TGV Paris

The TGV Paris Sud-Est
The very first electric TGV launched in 1981 was the TGV sud-est which is the famous orange train as show above, which in commercial use it travels at speeds up to 168 mph (270 km/h)and set a speed record of 236 mph (370km/h) in 1981, which was a world record for a train at the time. Amusingly this is the slowest TGV around, as all other generations of TGV can run at up to 186mph (300km/h) in commercial use. There are about a hundred of these trainsets in operation. This was a complete success story, although not getting government backing this created the most profitable service on SNCF, and paid for itself in just a few years. This success story is what lead to the later generations of the TGV