A high-speed train's locomotive could be steam-powered, diesel-powered, or electric. Britain and the United States were the two foremost countries in the field of high-speed steam train research.
The Flying Scotsman currently operating in Britain could reach a top speed of 160 kilometers per hour, while America's fastest steam train could also reach 140 kilometers per hour. Yet this was not Britain's limit. In his previous life, only a few years later, a steam train developed by Britain had even set a record exceeding 200 kilometers per hour.
As for the United States, although it also had diesel locomotive development projects, they had not yet been widely adopted. In his previous life, America did not begin phasing out steam locomotives on a large scale and replacing them with diesel locomotives until after the 1940s.
Among the world's major industrial powers, East Africa perhaps had the weakest foundation and least strength in steam locomotive development. That could not be helped. At the end of the nineteenth century, East African industry had still been learning from Europe and America, and only at the beginning of this century had its independent R&D capacity begun to improve.
But by this time, it was already the age of internal combustion engines. Steam power could still display its tremendous might in shipbuilding, but even there, it faced competition from internal combustion engines.
Yet this also placed East Africa and Germany in the first rank worldwide in diesel and electric locomotives. Before 1910, Germany had firmly held first place. Beginning in the 1920s, East African military industry and scientific research had exerted their full strength across the board and caught up with Germany.
Although East Africa had made an early start, Germany's formidable industrial strength and deep accumulation of talent from the late nineteenth century to the