[voodoo]

El Alta Velocidad francés marca un nuevo récord al alcanzar los 574,8 km/h. ideal.es



That's like getting close to jet speed on ground. It took the train about 10 km to come to a full stop after hitting the almost 575 km/h. I am most impressed by the TGV. I've travelled on it, but it didn't quite go that fast then

Well, congrats to France and TGV!

(oh here is a link in English)

BBC NEWS | Europe | French set new rail speed record

V

[centerchannel68]

yikes. Let's hope there's never an accident.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by centerchannel68 

yikes. Let's hope there's never an accident.

Well, in Japan, on their shinkansen system, there has been only one fatality... from an accident with the door on one of the cars. This is out of over 6 billion passengers. (I'm not counting suicides though, where people jump in front of the train.) There was a derailment once during an earthquake, but luckily nobody died. Note though that they usually are less than 300 km/hr, not 500+.

Here in Canada, some proposed building one from Toronto to Montreal, but of course the government thinks it's a waste of money. I am not sure that is the case.

There is a huge amount of traffic between Toronto and Montreal, but there are two effective ways to travel between the two cities.

1) Air - The flight is only about an hour, but the travel to the airports takes a long time, and you have to arrive an hour early. Thus, from downtown to downtown, it takes about 4 hours.

2) Train - The train ride is minimum 4 hours downtown to downtown, and there are regularly delays. Fortunately, you don't have to arrive early to the train station.

I didn't say car, because it's a major PITA when it gets busy, and even when it's not busy it's over 6 hours. I didn't say bus, because the bus routes are almost always milk runs and therefore takes forever. A bullet train would cut this time to well under two hours. That's huge for the innumerable business travellers that go back and forth between the two cities.

What I wonder about though is snow and ice.

[centerchannel68]

Make the track a big road of ice, then put big blades on the train. Problem solved.

[voodoo]

Looking at the video on the BBC link when the train passes under the bridge. If the people on the bridge watching had turned around slowly the train would have been out of sight before they were done turning.. (well almost anyway)

That thing was going #$"&## fast!

V

[design219]

The Hogwarts Express could beat it. If it wanted to.

[centerchannel68]

Falcor is faster.

[Gossamer]

Pretty sweet video.
YouTube - 574,8km/h !!! TGV new speed record (360miles/h)

[Eug]

They built a maglev train in Shanghai to the airport. It gets to over 450 km/hr in real-world use.

My friend says it used to take forever to get to the airport, but now it takes 8 minutes.

Now they're planning to build one from Shanghai to Beijing. That would be awesome. The fact that Beijing is one end of it seems to suggest they can get around the problem of snow and ice.

[gumby5647]

meanwhile....we poke along at 79mph

*edit* (135mph if you're on the Acela)

[brapper]

wowzers!

[nonhuman]

Hmm, when I was on the TGV in like '92 or something it was topping out at around 300 km/h. Now it's at nearly 600.

More forms of transportation need to double in speed every 15 years.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

Hmm, when I was on the TGV in like '92 or something it was topping out at around 300 km/h. Now it's at nearly 600.

More forms of transportation need to double in speed every 15 years.

Real-life usage has it at 300+ kph for top speeds.

[indigoimac]

Originally Posted by gumby5647 

meanwhile....we poke along at 79mph

*edit* (135mph if you're on the Acela)

There is a reason, a) most rail travel is freight and b) our lines/system is simply not designed for high-speed, they cross roads at crossings and there are no banked turns for example, the UK as a lot of the same problems...

[gumby5647]

Originally Posted by indigoimac 

There is a reason, a) most rail travel is freight and b) our lines/system is simply not designed for high-speed, they cross roads at crossings and there are no banked turns for example, the UK as a lot of the same problems...

Crossings can be eliminated, separated or quad gates can be installed. Signal technology exists to allow higher speeds of up to 110MPH....and passenger trains can be scheduled with freight railroads' "hot shot" pig trains that travel at speeds of up to 65mph.

There is absolutely no reason that the trip from Denver to Chicago can't be made at 110MPH over the prairie of Nebraska and Iowa.

It's all about money

On a happier note, a 66mile stretch of track in Michigan is now running at 95mph. I believe they are hoping to up it another 10mph to 105mph by later this year.
(slowly but surely)

[highstakes]

I read about this, pretty neat considering they can serve wine without spilling it while the train's doing 200 mph

[Gossamer]

Originally Posted by gumby5647 

Crossings can be eliminated, separated or quad gates can be installed. Signal technology exists to allow higher speeds of up to 110MPH....and passenger trains can be scheduled with freight railroads' "hot shot" pig trains that travel at speeds of up to 65mph.

There is absolutely no reason that the trip from Denver to Chicago can't be made at 110MPH over the prairie of Nebraska and Iowa.

It's all about money

On a happier note, a 66mile stretch of track in Michigan is now running at 95mph. I believe they are hoping to up it another 10mph to 105mph by later this year.
(slowly but surely)

Well Iowa's not exactly praire, it's mostly farmland, meaning gravel roads and railroad crossings every mile. I guarantee you a ton of pissed off farmers if you start closing their crossings.

[Troll]

The TGV is being restricted to 320km/h at the moment. They only allow that speed on certain stretches of track. The new TGV Est (which goes to Luxembourg, Germany, Austria and Eastern Europe) will be 320km/h for large stretches. Timetables for other parts of France are based on speeds of around 300km/h. Paris-Nice (which is roughly 900km) takes 3 and a bit hours with stops! I've been on the TGV a few times where they've gone up to 320km/h to catch up delays. AFAIK, it's only the newer double decker TGV that can do 320 plus. The older single storey (like they use on the Eurostar line) isn't as fast.

The train itself is quite nifty but it's more the construction of the tracks that makes the speed possible. With the state controlling railways and being prepared to invest billions in a rail network, France has been able to build an outstanding network of high speed lines. By contrast, the UK privatised their rail network and the Eurostar (which is a rebranded TGV) still can't reach max speed in the UK. The first time I took the Eurostar (shortly after it's launch), we came out of the channel tunnel with 1/3 of the total travel time elapsed. Given that there was less than a quarter of the total distance to cover, I thought we'd surely arrive early but we trundled through the UK! It's a bit faster now and will improve once the new line is built but France's advantage is all their outstanding rail network.

As for safety, to date they have never had an accident involving a TGV. A loco on the Eurostar derailed a few years ago but rolled along on the sand until it came to a stop. A year or so back, I was on a TGV to Bourg St. Maurice when it hit a cow. Of course, we felt nothing but they decided to stop. They have sand traps in front of the wheels that release sand between the tracks and the wheels to help it brake more efficiently. Still took us a kilometre or so to stop. After that they made regular stops to pull the bits of cow out from various parts of the train!

[JoshuaZ]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Well, in Japan, on their shinkansen system, there has been only one fatality... from an accident with the door on one of the cars. This is out of over 6 billion passengers. (I'm not counting suicides though, where people jump in front of the train.) There was a derailment once during an earthquake, but luckily nobody died. Note though that they usually are less than 300 km/hr, not 500+.

True, not quite 500, but they're always on time and can get you from one end of the country to the other. I never knew the joy of public transport while growing up in America. Living in a city with Shinkansen access has given me a certain love for it. Two hours by car or bus... or 25 minutes on Shinkansen! (The trip between my city and Hiroshima City.) The biggest downside is that the Shinkansen costs so darn much! Its usually cheaper to fly from Hiroshima to Tokyo than to take a Shinkansen, and flying is faster (if you discount the other time factors involved). Just part of the problem with Japanese public transport: Fast, on time, and reliable yet costs way too much for most people to use it for a lot of domestic travel.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by highstakes 

I read about this, pretty neat considering they can serve wine without spilling it while the train's doing 200 mph

That's a welcome side-effect, but a quiet ride is prerequisite for any high-speed train. Tracks have to comply with much higher specifications than on low-speed or local transport lines.

Originally Posted by Gossamer 

Well Iowa's not exactly praire, it's mostly farmland, meaning gravel roads and railroad crossings every mile. I guarantee you a ton of pissed off farmers if you start closing their crossings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge

[villalobos]

I remember watching one passing by at the Roissy TGV station, that was not stopping. He did not slow down much.... Scares the s*** out of me.
The noise and the sheer speed are unbelievable.

Pretty funny too, in the original TGV going from Paris to Lyon, the train follows the [/i]autoroute[/i] linking these two cities. The cars on the highway seem pathetically slow. 2 hours to cover 400 km (~250 miles), that's not too shabby.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by Eug 

They built a maglev train in Shanghai to the airport. It gets to over 450 km/hr in real-world use.

My friend says it used to take forever to get to the airport, but now it takes 8 minutes.

Plus the hour you have to spend getting to Longyang Lu Station, which is already halfway to Pudong

(And, as in Japan, it’s expensive as hell—50 RMB for an 8-minute ride!)

Now they're planning to build one from Shanghai to Beijing. That would be awesome. The fact that Beijing is one end of it seems to suggest they can get around the problem of snow and ice.

If they ever managed to make that in any way competitive to domestic flight (you can get a Beijing–Shanghai plane ticket for about 300 RMB, a two-hour flight), that would be awesomeness embodies. I’m so dying to ride a maglev train!

[Eug]

When I was in China I paid more than 300 RMB for even shorter flights, but then again that was a few years ago. What I did like though was that business class wasn't as outrageously priced as it is here in North America. It was an incremental price increase, as it should be, and thus I would take business class there (and rarely take business class in North America). That's assuming the pricing structure hasn't changed though.

50 RMB is only US$6.50. I'd gladly pay that, and it's not as if a taxi is a bargain either. The only way I could see you saving money is taking the bus. Ugh!

[Dakar²]

I'd love to see it blow through a cow at that speed.

[Gossamer]

Originally Posted by analogika 

That's a welcome side-effect, but a quiet ride is prerequisite for any high-speed train. Tracks have to comply with much higher specifications than on low-speed or local transport lines.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge

I've seen entire bridges taken out by an idiot taking a piece of farm equipment that was to wide/heavy. I'm not saying a high speed rail is a bad idea, but you'd have to put up a lot of safeguards against idiots like that.