Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
575km/h is about half the speed of sound too, so assuming you hear the sound the train emitted when it was 1km away, the train will be only half a km away by the time the sound reaches your ears. And half a km at 575km/h is 3 seconds. Which is enough time to leap away, but NOT enough time to first turn and see what's going on, then get away.
For real speed, you want vactrains. Maglevs with a pressure-cabin, in an evacuated pipe. This has numerous advantages. First, there's less risk that anything will be on the line, if the line is in an enclosed pipe. Second, if there's a near-vacuum in the pipe, then it requires substantially less energy to push the train since air-resistance is the primary energy-waste at these speeds, and third, it cuts noise enormously, if the train is floating in vacuum, there's less vibration to begin with, and there's little transmission of noise to the surroundings too. (vacuum is a very good way of stopping noise!)