ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Land speed record for rail vehicles

Okay kiddo, you know how trains run on tracks, right? And have you ever seen a train go really fast? Well, the land speed record for rail vehicles is a special competition to see how fast a train can go on those tracks.

It's like a race, but instead of cars or people running, it's a train. The goal is to be the fastest train ever! People have been competing for this record for over 100 years - that's a really long time!

To set the record, a train has to go faster than any other train before it. The current record is held by a train called the TGV (which stands for Train à Grande Vitesse, or "high-speed train" in French). It went super fast, at over 357 miles per hour! That's like driving from one side of your state to the other really, really quickly.

To make a train go that fast, people need to build really special tracks that are very straight and very flat. The train itself is also designed to be super sleek, so that it can move quickly and easily through the air.

It's important to remember that this competition is not just about going fast for the sake of it - there are lots of reasons why fast trains are important. They can help people travel quickly and easily between cities, and they can also help make transportation more efficient and better for the environment.
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