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NUMBERSENSE: HIGH SPEED TRAINS COMING TO A CITY NEAR YOU

Directions:  Read the Article and fill in the numbers where they would make the most sense

FRANCE

Here it is: the high-speed train your kids will take when they backpack around Europe. It’s called the AGV (Automotrice a Grand Vitesse, which translates to High-Speed Self-Propelled Unit).

The French rail giant Alstom  unveiled  AGV in a press conference. Alstom says the AGV is both faster and more energy-efficient than its predecessor and its rivals. By comparison, the TGV tops out at _________(though last year a supercharged TGV set a world rail speed record at 357.2  mph), and Japan’s Shinkansen bullet train tops out at 185 mph.

The AGV’s gets a boost in speed and efficiency from a design that places engines underneath each car. This does away with the locomotives in front and back that drive the TGV, and results in ________ better fuel efficiency and 20 percent more passenger space than the TGV. (It can hold up to _____  people.)

To anyone who might still doubt the raw power of electric vehicles, consider this: A French bullet train—which draws its power from overhead lines—set a world speed record for conventional rail trains, hitting 357.2 miles an hour (______) with two locomotives and three passenger cars. It used a __________-horsepower engine and specially modified wheels to accomplish the feat.

Let’s think about that for a moment. It’s 100 mph faster than the Bugatti Veyron, the second fastest production car in the world. At 357.2 mph, you cover six miles each minute, a tenth of a mile each second. The effect on spectators was thunderous.  I can’t imagine what would have happened if, say, a cow had wandered onto the track; it probably would have just been vaporized. If anything had happened to the train itself, it would have been curtains for everyone—and one of the most terrible, protracted crashes in history.

St. Louis-Chicago high-speed rail gets $1.1B in stimulus         St. Louis Business Journal

A White House official visited St. Louis today to announce $__________ in stimulus money for high-speed rail between St. Louis and Chicago and another $31 million to upgrade passenger rail service between St. Louis and Kansas City.

Ed Montgomery, executive director of the White House Council on Automotive Communities and Workers, along with Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon and U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-Mo., made the announcement at the St. Louis Gateway Multimodal Transportation Center in downtown St. Louis.

The corridor would connect Chicago to St. Louis and Kansas City. Currently, _____ daily round trips operate between Chicago and St. Louis, and two daily round trips operate between St. Louis and Kansas City.

Ultimately, the long-term vision for the corridor is to reach speeds of ______ from Chicago to St. Louis to Kansas City, with up to eight daily round trips between Chicago and St. Louis.

The higher speeds, coupled with improvements resulting in increased on-time performance, would decrease travel time from Chicago to St. Louis to four hours, allowing customers to reach their destination _________ faster compared with current rail service, and 10 percent faster than driving between the two cities.

Improvements to the St. Louis to Kansas City commuter service would boost sizable reliability, with on-time performance projected to increase from 18 percent in 2008 to 85 percent by ________.
Rail projects in other cities, such as Los Angeles, Orlando and Albany N.Y. are also in the works. 

Math Problem: 
The distance between Chicago and St Louis is about 300 miles. 

How fast can a car get there if traveling at a constant speed of 60 mph? _______
How fast can a high speed train get there traveling at 100 mph? ________