New TGV speed record-357.2 mph (574.9 km/h)!

After months of preparations and some unofficial speed records in February in the 344 mph area the new official speed record set today stands at 357.2 mph. Note that this was done with steel wheel on steel rail, not maglev. Yahoo news article here. Video of the event here-the commentary is obviously in French. Of course, such speeds are not reached during commercial service. This was merely a test to demonstrate the ultimate capability of the TGV system.

Now if only this could light a collective fire under the behinds of us Americans to build our own system, and set a new record of our own, as well as sell the system overseas much as the French plan to do.

Never will happen in the USA. Take a broad look around and you'll see nothing but a crumbling infrastructure of now out of date systems....all areas not just transportation.
Basic pass the buck, and never enough money, political rhetoric.

Any domestic spending has been wiped clean by the cost of the wars.
Any personal resources have been reduced by the crashing housing market and very high cost of living for the next few years to come.
IMHO, there seems to be a malaise in the USA these days. Our competitive spirit, can-do attitude, and sense of unity has evaporated. Our collective asses are getting kicked by everyone and in almost every arena.

Our geography and population densities aren't conducive to mass transit of 'TGV' scales.

Only in CA, Northeast corridor, would such a system be useful, but the cost and land acquisition issues would sink the idea.

But hats off to the French and their TGV! Great achievement. Must be some impressive bearings in those bogies. The stresses are remarkable.
I worked for a company developing magnetic bearings to eliminate such parasitic loads and wear. Bearings that can take such a daily beating is no small engineering task.

Sadly, you're probably right. In many cases we can't even afford to take care of existing mass transit systems, never mind build new ones. The sad part is the French (and Japanese) with their system of electric trains mostly powered by nuclear reactors are going to be in far better shape than we are as the oil supplies start to run out.

Actually, assuming we had the will to build it, a TGV system would work well here along any medium to heavily traveled air corridors out to a distance of at least 1000 miles. It could also largely replace our aging Interstate highway system if we had local connecting mass transit. Remember that France isn't a particularly densely populated country either yet the system is viable there. I suspect the real problem getting a system like this built is just an ingrained animus against any sort of public transportation among many of our elected officials. That being said, if we could just get one or two systems built here my guess is every state would want one.

As far as I know, there's nothing special about the bearings used in the TGV other than maybe being made to somewhat greater precision than normal bearings. The TGV runs at a very light (by railway standards) maximum axle load of 17 metric tons so this reduces the stress on the bearings at speed. Also, the test train was fitted with larger than normal wheels to keep the RPMs down.

Yes, this is an enormously impressive achievement-nearly six miles a minute without resorting to exotic technologies like maglev. Better yet, it was considered safe enough that journalists were on board the test train. Fourty years ago it was a widely accepted "fact" that ~125mph was the maximum daily operational limit of conventional railways. Even though the French had broken 200 mph in the 1950s it caused enormous damage to the track, thereby relegating it to a one-time stunt. Thanks to years of perserverence and evolutionary development we can now run at 200 mph day in and day out. Furthermore, my guess is we still haven't seen the real limits of steel wheel on steel rail. By about 2012 France and Japan will increase running speeds to 360 km/hr (224 mph). Perhaps 400 mph will be exceeded in tests.