In October 1903, a few days apart, two trains run along a 23km test track in Germany, from Berlin-Marienfelde to Zossen. The two trains are the first to use an alternating current to push the train forward on the rails.
First comes a train from the company Siemens & Halske, almost 24 metres long and 89 tonnes in weight; it reaches a speed of 206.7km/h, astonishing at a time when the record for the fastest ever steam train sits at a not-unimpressive 149km/h. Yet the Siemens record stands only for the few days before AEG’s almost identical electric train reaches a speed of 210.2km/h. The new world record marks the beginning of a new era for railways. Although steam engines would continue to pull trains for decades (the last official passenger steam train to run in Australia was in 1970), the future was clearly electric.
Cheap air travel sometimes threatens to outcompete long-distance trains, but engineers’ ability to make trains ever faster has made rail competitive in countries where high-speed rail has been made an investment priority. This hasn’t happened here
