While the events in Germany hogged last month's headlines, speed records have been established in other countries too. Of special interest is the 404 km/h attained by one of Renfe's 16 AVE S103 trainsets on July 16 on a section of the Madrid - Lleida high speed line. To date Renfe has taken delivery of 12 sets, which are derivatives of the German ICE3 design. They are intended to run in commercial service at 350 km/h.

In Sweden, a fresh national speed record of 281 km/h was established on July 26 by a two-car Bombardier-built Regina trainset which had been specially modified for trials at up to 300 km/h. The tests were staged on the Stockholm - Göteborg main line as part of a programme to ascertain whether the present line speed limit of 200 km/h can be raised to 250 km/h in the future. The previous Swedish record of 276 km/h was set by an X2000 tilting trainset on July 21 1993.

For the moment the fastest speed recorded by a passenger-carrying train remains untouched at 515·3km/h. This was established by TGV Set 325 on May 18 1990 on the TGV Atlantique line in France. There are suggestions that an attempt is to be made to run even faster on TGV Est before that line opens in June next year.