The following is an editorial/report on a few “minor” problems with the start-up of the Taiwan High Speed Rail.
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/news/archives/editorial/2007118/100280.htm
And a nice stab at Eurotunnel too, at the end.
Otherwise, all of it could happen on a regular run here in the Netherlands too. Hopefully the high speed line from Amsterdam to Belgium will be tested more rigourously…
greetings,
Marc Immeker
Ah, one more time that I can quote the immortal Homer J. Simpson: D’OH![B)]
But, the problems that cropped up are the sorts of problems that cannot be fixed until they occur. They could run those trains for ten hours, ten days, ten months, ten years or ten decades without incident and then-IT-happens. Electronic control systems are very subject to Ball’s Law: “An event of any kind may occur, or recur, at any time at random intervals”. They ran tests on the system, but the “bugs” will surface when they will surface. It is an annoying fact of life in the 21st century.
PBenham, you are so right. How can anybody predict the unpredictable?
A couple of remarks:
It was strangely comforting to know that Taiwan obviously has its share of foamers.
The article in the China Post described a “perfect storm” of snafus. Lest we get too cocky, let’s remember that many such problems occurred here piecemeal in the wake of new technology:
Early in its existence, the doors on BART trains speeding under the bay were known to have flown open for no reason.
Problems beget problems, and not too long ago many of the fit-and-finish kind of things that should have been cleared up before public debut of the new trains on the old Silverliner route-- well, they weren’t. High-tech overoptimism mushroomed, and a series of correctable if time-consuming solutions kept the over-sold new trains from keeping traditional frequency and run times, much less something brand-new and better.
The original Metroliner trainsets were supposed to have lasted 15-20 years, but by the eighties the M.U.'s were gone or converted to non-propelled coaches. Therefore Amtrak defined a “Metroliner” simply as a fast electric motor hauling those interestingly eggshell-s
Shortly after he went over to Amtrak, Dave Gunn said he thought Acela was the room under the living room. Amtrak’s Acela project could be the poster child for “How Not to Manage the Design and Building of a Complex Machine.”
Design changes of design changes, huge costs over runs and deliveries so late that some couldn’t remember back to the time the project started and “The latch on the crapper door still doesn’t work.”
The original Metroliner (along with TurboTrain) was an outcome of the Pell Plan (Rhode Island’s Senator Claiborne Pell who wrote legislation on a Northeast Corridor Demonstration Project – the pre-Amtrak notion was that the railroads would operate the passenger service, but the government would help with technology). The original Metroliner idea was a set of 4 Silverliner MU cars that were regeared for 150 MPH operation and then instrumented and tested to see how they would operate at those speeds. The Silverliner by then was tried-and tested commuter train technology derived from the Budd Pioneer III – an ultralightweight 4-axle coach that had those inside roller bearing “streetcar” trucks.
The idea was to take some existing electric railroad technology – MU cars – and adapt them for higher speed running than done with the GG1’s. There was no rocket science to MU’s – they were used in commuter service – but the idea was the high HP/ton and multiple driving axles of MU cars would give high speed and good acceleration for corridor service. This was also in the day before the modern wheel slip controls when it was thought that locomotive-pulled trains would require half the weight in the locomotive to get the required performance.
So the only radical thing about the Metroliner was taking something that looked like a subway train and running it fast over longer distances. I suppose running cab-in-front flatface MU cars was odd from a grade crossing safety and aerodynamic standpoint – the Japanese train had the Bullet Train noses at least, but that is part of what made it seem so exotic – it looked like a Chicago El train on steroids. But then the government specsmanship got into the act (think of Space Shuttle design compromises to meet DOD requirements). It had to run at 160 MPH, not because it would ever operate that fast, but because the Japanese train could do 150 and the American train had to be faster (my informant on this i