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Chinese High-Speed Train Sets New World Record
shmG writes "A new high-speed train linking Chinese cities Shanghai and Hangzhou has set a fresh world record for train speed at 416.6 kilometers per hour (259 mph) on its trial run on Tuesday. The train is expected to cut the travel time by half, to 40 minutes for covering a distance of 202 kilometers between the two cities at an average speed of 350 kilometers per hour. 'The new record of 416.6 km per hour shows that China has achieved a new milestone in high-speed train technologies,' Zhang Shuguang, deputy chief engineer of the Ministry of Railways, was quoted as saying."
In your face Japan!
The TGV holds the record with 575 km/h! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV_world_speed_record
TGV has set the world record for train speed in 2007 at 574.8 km/h. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV_world_speed_record and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ir_n3J5ABA.
What are those guys at ibtimes.com smoking?
A TGV test train reached 574.8 km/h in April 2007. The new record is the average speed of 350 km/h.
Jan
for a train on rail is 574.8km/h set by TGV on april 2007
Can we have that in more standard units please? I myself prefer parsecs per millenia, kthx
Gravity Sucks
well, it's so cheerless that we (as germans) can sell high speed trains, but are not able to run them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Railways_CRH3
Here in the UK we're lucky if our intercity trains get much over 200km/h so I'd be happy with a mere 300km/h on the regular London to Glasgow route.....
Judging from the picture in TFA I'd say it's a Siemens train. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens_Velaro .
I'd happy for a train (doesn't have to leave on time) and a few times a month, a seat!
Yes, but what's the average speed of a TGV on a real journey with passenger cars attached...?
No sig today...
Lucky bastard, here in California we get 120km/hr. And anything faster is going to be 9 billion dollars, and over a decade, just to build the first 25 mile stretch along existing right-of-ways.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
Could happen... if our private rail charities^w companies get a big enough government handout.
...still squabble as to whether we even need such a train. Sad to know that in this field, we as a country, are still stuck in the 1950s with so many of our folks against any move to the 21st century.
You are SO screwed... I hope that you get your collective act together in time!
Too bad their safety record won't be as good as their speed record.
There's no long enough straight tracks in Japan... Hope that linear motor lines will come true soon.
I'd happy too!
Sig?
And ironically, that was also built by Chinese people. :-)
For starters, the locals on the line are fighting it until recently, when the Chinese gov. intervened and said that it will be done.
And China is still in the process of building their version of the Transrapid. They have been caught going several times through closets that they were legally prevented from, but when the chinese gov. sends in soldiers with guns to open the doors, well.....
North Korea train is best train!
Yes, because it can get you out of North Korea.
In both cases the problem is the track ...
In the UK the track goes around a lot of corners and is far from straight, and to take out the bends would cost huge amounts (especially through towns/cities)
In the US your track is very poor quality (a legacy of the speed it was built and the huge extent of the network) and the cost of upgrading is huge ...
The very fast trains in Japan/France/China all benefit from the local governments simply forcibly buying the land required at cost (or less) and getting on with it ...
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
How do these speeds compare to the top speeds of roller coasters??? Are the passengers allowed to open the windows and stick their arms out??
As long as we're talking test runs, the Chuo Shinkansen hit 581km/h in 2003.
I need coffee. I read the headline as saying that there was a Chinese train set (as in a model train set) that set a new world record...
In the UK the track goes around a lot of corners and is far from straight
That's oversold; tilting trains can deal with this, as Bombardier has demonstrated.
Oh, we used to dream of waiting for 'train for a fortnight! Would'a been a palace to us. We had to run, barefoot, fifty miles into 'town and catch a lift to London in the back of a dustcart. We were half crushed when we got there, and it took all year, but we were thankful for it.
All tilting does is make it more comfortable for the passengers. It doesnt redice the centripetal forces on the bogies and track which will become severe at very high speed. Also signalling needs to be upgraded for very high speed running to take account of greater stopping distances amongst other things.
I give it 3 weeks of operation before the first 500km/h derailment ....
Not irony.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
African or European?
North Korea train is best train!
Bah, that's a Chinese train, too. Paid for by the Chinese as a toy to keep their lap-dog dictator happy.
And to give the North Korean people a nice train to look at as that lap-dog dictator rides around in splendor as the people starve.
Top roller coasters do about 150km/h (so 1/4speed). And the windows in bullet trains don't open. Your question was just as ridiculous as asking if you can open the windows and stick your arms out of an intercontinental jet.
You're soooo informative with your counter-examples. Remind me to nominate you to teach our children in high school.
The power supply will probably only last a week.
eg. A tenth of a G will get you up to that speed in less than two minutes (and in total comfort).
No sig today...
But my car goes 130km/hr... shh don't tell the fuzz!
>> In the US your track is very poor quality (a legacy of the speed it was built and the huge extent of the network) and the cost of upgrading is huge ...
In the US, we know all about crappy Chinese built track.
The very fast trains in Japan/France/China all benefit from the local governments simply forcibly buying the land required at cost (or less) and getting on with it ...
My dad used to work for the french railways and had been buying up the land to set up the Paris-Reims railtrack - where the record took place: You can't imagine how much it costed to French railways (i.e. Govt) to own that up!
....Oh! did I mention that Reims is in Champagne vineyard region ??
Mcow.
Roller coaster speed rankings
About twice the speed of the fastest rollercoaster.
nm
It's people like you that make me bother not even using the word irony anymore.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
......Wheeeeee!
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
The very fast trains in Japan/France/China all benefit from the local governments simply forcibly buying the land required at cost (or less) and getting on with it ...
Not to mention the high-speed urban renewal projects enacted by that famous urban planner Curtis Lemay, which put the respective governments in a position to modernize.
(to be fair, Japan's rail network sucked well into the 1960's. But, having large portions of infrastructure leveled certainly helps avoid "legacy infrastructure" issues.)
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
15.72 seconds! In your face, Usain Bolt!!
Lucky bastard, here in Serbia it takes my 4 hours to get to my home town 200 km from Belgrade. And with those 9 billion you would probably be able to pay debts, kickbacks and plans to CONSIDER improving speeds.
Pretty easy to break speed records when you don't mind the frequent and fatal train accidents that kill hundreds of your people. China is a disaster.
If train speed were limited by the ability to stop before hitting someone on the line, the limit would be about 30mph. I have driven trains as a test engineer, and at high speeds the brakes feel so feeble compared with a car that for a while it is as if they are not working at all. On descents the stopping distance can be well over a mile, which can include several curves that cannot be seen around. That is why there are "distant" repeater signals long before actual stop signals.
It is also why, in the densely populated UK, all railways have been fenced for at least the last century. The general view is that anyone who climbs the fence and is dumb enough to loiter on the track deserves little sympathy but a Darwin Award. This is not a factor in setting train speeds.
Where did you get that idea? In the UK the trains are limited to 125mph because of *signalling*. The GWML for example was built extremely well (by Brunel over 170 years ago no less) and is capable of speeds of 140mph and over. The problem is telling the trains when to stop and slow down. The proposed project to electrify the Great Western Main Line would also introduced in-cab signalling which would make the higher speeds a reality.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
Lucky bastard, here in California we get 120km/hr. And anything faster is going to be 9 billion dollars, and over a decade, just to build the first 25 mile stretch along existing right-of-ways.
8 billion of that is going to be used to meet California's ridiculous environmental laws.
And I think this is a Bombardier production, a Canadian company with high speed train installs almost everywhere except in Canada. Here we are still ripping out track and degrading passenger service even more by routing it over old freight lines and making passenger trains wait on sidings so the freight can go through. And the fare for regular service across a distance of roughly 200km is $95 one way -- takes 2.5 hours vs 2 in the car or $50 on the bus. Passenger service to a whole raft of cities was discontinued and the passenger trains routed by an old freight route that makes a wide swath away from population centers. So passenger train travel is still declining here -- but we read about what the rest of the world is doing and have severe envy.
'...new record...shows that China has achieved a new milestone in high-speed train tech...,' (said) Zhang Shuguang, aka Captain Obvious.
"Yes, I have a Disaster Recovery Plan. It's called my Resume"
... they already have more people than the need.
Ah yes, the Chinese -- world renowned for their high quality manufacturing and refusal to cut costs or corners in the pursuit of perfection.
On an almost entirely unrelated note: now taking bets on how long it will take to set the new world record for the highest speed train crash.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
When do they go for the record for most squashed pennies on the track?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Now states:
CORRECTION: This article, originally published on 9/29/10 mistakenly said that China's new train had set a world speed record. This is false. The record was set in April 2007 by the French TGV, which achieved 574.8 km/h.
Lucky bastard, here in Serbia it takes my 4 hours to get to my home town 200 km from Belgrade. And with those 9 billion you would probably be able to pay debts, kickbacks and plans to CONSIDER improving speeds.
Lucky bastard. here in Canada, the only way one travels by rail is if you own a handcar and live on one of two main rail lines.
Put my takeaway meal on it I may get it hot next time, my local is about as reliable as my grandmothers bowel movements
By "Chinese High-Speed Train" we mean those trains built in partnership with Siemens, Bombardier, Alstom, and Kawasaki. As joint-venture partnerships, China has been disingenuously referring to this foreign equipment as "indigenous" trains.
For example, Changchun Railway Vehicles' rolling stock is built under a joint-venture with Bombardier. Bombardier also has a joint-venture with Sifang Power Transportation. There's nothing "indigenous" about these systems. To save face, token modifications are made to make these systems seem more indigenous than they really are. That is not to say China does not improve upon them, they do, but they are all licensed designs from outside of China.
More interesting to the USA is that China is licensing "its" technology to General Electric for the California High-Speed Rail system.
Kriston
Whatever one may say about the Chinese accomplishment one thing is very likely: Their tickets are likely to be very cheap per passenger mile compared to other train infrastructures.
Seastead this.
The coastal trains generally get up to about 60 mph on a good day. If they don't have to share the track with a freight train.
They've probably spent $9 Billion just talking about, and lobbying for (and against) high-speed rail - in California alone, over the past 10 years. And so far, the plans that got the furthest along, connect through Las Vegas - of course.
Because there are only two cities that matter in California. And there is only one place anyone in California might want to go in a hurry.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Just wanted to mention that, at least in Japan, it seems the goverment is buying at cost + a bonus. And many homeowners are actually quite happy about the deals they make when a new road or railway is built.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprinter_(Victorian_train)
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While the main routes between capital cities have the tracks laid by fuckwits, so they sink into the mud for the entire distance of 1000's of KM and now all the lines have speed restrictions to stop the trains derailing.....
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Despite a billion-dollar upgrade, train drivers are calling the Sydney to Melbourne railway a 'disaster waiting to happen' and are calling for an urgent inquiry into a problem that has crossed the state line.
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http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2010/s3023257.htm
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‘HEADS SHOULD ROLL’
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http://www.dailyadvertiser.com.au/news/local/news/general/heads-should-roll/1947326.aspx
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Voting up, Voting down - If I really gave a fuck about your approval or not, I'd come and ask you.
But did they paint it with lead-based paint?
Give credit where credit is due.
Rail is vastly more economical than travel by auto
and in many ways more interesting than air travel.
I wish the US had the parts to establish a tax structure that supports rail. Today we tax each inch of the rail in thousands of towns, cities, counties and states while we support autos and trucks with state built and maintained highways.
Rail has an efficiency that is on the order of tones per horsepower (one T to 2-3HP) while autos are almost two orders of magnitude away from that... My "efficient" auto at 32MPG is 170HP
per me (0.08 T).
We need to FLATTEN the bias away from rail.
The Inter-City 125 and Intercity-225, and the APT were all limited by signalling
As you say the 225 gets around it by having incab signalling - to achieve 225km/h
The APT achieved 250 km/h by having hydro-kinetic breaking so it could stop for signals and tilting was an attempt at working round taking unbanked curves at speed
But where are the 300km/h trains - impossible on our highly curved track without banking (which would stop slower trains using it) the quality of the track is not the issue in the UK it's the curves
The French and Japanese solved the problem by building straight track ...
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
180-220KM/hour