[Vision2020] French Train Sets Speed Record

[nickgier at adelphia.net]

Good Morning Visionaries:

When my father worked on the Chicago Northwestern as a train master, his supervisor told him to stop cleaning the toilets on his passenger trains.  This was a devious plan to move business to more lucrative freight trains and leave the poor passengers to ride the bus or buy cars. 

My father also told me (I loved his railroad stories) that trains are traveling slower between Chicago and New York than we they did in the 1920s.  The main reason is poor maintenance of the track.  How many times do we read of derailments, especially with Amtrak? 

By contrast the Japanese bullet trains have been running since the early 1960s without a single major accident.  The bullet train tracks are shut down every night and maintenance crews check every centimeter of track to assure perfect alignment for trains that now reach over 200 mph on normal runs.  Amtrak averages 50-70 mph, a little faster on the special trains on the DC-NY-Boston line.

One of the reasons why Europeans put less than half the carbon into the air than we do is that they have efficient mass transit and they have invested lots of tax dollars into improving the service and performance.

In August I'm returning to Denmark for the first time in 22 years I can't wait to ride the trains.  The entire system has now be electrified with a huge savings in fuel.

It looks as if Arnold the Renegade Republican will be the first to buy these trains for lines from Sacramento-SF to San Diego.  It's only 50 years behind the Japanese and Europeans.  There is now a documentary on the time when the auto and tire companies convinced authorities in Southern California to dismantle the largest electric train line in the US to build freeways instead.

French Train Sets Rail Record 357.2 Mph
Tuesday, April 3, 2007 12:08 PM EDT
The Associated Press
By INGRID ROUSSEAU

ABOARD TRAIN V150, France (AP) — A French train with a 25,000-horsepower engine and special wheels broke the world speed record Tuesday for conventional rail trains, reaching 357.2 mph as it zipped through the countryside to the applause of spectators.

Roaring like a jet plane, with sparks flying overhead and kicking up a long trail of dust, the black-and-chrome V150 with three double-decker cars surpassed the record of 320.2 mph set in 1990 by another French train.

It fell short, however, of beating the ultimate record set by Japan's magnetically levitated train, which hit 361 mph in 2003.

The French TGV, or "train a grande vitesse," as the country's bullet train is called, had two engines on either side of the three double-decker cars for the record run, some 125 miles east of the capital on a new track linking Paris with Strasbourg.

Aboard the V150, the sensation was comparable to that of an airplane at takeoff.

The demonstration was meant to showcase technology that France is trying to sell to the multibillion-dollar overseas markets such as China. Hours before the run, Transport Minister Dominique Perben received a California delegation, including state assembly speaker Fabian Nunez. The state is studying prospects for a high-speed line from Sacramento to San Diego, via San Francisco and Los Angeles.

People lined bridges and clapped and cheered when as the V150 roared by.

"We saw the countryside go by a little faster than we did during the tests," said engineer Eric Pieczac.

"Everything went very well," he added.

"There are about 10,000 engineers who would want to be in my place," Pieczac said. "It makes me very happy, a mixed feeling of pride and honor to be able to reach this speed."

Technicians on the train had "French excellence" emblazoned on the backs of their T-shirts.

Philippe Mellier, president of Alstom Transports, the builder, had said before the test that the train would try to break the record held by the Japanese maglev train.

Normally, French TGVs travel at a cruising speed of about 186.4 mph.

The V150 was equipped with larger wheels than the usual TGV to cover more ground with each rotation and a stronger, 25,000-horsepower engine, said Alain Cuccaroni, in charge of the technical aspects of testing.

Adjustments also were made to the new track, which opens June 10, notably the banking on turns. Rails were also treated so the wheels could make perfect contact, Cuccaroni said. The electrical tension in the overhead cable was increased from 25,000 volts to 31,000.

It was the first time that double-decker cars were used at such a high speed, according to officials of Alstom, which makes TGVs and crawled back a year ago from the edge of bankruptcy.

The double-decker cars were transformed into a laboratory for the event so that technicians from the state-run rail company SNCF and Alstom could gather data during the run.

The goal was more than "simply breaking a record," Cuccaroni said, adding that data from the test should help improve the security and comfort of passengers.

Pierre-Louis Rochet, former head of SNCF's international division, predicted commercial trains would never run at more than 220 mph "because after that the costs will increase too much."

The record gilds France's image in the expanding market for high-speed technology as countries turn to bullet trains. France competes with neighboring Germany and with Japan for contracts.

China, the biggest potential market, was to start building a high-speed line this year between Beijing and Shanghai to cut travel time from nine hours to five.

China's state media reported last year that the government plans to build more than 7,500 miles of high-speed railways in coming years at a cost of $250 billion to $310 billion.

President Jacques Chirac called the record "a magnificent demonstration of France's formidable capacities in research and innovation."