For years now, the world’s fastest trains, operating in Japan and France, ha

For years now, the world’s fastest trains, operating in Japan and France, have been stuck at a (36)maximum operating speed of around three hundred kilometers an hour in fact the latest Japanese bullet trains travel a bit slower than their (37)predecessors, the emphasis of the designers being more on (38)smoothness and economy. Now JR East, the country’s largest railway company, has (39)unveiled a much faster train, capable of (40)sustained speeds of around three hundred and sixty kilometers an hour.
    The new train, which has been (41)displayed in a dazzling color, looks very (42)similar to the streamlined models already running on Japan’s high-speed railways, except for one unusual feature extra (43)emergency brakes in the form of cat’s ears that rise from the roof of the carriages this, a response to the derailment (出轨) of a bullet train after an earthquake last year.
    (44)The testing will be extensive since the new train won’t go into service for six years. Strictly speaking it isn’t the world’s fastest that honor goes to magnetically-levitated trains which literally float above the track on an enormous magnetic field and yes, (45)the fastest of those is also Japanese, an experimental model that has hit speeds of close to six hundred kilometers an hour.
    But only one maglev network is in operation today a German system, built in Shanghai and it only covers the thirty kilometers from the airport to the city. (46)The technology is so expensive that conventional railways are likely to dominate inter-city travel for many more years.