All aboard! A whistle blows, white steam puffs into the sky, and this big journey is only just beginning, so turn the page and hop on.
Japan's first bullet train line, the Tokaido Shinkansen, opened way back in 1964, and its trains now zip along at up to about 180 miles per hour. That is so fast the fields and towns outside your window would whoosh past in a green blur.
Freight trains can be astonishingly long. In the United States a typical big freight train stretches more than a mile from end to end, and the longest ones roll on for more than two and a half miles.
The world's very first underground railway opened in London in 1863, more than 160 years ago. It was called the Metropolitan Railway, and it carried passengers beneath the busy streets between Paddington and Farringdon.
Look closely at a train wheel and you will spot a secret: it is not flat like a tin can. Each wheel is slightly cone shaped, and that clever slant is what keeps a speeding train sitting snugly on its rails.
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