speed rail is the most planet-friendly form of long-distance travel, creating less air pollution per passenger than cars or planes while also minimizing noise pollution and taking up much less space than roadways.
China’s high-speed rail system, with its nearly 28,000 miles of track (and counting), is the envy of the rest of the world, with trains that can travel at speeds of up to 125 mph and transport people all over the vast country quickly, cheaply, and efficiently. Recently, the country reported that network operations and maintenance have been fully passed on to artificial intelligence.
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Other countries are attempting to catch up. The car-centric United States lags far behind but does have a few projects underway, including the long-awaited California High-Speed Rail network and a burgeoning privately owned high-speed rail network in Florida.
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