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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
A TGV test train reached 574.8 km/h in April 2007. The new record is the average speed of 350 km/h.
Jan
Can we have that in more standard units please? I myself prefer parsecs per millenia, kthx
Gravity Sucks
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.....
...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.
Too bad their safety record won't be as good as their speed record.
And ironically, that was also built by Chinese people. :-)
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.
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.
Not irony.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
African or European?
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.
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...
There was a joke during the early days of the space race where an American says to a Russian "Our German rocket-scientists are better than your German rocket-scientists".
It seems that in the race for the fastest train this has been replaced by "Our German rail-engineers are better than your German rail-engineers".
>> 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.
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.
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
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"
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.
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.
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