In a sleepy corner of Lower Saxony in north-west Germany a stray gull flies casually into the path of a whitish blur, which looks like a train but is travelling at aeroplane speeds.

The bemused bird doesn't hear the maglev approaching.

It only escapes being squashed when an attendant on the maglev - this most modern of transports doesn't need a driver - sounds a warning horn. The bird rejoins its flock, which within seconds is a speck more than a mile away.

Before the Transrapid test-track was built in Emsland in the 1980s the quickest movers in this rural backwater were the tractors, which travel at a tenth of the maglev's speed and make rather more noise.

As the maglev starts up the magnets in the track or guideline gently lift the carriages 1cm. To the passenger the sensation is not unlike the initial jerk as a lift begins its journey. I can hear the low hum of electricity surging through the tracks and our ride begins.

The carriages are as wide as an aeroplane and feature rows of six seats, the sort you find in trains, side by side.

I need to keep looking up at the maglev's built-in speedometer to believe the speeds I am travelling at.

Within a minute we are cruising at 100mph and a minute later we are racing along at nearly double that.

During our 24 minute journey, in which we travel 50 miles, approximately, the distance from Durham City to Alnwick our maximum speed is 417kph or 260mph.

The most telling moment of my journey is when we start slowing down as we approach one of the track's two turning loops. After the speeds we have been travelling at, this pace seems almost pedestrian.

I look up at the speedometer. We are travelling at 200kph or close to 125mph, the speed of Britain's west coast Pendolino trains, the fastest ground transport in the UK.