On a desolate stretch of track just before midnight, when all passenger lines have been put to bed, a juiced-up Japanese bullet train goes online and accelerates to over 200 miles per hour. The 700-ton train, about a quarter of a mile long, whooshes by rice paddies in under five seconds.

There are no locals around to witness the train glide to a stop at a deserted Kyoto Station, but that's not the point. This is an accelerated sales pitch aimed squarely at the U.S., where Japan is competing with European train makers for a new high-speed train network that could deliver contracts worth hundreds of billions.

Diplomats, business leaders and journalists were crammed in to watch special speedometers record the feat last month, the first time operator Japan Central Railway Co. has allowed outsiders to join a test run. Rivals abroad said Japanese trains weren't up to spec, and JR Central wanted to set the record straight.

"In France and Germany they have been saying we can only do 280 kilometers (170 miles) per hour, so we had to demonstrate," says company chairman Yoshiyuki Kasai.

That Japan's bottle-nosed bullet trains _ known here as the "shinkansen" _ can hold their own against overseas models has long been a point of pride. But now a massive sales race is underway. While the majority of services to date have been built in Europe, where makers like France's Alstom and Germany's Siemens dominate, governments around the world are looking to upgrade as existing lines age.

A diverse group of countries is at various stages of introducing super trains, including Russia, the U.K., Vietnam and Brazil, but the U.S. is the ultimate prize.

President Barack Obama's stimulus package included an $8 billion provision for high-speed trains, and some say eventually $600 billion will be needed for a nationwide network. Japan's exports to the U.S. last year totaled about $140 billion.

A high speed network would drastically cut U.S. train times. The Washington to New York route would drop from two and half hours to about 70 minutes, according to Kasai. That would create a viable alternative to planes and cars, cutting down on traffic and depositing travelers at stations that are often in the city center.

Some analysts question whether cash-strapped Washington can afford to follow up the initial provision with more funds. But building new train lines can also be a vote winner, hitting political touchstones like jobs and reduced pollution.