TGV

TGV

Three TGV trains at Paris Gare de l'Est
Locale	France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain
Dates of operation	1980–
Track gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in)
Website	TGV on sncf.com

TGV (French: Train à Grande Vitesse, "high-speed train") is France's intercity high-speed rail service, operated by SNCF, the national rail operator. It was developed in the 1970s by GEC-Alsthom and SNCF. Originally designed as turbotrains to be powered by gas turbines, the prototypes evolved into electric trains with the 1973 oil crisis. Following the inaugural service between Paris and Lyon in 1981 on the LGV Sud-Est ("LGV") (French: Ligne à Grande Vitesse, high-speed line), the network, centred on Paris, has expanded to connect main cities across France and in adjacent countries on combinations of high-speed and conventional lines.

A TGV test train set the record for the fastest wheeled train, reaching 574.8 km/h (357.2 mph) on 3 April 2007. In mid-2011, scheduled TGV trains operated at the highest speeds in conventional train service in the world, regularly reaching 320 km/h (200 mph) on the LGV Est, LGV Rhin-Rhône, and LGV Méditerranée. According to Railway Gazette reports in 2007, the world's fastest scheduled rail journey was a start-to-stop average speed of 279.4 km/h (173.6 mph) between Gare de Champagne-Ardenne and Gare de Lorraine on the LGV Est line, not surpassed until Railway Gazette's 2013 reported average of 283.7 km/h (176.3 mph) express service on the Shijiazhuang to Zhengzhou segment of China's Shijiazhuang–Wuhan High-Speed Railway.