Inter-city rail

Inter-city rail services are express passenger train services that cover longer distances than commuter or regional trains.

There is no precise definition of inter-city rail; its meaning may vary from country to country. Most broadly, it can include any rail services that are neither short-distance commuter rail trains within one city area, nor slow regional rail trains calling at all stations and covering local journeys only. Most typically, an inter-city train is an express train with limited stops and comfortable carriages to serve long-distance travel.

Inter-city rail sometimes provides international services. This is most prevalent in Europe, due to the close proximity of its 50 countries in a 10,180,000 square kilometre (3,930,000 sq mi) area.Eurostar and EuroCity are examples of this. In many European countries the word "InterCity" or "Inter-City" is an official brand name for a network of regular-interval, relatively long-distance train services that meet certain criteria of speed and comfort. This use of the term appeared in the United Kingdom in the 1960s and has been widely imitated.

The speeds of inter-city rail lines are quite diverse, ranging from 50 km/h (31 mph) in a mountainous area or on undeveloped tracks to 200–350 km/h (124–217 mph) on newly constructed or improved tracks. As a result, Inter-city rail may or may not fall into the category of higher-speed rail or high-speed rail. Ideally, the average speed of inter-city rail service would be faster than 100 km/h (62 mph) in order to be competitive with car, bus and other methods of transport.

The distance of an inter-city rail journey is usually at least 50–100 km (31–62 mi), although in many large metropolitan areas commuter and regional services cover equal or longer distances.

A distance of 100–500 km (62–311 mi) is a common journey distance for inter-city rail in many countries. In many cases, railway travel is most competitive at about 2–3 hours journey time. Inter-city rail can often compete with highways and short-haul air travel for journeys of this distance.

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