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Japan Tests New Bullet Train
dmolavi writes "
Japan's largest railway company began a test run for a new bullet train that it eventually aims to operate at a record-breaking 223 miles per hour -- faster than many propeller airplanes -- according to recent news reports.
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Er, they don't pollute the environment anything like as much? They take you from city centre to city centre, hence are much quicker over all?
43 - For those who require slightly more than the answer to life, the universe and everything.
These trains create far less pollution than flying. But that is because they also you far less fuel, and the fuel they do use burns far more efficiently than jet fuel. The lower fuel consumtion leads to them being far cheaper, as well. In some areas of Japan you can get a unlimited-use monthly train pass for the equivalent of US$120. That's the cost of a one-way plane ticket between very close destinations.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Try getting around the UK by train. It's about the equivalent of Sri Lanka in that respect, only not as cheerful.
It's really France and Germany who are of just the right size for train travel and with lots of money to put into it (and, in Germany at least, an unwillingness to cover the entire country in tarmac as the UK is doing).
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
It can stop quite quickly. If you had read the article, you would have seen the bit about the retractable "cat ears" fin breaks that are extended to provide air resistance. Combined with the latest in pneumatic brakes, it is quite possible to stop these trains within very short distances.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
There has never been a fatality (in 40+ years) due to accident on a Shinkansen (bullet train.)
They are also much cheaper than flying and rail stations tend to be right downtown.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
It's much cheaper because it can go directly from one downtown to another, whereas most airports are located somewhat far away from cities.
On top of this, boarding is a lot lot faster (no need to be there 1 hour before departure).
Derailment usually isn't a problem for bullet trains unless the rails themselves fail: they are built as a single unit, not as separate parts, which means that the whole train won't be endangered if a wagon gets offtrack.
Happened a few times on the TGV (unforeseen shock, some wheels of a wagon getting offtrack) and wasn't even noticed.
And yes, you need special tracks to run high speed, even though they're usually able to use regular tracks, they're just much slower using them.
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
and the TGV can do this speed for almost 20 years too...
more than 300km/h since 1981 (cruise speed)
515.3 km/h (320.2 mph) in 1990 (a record)
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
Bullet trains require something Amtrak will never have: lots of straight, well-built track to get up to that speed.
Besides, where is Amtrak going to get that money? They're struggling to maintain what they already have... What you're talking about is a HUGE investment.
The Acelas on the Northeast Corridor (one of the most important pieces of track Amtrak owns) were intended to provide higher-speed trains on conventional track by leaning into the turns. They generally do provide faster service when they're running, but of course the Acelas haven't been without their problems.
Most of Amtrak operates on shared tracks with freight trains.
These tracks are not built to handle high-speed trains. Also, this shared use favors the freight trains; Amtrak trains have to move over if a freight train is coming. This means that if a freight train is leaving a station 1 hour ahead of the Amtrak's current position, and there's a pullover spot right there but no others for the rest of that 1 hour stretch, the Amtrak must get out of the way and wait for an hour at a dead stop, until the freight train goes by.
I once used Amtrak to travel from Kansas City to St. Louis. That train continues on to Chicago, and the return train does the opposite: Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City. KC->St. Louis took me over 6 hours. It'd have been a little more than twice as fast just to drive the damn thing. On the return trip, the train from Chicago was a little less than two hours late arriving at the St. Louis station. We had about another 1.5-2 hours worth of delays again from St. Louis to Kansas City, so that one was late as hell, too.
Amtrak sucks the devil's ass. I'll never use them again.
There's a 2-year old article on Amtrak at the Christian Science Monitor's site that discusses this question in depth.
It's actually a little more interesting than that. Amtrack owns (almost?) no track - they run pretty much entirely on track owned by the standard commercial railroads. Building new track is almost impossible, because of the right of way requirements (trains aren't sexy any more so you can't get the government to sieze it for you via emminent domain). The guys who actually own the right of way and the tracks are commercial railroads, who don't (and can't) provide passenger service and have no interest in laying out millions to upgrade track. Amtrack is legally prohibited from carrying signifigant freight, and doesn't have the passenger base to fund track improvements, even if the track owners were willing to upgrade (a lot of commercial rail guys hate Amtrack and would refuse to upgrade just on principle). Passenger rail in the US is pretty much screwed and has been since we made the decision to go with highways instead - it would take major Federal funding and interest to get it to any reasonable level, and theres just not the citizen-level demand for it.
At the risk of getting flamed, The keyword is "Japan's largest railway company began a test run for a new bullet train". In America the pattern is always the same. Take NY City's subway system first
1) private companies built 100's of miles of track
2) New York set price limits to "keep the fare reasonable"
3) the companies go bankrupt
4) the city takes over the system
5) no major improvments for the next 50 years
6) people start paying much more for taxis and express busses so they can get to work
When the subway was private 26 major lines were built, since then practically nothing. The only thing they have left is advertisements bragging that their system is 100 years old. It's the same story for Amtrack.
"A good friend will bail you out of jail. A true friend will be sitting next to you saying, 'damn....that was fun!'"