Fast French

THE French government has launched a Pounds sterling 55 million research
programme to develop a train a grande vitesse (TGV) for Europe. The four-year
programme, which will be carried out by GEC-Alsthom, the builders of the
TGV, is aimed at creating a train which will be able to run on four different
power supplies common in Europe, including those in Germany and Britain.
The train will have a top speed of 350 km/h, 50 km/h above the fastest TGV
route currently in operation. The Euro-TGV will also be able to tackle gradients
of up to 4 per cent, making the train equally suitable for the lightly graded
new high-speed lines in Germany and the original TGV line between Paris
and Lyons which has steep gradients.