La(?) Train a Grande Vitesse reaches a mere...........

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

553 Kph…

14 February 2007

Paris (dpa) - The French high-speed TGV train broke its own rail speed record when it reached 553 kilometres per hour, the daily Le Parisien reported Wednesday.

The record was reached Tuesday afternoon by a special train comprised of two motors and three specially equipped cars.

Two test runs were held in secret on the new Paris to Strasbourg line, with the train reaching the new record during the second run at a spot 193 kilometres east of Paris.

The previous record, 515.3 kilometres per hour, was set by another TGV train on May 18, 1990.

The TGV trains carrying passengers often reach speeds of 300 to 320kph, with the higher speeds more usual on the new line linking Strasbourg with the capital.

Magnetic levitation (maglev) trains have achieved faster speeds in Germany, with the Transrapid clocking 581kph, but the TGV holds the conventional contact-rail record.

A maglev train operates between Shanghai’s international airport and China’s business hub, but it is technically capable of only 450kph on the short 30-kilometre stretch of track. A longer link between Shanghai and neighbouring cities is expected to see speeds of 500kph.

A new Shanghai to Beijing “bullet” train based on Japan’s Shinkansen high-speed trains is expected to run at speeds of 250kph from April.

Japan’s Shinkansen currently run at a maximum 300kph, but one company, JR East, is planning to push that to 360kph by 2011.

Nikkei Weekly reported recently that the next-generation Shinkansen, the Fastech 360, could achieve speeds of up to 398kph.

One executive at JR East told the newspaper that speed records during tests were “meaningless,” however.

“What matters is speed during commercial operation,” Takashi Endo was quoted as saying.

Knocking on…in anybody’s terms.

2

[quote user=“devils”]

553 Kph…

14 February 2007

Paris (dpa) - The French high-speed TGV train broke its own rail speed record when it reached 553 kilometres per hour, the daily Le Parisien reported Wednesday.

The record was reached Tuesday afternoon by a special train comprised of two motors and three specially equipped cars.

Two test runs were held in secret on the new Paris to Strasbourg line, with the train reaching the new record during the second run at a spot 193 kilometres east of Paris.

The previous record, 515.3 kilometres per hour, was set by another TGV train on May 18, 1990.

The TGV trains carrying passengers often reach speeds of 300 to 320kph, with the higher speeds more usual on the new line linking Strasbourg with the capital.

Magnetic levitation (maglev) trains have achieved faster speeds in Germany, with the Transrapid clocking 581kph, but the TGV holds the conventional contact-rail record.

A maglev train operates between Shanghai’s international airport and China’s business hub, but it is technically capable of only 450kph on the short 30-kilometre stretch of track. A longer link between Shanghai and neighbouring cities is expected to see speeds of 500kph.

A new Shanghai to Beijing “bullet” train based on Japan’s Shinkansen high-speed trains is expected to run at speeds of 250kph from April.

Japan’s Shinkansen currently run at a maximum 300kph, but one company, JR East, is planning to push that to 360kph by 2011.

Nikkei Weekly reported recently that the next-generation Shinkansen, the Fastech 360, could achieve speeds of up to 398kph.

One executive at JR East told the newspaper that speed records during tests were “meaningless,” however.

“What matters is speed during commercial operation,” Takashi Endo was quoted as saying.

Knocking on…in anybody’s te

3

For all of you citizens of the US: 553kph=343.6mph

Any way you measure it, that is really moving!!!

I wonder how long (distance and time) it takes to reach that speed, and how long it takes to stop.

4

And it makes one wonder just what a mess could be made if something happened at such speeds. That’s a lot of potential energy stored up…

5

I think the Germans have already demonstrated that with an ICE.

6

Yep, and using “conventional” rail, not some uber-headache, uber-expensive mag-lev system.

7

On one hand that is quite an accomplishment, on the other, how much speed is enough? Once again we have been left in the proverbial dust, our long distance trains can’t even keep a padded schedule, let alone be competitive…oh well…

8

Methinks it might be different if we had dedicated ROWs and enthusiastic government support.

9

I agree…we seem to be losing our reputation as the most progressive, technologically advanced society…what strikes me as amazing (which probably qualifies me as a rube) how such a densely populated country like Japan… even France, etc keeps coming up with these dedicated rights of way…even Vietnam now has HSR on the docket…we have what?..the NEC…built in the 19th century and electrified in the early twentieth? Ugh…

10

Although I’ve never been outside of this country, I would venture to guess that the countries you mentioned don’t have the road system (especially the limited access Interstate System) that we do. Americans love their cars, and for much of the country (think west of the Mississippi, excluding the west coast) it would be downright silly to try and implement passenger rail. Last year when I traveled from Denver to Yellowstone and back, there were times when I didn’t see another car for 15-20 minutes. Can you imagine running high speed trains out here?

The dense populations and busy travel corridors are exactly why high speed trains work so well in other places, but not here. The busiest stretch of road (of greater than, say, 25 miles) in my neck of the woods is I-70 west of town on a busy ski weekend. A proposal for a monorail on the same stretch was absolutely killed when put before the voters a couple years ago.

No sir, I’d much rather see my tax money going towards the support and expansion of road infrastructure, thank you.

11

I don’t think that we disagree-in the areas you cited, I don’t think it would be viable either… when compared to highways at the present time. However where there are extended corridors in The Midwest, the East and the West Coast…I think it would be a reasonable proposition if we had either a long range transportation policy and planning as well as a balance of modes in same.

12

Correction: We have lost it long ago!

The article below is from the New Scientist magazine; unfortunately, the full story is only available to subscribers. (highlights are mine):

From her office window at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, Young-Kee Kim can see a glorious history. The clusters of buildings connected by a circular roadway mark the location of the Tevatron - the giant underground collider ring that remains, for a few months more, the world’s largest particle accelerator.

Come November that baton will pass to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland. The handoff will make official what is already widely acknowledged: the dynamic heart of particle physics no longer beats in the US…

…For Kim, deputy director of Fermilab, the transition ushers in a delicate new period. With US particle physics slipping into the doldrums, the surest way to regain momentum and develop young scientists would be to build the next big accelerator in America.

The significance of the ILC to American particle physics has never been clearer. Since the Superconducting Super Collider project was cancelled in 1993 after the US Congress pulled the plug on its funding, the domestic programme has lacked an overarching strategic direction. Prominent researchers have increasingly spent more time out of the country, at CERN and elsewhere, and the field has become less attractive to young scientists. It is an ominous change for a country that has long led the field, and where most of the foundation of the standard model of particle physics was laid.

At Fermilab, Kim and her colleagues are striving for nothing less than an American high-energy renaissance, with the ILC as its cornerstone. Born and e

13

[quote user=“zardoz”]

Correction: We have lost it long ago!

The article below is from the New Scientist magazine; unfortunately, the full story is only available to subscribers. (highlights are mine):

From her office window at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, Young-Kee Kim can see a glorious history. The clusters of buildings connected by a circular roadway mark the location of the Tevatron - the giant underground collider ring that remains, for a few months more, the world’s largest particle accelerator.

Come November that baton will pass to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland. The handoff will make official what is already widely acknowledged: the dynamic heart of particle physics no longer beats in the US…

…For Kim, deputy director of Fermilab, the transition ushers in a delicate new period. With US particle physics slipping into the doldrums, the surest way to regain momentum and develop young scientists would be to build the next big accelerator in America.

The significance of the ILC to American particle physics has never been clearer. Since the Superconducting Super Collider project was cancelled in 1993 after the US Congress pulled the plug on its funding, the domestic programme has lacked an overarching strategic direction. Prominent researchers have increasingly spent more time out of the country, at CERN and elsewhere, and the field has become less attractive to young scientists. It is an ominous change for a country that has long led the field, and where most of the foundation of the standard model of particle physics was laid.

At Fermilab, Kim and her colleagues are striving for nothing less than an American high-energy renaissance, with the ILC as its co