# Why can planes travel faster than trains?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-planes-travel-faster-than-trains/595406>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 6, 2011, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-planes-travel-faster-than-trains/595406 "2011-09-06T17:21:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\
**Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-planes-travel-faster-than-trains/595406/41 "2011-09-07T20:47:14Z")

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> [@Machine\_Elf](#):
>
> High speed rail (e.g. [Japan’s Shinkansen system](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinkansen#Safety_record)) has a pretty impressive safety record, actually (I’m discounting China’s recent high-speed rail disaster here).

And the TGV has [never had a fatal accident](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV_accidents) on a high-speed rail track. The only fatal TGV accidents happened on conventional track (i.e. with level crossings, mixed traffic, etc).

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