I mean &quot;nowhere near&quot; in the sense that the outliers -- the current and previous record holder for average speed -- haven&#x27;t managed to crack your proposed 180mph criterion for &quot;high speed&quot;, and the non-outliers definitely aren&#x27;t coming close to that number. Common definitions of &quot;high speed&quot; rail kick in at 200kph or 250kph, which are 124mph and 155mph respectively.<p>Even if we go with the higher of those numbers, that&#x27;s still around a 13% minimum difference in average speed between what&#x27;s accepted and what you&#x27;re proposing.<p>(for non-Americans, what I&#x27;m arguing with here is the idea that ~290kph would be the minimum <i>average</i> speed to call something &quot;high speed rail&quot;)