SNCF Class BB 9004

SNCF Class BB 9004 is a French electric locomotive built in the 1950s as one of a small group of prototype locomotives used by the French national railway to test high-speed electric traction, most notably setting a world rail speed record of 331 kilometers per hour in March 1955, briefly matched the same day by a sister locomotive, CC 7107. The record runs, conducted on a specially prepared stretch of track, demonstrated that conventional steel-wheel electric locomotives could sustain speeds far beyond normal service operation and provided engineering data that influenced the later development of high-speed rail in France, including the eventual TGV program, and the locomotive itself has been preserved as a landmark artifact of French railway history.