>>1157878>The original Japanese railways generally used narrow gauge, but the increased stability offered by widening the rails to standard gauge would make very high-speed rail much simpler, and thus standard gauge was adopted for high-speed service.Seems to imply that it's possible to have high speed rail on smaller gauges. It's just a little more complicated. Records indicate that a South African cargo train was able to get upwards of 245 km/h in the 1970's on non-specialised tracks. JR Shikoku routinely runs relatively high speed trains going over 130 km/h all the time. Queensland Rail routinely runs the Electric Tilt Train at speeds exceeding that, at upwards of 160 km/h. The train is capable of speeds well over 210 km/h, and has done so.
I have a hard time believing that there's no capability for high speed rail, when the problems can be easily solved through modern engineering.
Additionally, high speed rail lines generally have their own independent tracks which do not connect to the rest of the network. It seems asinine to enforce high speed rail """standard gauge""" specifications when it's completely unnecessary.
