Japonská železničná spoločnosť začala testovať vraj najrýchlejší vlak na svete, schopný dosahovať rýchlosť vyše 360 km/h. Nový vlak je dokonalejšou verziou slávneho vlaku Šinkansen. Podrobnejšie informácie nám zaslal tokijský spravodajca BBC Jonathan Head:

Vypočujte si správu

For years now, the world's fastest trains, operating in Japan and France, have been stuck at a maximum operating speed of around three hundred kilometers an hour - in fact the latest Japanese bullet trains travel a bit slower than their predecessors, the emphasis of the designers being more on smoothness and economy. Now JR East, the country's largest railway company, has unveiled a much faster train, capable of sustained speeds of around three hundred and sixty kilometers an hour.

The new train, which has been displayed in a dazzling teal colour, looks very similar to the streamlined models already running on Japan's high-speed railways, except for one unusual feature - extra emergency brakes in the form of cat's ears that rise from the roof of the carriages - this, a response to the derailment of a bullet train after an earthquake last year.

The testing will be extensive - the new train won't go into service for six years. Strictly speaking it isn't the world's fastest - that honour goes to magnetically-levitated trains which literally float above the track on an enormous magnetic field - and yes, 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. The technology is so prohibitively expensive that conventional railways are likely to dominate inter-city travel for many more years.

Jonathan Head, BBC News, Tokyo

Vypočujte si jednotlivé slová a slovné spojenia

stuck at
zastavili sa, neboli sa schopní pohnúť z tohto miesta

predecessors
predchodcovia, tu: staršie vlaky

unveiled
odhalili

sustained speeds
rýchlosť, ktorá zostáva dlho na rovnakej úrovni

dazzling
oslepujúci

derailment
vykoľajenie

magnetically-levitated
nadnášaný pomocou magnetizmu

float
vznášať sa

prohibitively
doslova: obmedzujúco, prohibitive = obmedzujúci