Japan’s standing rail system, already considered to be one of the most efficient in the world, has proved its metal yet again. The country’s Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd, recently announced that it is developing the country’s fastest high speed train, offering a speed of 217 miles per hour much above the previous record-holding Shinkansen’s 186mph ! This “Environmentally Friendly Super Express Train” (efSET) not only promises to be less noisy, more energy efficient, and will feature a state-of-the-art electrical control system, this streamlined design also will feature an extremely lightweight and aerodynamic profile in addition to a regenerative braking system that will recycle the kinetic energy generated by its movement. So this one is a positive eco-friendly system.
The company plans to freeze the design by 2010 after which they shall start the production & sales. Estimating that 10,000 km of high-speed railways will be deployed over the next 20 years, the company has already announced that it plans to prepare the efSET for international release.

Let’s hope they turn soon towards the states. Moreover, if trains were so, who’s got the need to travel in airplanes?
Via Inhabitat