English for 高铁 and 动车?

[tooironic]

So I know 高铁 is "high-speed rail", but what about 动车? AFAIK, 动车 is not as fast as 高铁, but still faster than a normal 火车. So how can we translate it into English in consideration of this?

[歐博思]

http://www.uic.org/spip.php?article971 might be an interesting read.

 

 

And IMO, each layer below is progressively more delimited as to what kind of train being described:

 

Train>High-Speed Rail>Bullet Train

[陳德聰]

As far as I can tell, 動車 (動車組) is the generic term for high-speed rail, and 高鐵 is the term that was coined for the particularly fast high-speed trains.

 

I agree that "bullet train" sounds faster than high-speed rail, but in reality the distinction is nowhere near standardized.

[aone]

动车DONG-TRAIN has 2 types。电动车Electric Multiple Units（EMU ）和 柴油动车Diesel-fuel Multiple Units（DMU).  

 

Originally, it is a technical term indicating a kind of technology which is applied on most (if not all) of high-speed rail (GXXX),  Intercity rail(CXXX) and Dong train(DXXX). Essentially, there aren't many differences between high-speed rail and Dong train. 

 

They say, Train<Bullet Train= Dong Train<High-Speed Rail, but I see none sharp difference on speed, It takes me 2 hours from Qingdao to Jinan, either by GXXX or by DXXX. 

[stapler]

let's not forget the noble 绿皮车！

[maomao2014]

铁道部目前定义：动车指代时速在200公里级别的铁路线路；高铁指代时速在300公里级别的铁路线路  

一般而言，动车在有砟铁路上，高铁在无砟铁路上   砟，是岩石、煤等碎片的意思，无砟轨道指的就是没有小石头的轨道。

动车的线路类型：1.对既有线路实行电气化改造  2.新建的电气化线路

高铁的线路类型：新建的无砟轨道。 

动车组指的是列车的类型,高铁用的是动车组。它是中国独有的叫法，区别于以前的普通列车。  I guess you cannot find the counterpart in English

http://view.news.qq.com/zt2011/DGC/index.htm

[歐博思]

Also consider if the distinction is that important to even make. I'm taking a train from Hangzhou to Xiamen next week, and G and D trains both take the same amount of time.

[Michaelyus]

The difference between 高铁 and 动车 is specific to the mainland, so I'd translate the latter as D train/rail/ other appropriate term when necessary. 

 

The term on Taiwan is 高鐵 [exclusively?]. The French TGV is given the standard translation 高速列车.

[floatingmoon]

Actually they are the same thing.