German Railways is celebrating 20 years of high speed rail services.

The first scheduled Inter City Express ran from Hamburg to Frankfurt on 2 June 1991.

It carries 210,000 passengers a day and the train fleet has covered 900 million miles.

On the new high speed Cologne-Frankfurt and Nuremberg-Ingolstadt, the ICE 3 trains run at 185 miles per hour.

ICE trains are also used for international traffic to Switzerland, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark and Austria and in 2010 appeared briefly at London St Pancras.

The latest version of the ICE train will be launched next year and should be able to operate to London and Paris.

French TGV services started 10 years earlier, while Japanese "Bullet" trains have been running for 47 years – since 1964.

Britain is at last planning its own high speed rail network and Railfuture is staging a high speed rail conference tomorrow, 9 July 2011, at Bletchley Park.

Today transport chiefs in South Yorkshire are urging the public to have their say to encourage the Government to build a high speed rail link from London to Birmingham and beyond.

At its meeting in Barnsley on 7 July, the South Yorkshire Integrated Transport Authority, made up of councillors from four districts, gave its backing to plans to build the system, which has the potential to bring massive employment and business gains to the region.

The Government is currently consulting on its plans to build a Y-shaped high speed rail network from London to the West Midlands, which would then fork with one arm going to Manchester and the other through the East Midlands, South Yorkshire and on to Leeds.

That consultation closes on Friday 29 July 2011 but the proposals face vocal opposition from some areas closer to London. Councillors believe South Yorkshire people should drown out the critics by loudly supporting the plans.

“It is vital that South Yorkshire is connected to the proposed High Speed Rail network," said Mick Jameson, chairman of SYITA.

"The system will be as important to us and generations to come as our current rail lines to London or the M1 motorway. Maybe even more so.

“We urge people to visit the Department for Transport's website and fill in their details giving their support for the project.

"The more people that express their support for HSR to South Yorkshire the more chance that it will actually get built.”

South Yorkshire’s response to the Government’s consultation said that 91% of businesses in the county are in favour of a HSR network.

Trains would travel up to 250mph slashing journey times between South Yorkshire and London to one hour, 15 minutes.

Capacity on the Midland main line and East Coast main line would be freed up as well, reducing overcrowding.

Studies undertaken on behalf of Leeds and Sheffield city regions show that the route north of Birmingham will serve up to 6.7 million people and create three million jobs.

Detailed proposals for the high speed line to the West Midlands have already been made public, but there are no details of the route through South Yorkshire as yet.

Anyone wishing to support the HSR plans for South Yorkshire should go to DfT and fill out the form.

Information from Deutsche Bahn DB and SYITA

Railfure conference