Zapraszam na przejażdżkę chińską, superszybką torpedą, lewitującą na poduszce magnetycznej. Torpeda osiąga szczytową prędkość 431 km/h.
"If everything went as promised, I would rocket 30km away from my boarding gate. When I arrived at the Longyang Road station less than eight minutes later, the idea was to exit and immediately catch the next train back. If all went as planned, the entire 60km round-trip would take less than 20 minutes.If not, there was going to be an interesting conversation with an airline representative explaining why I had my missed my flight.
This was my last chance to bail. Sucking in my breath, I shoved a 100-yuan bill into the machine.
A moment later I stepped into a gleaming, gold-pillared entrance hall. A digital clock counted down the seconds to the next departure. Thanks to my hesitation at the ticket machine I had just missed the previous train, and it would be nearly eight minutes until the next one arrived.Before the clock reached one minute, a sleek, white, four-carriage train hummed into the station. The doors slid open and I stepped into a clean, modern vehicle with blue corduroy seats. Nice enough, but nothing remarkable except for a digital clock and speedometer at each end of the carriage.
The moment the countdown clock hit zero, the doors shut and we slipped out of the station.
The train immediately accelerated, and, like a high-tech drag racer, it kept accelerating. In no time, the speedometer reached 100kph, then 200. With each milestone, the carriage grew more animated. I’d expected my fellow travellers to be nonchalant, flipping through their smartphones and ignoring the marvel of the trip. Instead they were giddy as school children.At 300kph, passengers began standing in the aisle, posing for pictures in front of the speedometer. Landscape smeared by the windows. Inside the car, a white noise hum grew louder. "I feel like I'm flying,” yelled out Tin Nguyen, a visitor from California."
A moment later, we topped out at 431kph, hovering there just long enough to bask in the wonder. Then the train began to slow: 300kph, then 250. At 100, it felt like we were crawling."
www.bbc.co(*)gh-speed-getaway-like-no-other