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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
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 .
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.....
Trick question, without deviating from the Millenium Falcon's route, it would still be something less 12 parsecs.
Source:
Gravity Sucks
So all roads in the US are toll roads? ... or it's OK for the state to cough up for roads, but not for train tracks?
And ironically, that was also built by Chinese people. :-)
The phrase "European/Chinese economic system" makes no sense. European economies are extremely different from the Chinese.
Unlike what some may believe, there aren't only two economic systems, the US Capitalist and the Other. Even if both the European and the Chinese invest more public money in infrastructure than the US (do they?), it doesn't mean they have a similar system.
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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
NIMBYs will prevent the construction of new track or the running of truly high-speed trains on existing tracks - tons of small towns have regulations regarding maximum train speeds. They're not necessarily all wrong, either, because of the large number of at-grade crossings.
Rail in the US will continue to do what it does best - move bulk cargo cheaply. Any more just isn't going to happen.
As long as we're talking test runs, the Chuo Shinkansen hit 581km/h in 2003.
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.
Spending money is not good for an economy. Spending money EFFICIENTLY is.
You're right, that's the optimal thing.
<quote><p>However time and time again governments (which account for a vast chunk of total spending) have proven themselves to be incapable of this.</p></quote>
First , it very much depends of the timeframe you're placing yourself in, or of the expenses you're talking of. For instance "government" overhead for managing medicare is apparently very small compared that of privately runned health insurance companies.
Publicly runned health systems in Europe cost less and are vastly more efficient than the US private version...
Then consider building a bridge : it will cost a lot and could possibly become profitable only in the very long run. Furthermore, many of its benefit are probably hidden. So there is no incentive for the private sector to build that bridge even though it may be very useful and profitable for society as a whole in the long run.
And who would run an honest army for a profit ?
Second : there are so many idle spendings in the private sector that are truly worthless that you're surely joking. Advertisement is one, vast sums hijacked by the financial sector are another, especially when the government bails it out...
I am all for efficient spending, from the government of from the private sector.
I am not Remy Mouton, unfortunately: http://remy.mouton.free.fr/art/
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".
...it's OK for the state to cough up for roads, but not for train tracks?
I'd say that's a fair argument. Given our sprawling city/suburb layout, fast trains just don't make sense. For good or bad, most of the US was designed around ubiquitous automobile ownership - freedom of the road and all that. Until there is decent intra-city public transportation, taking a fast train between cities leaves you stranded at the station.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
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.
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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.
And taking an airplane between cities leaves you stranded at the airport, right?
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
'...new record...shows that China has achieved a new milestone in high-speed train tech...,' (said) Zhang Shuguang, aka Captain Obvious.
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