China has broken another world record. Two Chinese high-speed trains have passed by each other at a speed of more than 400 kilometers per hour.

In a meeting of less than two seconds, a new world record was born. Two CRH trains in Henan province passed by eachother travelling at 420 kilometers per hour. It is the fastest speed that two trains have ever passed by each other. 

The test ride went smoothly despite extreme wind pressures generated from the trains’ high speeds. There were no problems for the carriages and none for the people on board, just plenty of valuable experiment data.

“When two trains pass by eachother almost head on, the pressure is huge. Moreover, the situation creates a great imbalance between pressure inside the train and outside the carriage. The experiment has taught us what the situation is really like so we can make improvements,” said Wang Yueming, China Academy of Railway Science. 

The trains were equipped with more than 2,000 sensors. They gathered data on noise, energy use, and vibration. All of those variables change dramatically when trains pick up speed. But China’s newest trains can make automatic adjustments to cope with the changes.

“The system that we used for the experiment works automatically. So its success shows that China has fully mastered the technologies needed for high-speed train development,” said Zhou Li, Dept. of Technology Management, China Railway.

Less than three hours after the first experiment, China made history again by succesfully hitching together two different train models with completely different train circuitry. The two experiments will help make Chinese transportation more efficient in the future.