Upon the miasma of midnight, a darkling spirit identified as Theo
Markettos gently breathed:
In uk.railway Arthur Figgis wrote:
Presumably it's a bit hard to illustrate a US high speed train, unless
you can snap an Acela on right little bit of track.

Wired takes a different approach:
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/0...asttrack/all/1

Interesting, but they manage to get their details just a tad wrong in
places (and fail to mention Mallard at all!):

Midland Railway, England (90 mph)
It took almost a decade for England to regain its dominance with a
record-breaking run aboard an 8-foot-long, eight-wheeled locomotive from
Melton Mowbray to Nottingham

I really don't want to think what the ride would be like on an
eight-foot long loco doing 90mph over the jointed track of 1897!
Presumably it was a single wheeler with 8' drivers? Or was it some
esoteric contraption fuelled entirely by finest pork pies? :-)