Estimated numbers indicate that at any given time, about 10 million people are riding trains in China. Part of the reason may be that the Chinese railway system covers most of the country, with the exception of the province of Hainan. Another reason might be the speed — the trains in China average a speed of 194 miles per hour (313 km/hr). And yet another reason may be the sheer size of the population in China — over 1.3 billion.
Faster than a speeding bullet facts:
- The high-speed railway network in China covers 4,071 miles (6,552 km).
- By comparison, the high-speed railway network in the United States covers 456 miles (734 km).
- The average speed of high-speed trains in the U.S. is 100 miles per hour (161 km/hr).
- Most of the trains in China include dining cars.
- The world's first high-speed, high-volume train — meaning it had 12 passenger cars or more — was the Tokaido Shinkansen train in Japan, which opened in 1964. It's average speed was 130 miles per hour (210 km/hr).
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