High-speed train
A high-speed train (TAV), also called in some countries bullet train, is a train that reaches speeds equal to or greater than to 200 km/h on updated existing lines, and 250 km/h on lines specifically designed for this purpose, according to the UIC (International Union of Railways).
In all cases these are specific vehicles and railways developed jointly.
The high-speed train is considered the safest means of transport in the world, ahead of the airplane. In the last 60 years there have only been five accidents with fatalities, the most serious being the Eschede accident.
Europe
Spain
In the 1960s, high-speed tests began in Spain, exceeding 200 km/h with a Talgo powered by a Renfe Series 352 locomotive and years later with the Renfe Series 443 prototype (the Little Plantain). It did not begin to be studied as a real proposal until 1986, when the Ministry of Transport prepared the Rail Transport Plan (PTF). In 1992, the first high-speed line in Spain was inaugurated with a track width of 1,435 mm on the Madrid-Seville high-speed line, for which 18 TGV trains manufactured by Alstom (Renfe 100 Series) were purchased, train It can reach a top speed of 300 km/h. In 2020 the Spanish high-speed network was released, which gave the entry to new operators, Ouigo Spain, with its TGV Euroduplex trains (Ouigo Series 108) and Iryo with its ETR 1000 (ILSA Series 109).
Currently, Spain has an expanding high-speed network and a large number of high-speed train models, with different technologies and self-developed solutions, such as the very high-speed train Talgo AVRIL , or those contributed by Talgo and CAF to solve problems of different track gauges or different signaling systems, in addition to leading to the commercial implementation of increasingly higher speeds. Spain has the second largest existing high-speed rail network, reaching 3,400 km, surpassing countries with a long tradition in this technology, such as Japan or France, and immediately below China.
France
The French pioneered the research and development of high-speed trains in Europe. Not surprisingly, the TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse) is one of the fastest conventional trains in the world, operating in some sections at speeds of up to 320 km/h.
On February 13, 2006, the TGV managed to break its speed record on the section from Paris to Strasbourg, reaching 553 km/h. Its previous record dated from 1990, when it reached 515.3 km/h. To obtain this top speed, a configuration specially prepared for the occasion was used, made up of three wagons and two locomotives, obviously without passengers.
On April 3, 2007, an Alstom V-150 train again broke the world speed record on rails by traveling at 574.8 km/h in one of the sections of the new high speed line from Paris to Strasbourg. This technical feat, prepared for months, was carried out by the French railway company (SNCF), the railway network that owns the tracks and the builder of the train, Alstom. The power of the train was increased for the occasion: several additional engines were placed along the length of the vehicle, and the wheels were larger than those of an ordinary TGV, so that high speeds could be reached without overheating the machinery. At the same time, the electrical power on the line was increased and the catenary that fed the train was reinforced, as well as the ballast, the layer of aggregate that is spread over the railway esplanade to settle, hold the sleepers on it and improve the transmission of loads from the structure to the esplanade; all this in order to withstand the intense vibrations.
Currently the TGV 2N2 euroduplex, are interoperable trains, equipped to be able to circulate in several European countries with different electrical supplies and signals: France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain and Luxembourg.
Germany
"InterCityExpress", usually abbreviated as "ICE", designates the high-speed train system of the German railways that circulate in Germany and neighboring countries.
It is the highest quality service offered by the Deutsche Bahn company. The German InterCityExperimental train (ICE V) managed in 1988 to reach 406.9 km/h (253 mph).
The ICE network was officially launched on May 29, 1991, with several vehicles converging in different directions at the newly built Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe Station in Kassel, Germany.
Italy
The first commercial high-speed train was inaugurated in 1938 in Italy with the ElettroTreno ETR 200, reaching the then world record of 204 km/h near Milan.
Today, Italy has one of the most extensive networks in Europe, with more than 1,320 km of high-speed train lines.
In Italy they enjoy the 250 km/h Pendolinos, a family of high-speed speed trains developed by Fiat Ferroviaria(currently Alstom) the first the ETR 401 since 1976 and currently with the New Pendolinos.
Currently the Frecciarossa ETR 1000 and the NTV ETR 575 are the main high-speed trains running on the Italian network, capable of reaching speeds of 350 km/h.
United Kingdom
Main article: Eurostar and the London-Eurotunnel high-speed line
The first high-speed train in the United Kingdom was put into operation through the London-Eurotunnel high-speed line in order to achieve connectivity with the rest of Europe through the Eurotunnel, for which Eurostar commissioned the TGV Series British Rail 373 in 1996. These trains hold the British rail speed record at 334.7 km/h (208 miles per hour).
In 2010, Eurostar ordered 10 new “Velaro” model trains from Siemens AG.
Great Britain will catch up with the rest of the continent, as HS2 is currently being built to link London to the country's major cities. It will be the first to cover internal routes within this country, beyond the Eurostar.
The units ordered from Bombardier (now Alstom) and Hitachi will roll at around 322 km/h, managed by the Network Rail company and it is news that is very well received by British and foreign travelers.
From London the times that will be achieved per section are:
- Birmingham in 45 minutes (now it takes 1 hour and a half)
- Leeds in 1 hour and 30 minutes (current 2 hours and 3 minutes)
- Liverpool in 1 hour and 23 minutes (now 2 hours and 8 minutes)
- Manchester in 1 hour and 6 minutes (2 hours 7 minutes current)
- Edinburgh in 2 hours and 9 minutes (4 hours and 23 minutes today)
- Glasgow in 2 hours and 16 minutes (currently 4 hours and 10 minutes)
The project will require around 40,000 million euros and will be operational by 2030.
Greece
Netherlands
Asian
South Korea
In South Korea they have a train derived from the French TGV called KTX. The first 281 km of the line —of the 412 planned— were opened in early April 2004, between Seoul and Daegu. The KTX will reach speeds of 300 km/h in this first section.
The subsequent 131 km linking to Busan will open in 2008. To date, the KTX will run between these two cities on the existing conventional line as it has been recently electrified. Twelve of these trains were built in France by Alstom and the remaining 34 are to be built in South Korea by Hyundai Rotem, under the terms of a technology transfer agreement.
Japan
The Japanese pioneered high-speed rail in the world with their "bullet trains" that ran the trunk line or Shinkansen in the 1960s.
It all started in the mid-1950s, when they thought of building a new railway line between Tokyo and Osaka, the two main cities in the country, to solve the problem of saturation of the existing line with a substantial improvement in travel times. Mitsubishi, Kawasaki, Hitachi and Sumitomo partnered so that Japanese high-speed trains linked the main Japanese cities since 1964, letting the landscape blur at 300 km/h.
Chinese
China has 7,000 km of high-speed rail, wanting to reach 13,000 in the next two years and 16,000 in 2020, although the project reaches some 120,000 km of roads to connect 25 countries in Europe and Asia in 2025. Of those 7,000 km that reach speeds of over 200 km/h, in more than 2,000 they reach 350. The star line will be the one that connects the cities of Beijing and Shanghai in a single 1,318 km journey. The total cost of the network is around five trillion yuan (541,825 million euros), and the Chinese government intends that a large part of this investment be reverted to companies in China itself that are beginning to develop this technology, and thus way later export that technology to other countries and states like Poland, Russia or California. Many of the used machines can reach speeds of 420 km/h although in use they do not exceed 350.
On December 26, 2012, China inaugurated a new high-speed train line, which runs from the capital Beijing to Guangzhou, an important economic center located in the south of the country. The length of the line is 2,298 km (1,428 mi), it is the longest high-speed rail line in the world. The speed of the track is 300 km/h (186 Mph) and will reduce the travel time greater than 20 hours, to only 8 hours.
China is investing heavily in high-speed maglev trains. Known as Maglev Transrapid, China's first high-speed train runs from Pudong Airport to Shanghai at a top speed of 430 km/h over a 30 km journey in 8 minutes. It has been operational since March 24, 2004.
Turkey
Turkey was the first country in the Middle East to put a high-speed train (YHT) line into operation. TCDD trains such as the HT65000 were developed in Spain and the TCDD HT80000 in Germany.
Taiwan
The Taiwan High-Speed Rail is a high-speed train that runs approximately 354 km along the west coast of the island of Taiwan, from its capital Taipei to the city of Kaohsiung, in the southwest of the country.
Uzbekistan
The high-speed highway in Uzbekistan currently consists of two main high-speed corridors. The Afrosiyob was designed and manufactured by Talgo in Spain.
Saudi Arabia
The Haramain high-speed line or Mecca-Medina high-speed line is a high-speed rail line between the cities of Mecca and Medina, in Arabia Arabia. The Talgo 350 SRO are trains designed to circulate through the desert.
Africa
Morocco
Al-Boraq is the Moroccan high-speed service inaugurated in 2016. It is the first service of its kind on the African continent. This service connects the cities of Tangier and Casablanca, with a time of 2 hours and 10 minutes. The trains are made up of branches derived from the Alstom TGV 2N2, made up of two power heads and 8 trailers, capable of reaching speeds of 320 km/h. Currently the Moroccan Railways, ONCF, owns 12 units of these trains.
Algeria
The Government of Algeria has opened the international bidding process to build the first high-speed line in this country. This is a project for a double track line that will run between the towns of Jemis Miliana and Borch Bu Arrerich, with a total length of 320 km. In addition, it will connect with Algiers, Buira and Beni Mansur.
North America
Mexico
In 2006, the Government of Mexico launched the tender for the Querétaro-Mexico City fast train that would link the cities of Mexico City, Querétaro, León and Guadalajara in a two-hour trip. In August 2006 the tender was canceled due to budget and cost issues.
In December 2012 Enrique Peña Nieto, President of Mexico, announced the construction of a fast train line in Mexico. The train would run on a 210 km route between Mexico City and the capital of the Mexican state of Querétaro at a speed of 300 km/h. The bidding rules for this train were published on August 15, 2014.
In November 2014, the Ministry of Communications and Transport of Mexico announced that the Chinese company, Railway Construction Corporation, was the winner of the tender for the construction, supply, commissioning, operation and maintenance of a railway, rolling stock, electromechanical equipment and systems.
Finally, in 2015, the indefinite suspension of the Querétaro-Mexico City rapid train project was announced, mainly due to budget cuts that would prevent the project from being carried out.
The government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador revived the Mexico-Querétaro fast train project, construction of which is expected to begin in June 2021.
Currently, the Toluca-Valle de México Interurban Passenger Train is about to be completed, which will connect the Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Toluca with the Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Mexico, which will have a line with 6 stations and will be inaugurated in 2022.
The Monterrey-San Antonio High-Speed Train and in shortened form the Monterrey-San Antonio Train is a high-speed train project that seeks to connect the capital of the state of Nuevo León in Mexico with San Antonio in the United States. The project consists of the construction of a double-track high-speed train line with an approximate length of 400 km, two terminals (Monterrey and San Antonio).
United States
The Acela is Amtrak's high-speed service to the northeastern United States between Washington DC and Boston via 16 intermediate stops, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Providence. Acela trains are a derivative of the French TGV.
In California, the California High Speed Rail is being built, from San Francisco and Sacramento to Los Angeles and San Diego. The train to be used is expected to be a model similar to the Japanese Shinkansen.
South America
Chile
High Speed Train of Chile In 2009 under the government of Michelle Bachelet, the discussion was revived, to have a high-speed train as part of the efforts to recover the State Railways company, seriously damaged during the government of President Ricardo Lagos. After various studies, the project was dismissed due to its high cost. In 2013, the government of Sebastián Piñera declared it of public interest to have a high-speed train that would link the metropolitan region with the coastal cities of Valparaíso and Viña del Mar, the The new discussion once again had the opposition within the right-wing alliance that led him to the government, thus, and despite announcing at a press conference that the project would be entered into the concessions modality of the Chilean government, when his term ended, it was not finalized the public tender expected for the beginning of 2014. During the second administration of Michelle Bachelet, in October 2014, with a very politically weakened opposition, at the beginning of the execution of the works of the new Metrotren Rancagua commuter rail service, the authority confirmed that it had entered the study phase by EFE and at the request of the Spanish consortium led by Benedicto García de Mateo s, the Santiago-Valparaíso High Speed project.
On the same date, EFE announced the start of a second study, parallel to the Santiago/Valparaíso project, which would link the cities of Santiago with Concepción by means of a high-speed train in a travel time of less than 4 hours at a top speed of 220 km/h.
Both initiatives are currently in the study phase and their results will be reported once the white march of Metrotren Rancagua begins, in December 2016. According to what the EFE management has anticipated, the projects to follow after the inauguration of Metrotren Rancagua, will focus on enabling a second suburban service called Melipiilla Express, the final authorization of the expansion of the regional Biotren service to Coronel, and the recovery of the Santiago-Valparaíso service, either as a high-speed service or as a conventional service.
EFE is working on three alternatives for the design, the first a completely new high-speed track that runs almost parallel to the current Santiago Valparaíso Ruta 68 highway, the second and most feasible from an economic point of view a fast train that connects to the Merval layout with a new section that crosses in a tunnel through the Cuesta La Dormida sector, in Olmué, through Til Til to Quillota, a service that would also pass through the Santiago International Airport and finally a road that joins the current section Santiago - San Antonio, designed mainly for the transport of cargo that would mean the construction of a megaport in the commune.
Brazil
The TAV Brazil is a project of the Federal Government for the construction of a high-speed train with the function of connecting the two main metropolitan areas of Brazil, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. However, all bid attempts have failed. In August 2014, the Federal Court of Accounts (TCU) declared the project inadmissible because the technical and economic feasibility studies had expired, for which reason it was definitively discarded.
Argentina
The Government of Argentina announced in 2006 a disputed project to build a high-speed line that would link the cities of Buenos Aires, Rosario and Córdoba in a 704 km journey. After an agreement was signed in 2008 with the firm Alstom for its implementation, the project was suspended due to financing problems.
Gallery
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
1 – Eurostar trains connect London with Brussels and Paris through the Eurotunnel
2 – ICE in Pergammon Museum Berlin
3 – Eurostar and Thalys PBA TGVs side by side on the Paris-Gare du Nord line
4 – The world speed record (581 km/h) of the JR–Maglev in Yamanashi, Japan
5 – First Shinkansen N700-7000, on the Sanyō line, April 2009
6 – Shinkansen 500 series in Himeji
7 – The TGV Sud-Est fleet was built between 1978 and 1988 to connect Paris with Lyon. Series were originally built to run at 270 km/h (168 mph), but most have been upgraded to run at 300 km/h (186 mph) for the opening of the LGV Méditerranée
8 – The third generation German ICE on the high-speed line Frankfurt-Cologne
9 – The “Italo” AGV ETR 575 of the Italian railways NTV saves 33% of time between Milan and Bologna compared to plane + taxi
10 – Next generation South Korean model KTX-II operated by Korail
11 – The Japanese 700T Series built for Taiwan runs at 300 km/h and is capable of up to 350 km/h
12 – The Acela Express, currently the only high-speed train in the United States, with a top speed of 150 mph (240 km/h)
The future
Since 1970 there has been talk that the next revolution in trains would be those with magnetic levitation. But until today it was nothing more than that: the train of the future. But since the stroke of midnight on December 31, 2002, Shanghai time, it has ceased to be the train of the future, to the train of the present.
The Maglev train levitates on a magnetic motor. We can say that the train is a great magnet. Below him, on the 'rails', is a linear motor that causes a magnetic flux to push him forward. That magnetic flux pushes the train, lifts it up a few millimeters, and then moves it forward. Unlike conventional trains, the engine does not go on the train, but on the 'rails'. This brings advantages:
- Less weight (the engine does not go on the train), less noise (the motor does not go on the train or there are wheels that sprinkle with the ground; there is only a silent magnetic field).
- With no friction, energy consumption is lower. For example, at 300 km/h, the ICE high-speed train consumes 51 Wh per seat. The Transrapid (Maglev of Shanghai) consumes 34 Wh/ast.
- Since the engines are on the tracks, they can become more or less powerful according to the slope. The conventional train can't do it, because the engine carries it and it's always the same. That's why the high-speed train (TAV) can't climb more than 4% and the Transrapid You can go up to 10%. And this is not trivial. One of the major costs of a TAV is the way, since it must be very straight and have very little slope, which in many cases involves making huge tunnels or large viaducts.
- The one that the engine is on the ground has the enormous advantage that the train decreases its weight, so its inertia is less. In fact it starts and for much less time than a conventional TAV train.
- Derailation. When you ride on a train that goes to those huge speeds, you always think about what happens if you unload it. In the Maglev derailation is almost impossible, forced by the way the electromagnets and linear motors go.
- The noise is little since there is no friction with the rail. But at high speed what matters is aerodynamic noise. The lower weight and the lesser servitudes, not having to carry the engine on top, allow a better aerodynamic.
By 1994, other countries had managed to develop their own Maglev railways, including the United States, China, France, Italy, Spain, and South Korea. Currently, only the Chinese city of Shanghai maintains a "maglev" linking the city center with the airport. The Shanghai maglev connects Pudong International Airport, about 60 km from the city, with Longyang lu Metro Station, on the outskirts of Shanghai, in just 8 minutes.
Current projects
Germany and Japan have carried out experimental projects, but it will be the country of the Rising Sun that will first inaugurate a commercial line in 2005, during the universal exhibition in Aichi. Later it is planned to build a magnetic line between Tokyo and Osaka. In Germany, which along with Japan possesses the most developed technique in magnetic levitation systems, it foresees investments of 2.3 billion euros per year to provide the country with its two first Maglev lines, between Düsseldorf and Dortmund and between Munich and its airport. The project from the center of Munich to the airport will cost 1.85 billion euros (2.61 billion dollars), and will start once financing is secured. The train will "fly" at almost 500 km/h when it is built, although unfortunately there is no date for the possible launch of this revolutionary transport.
The Chinese authorities affirm that they no longer need Germany's help and intend to continue expanding the use of these trains (the next project plans to link the 160 km that separate Shanghai from Hangzhou). The project was temporarily suspended after complaints from thousands of residents of the area, concerned about the negative environmental and health impact that its magnetic radiation could cause, in addition to making their neighborhoods unpopular, which would seriously devalue the price of their homes.. The technology was created in Germany and transferred to China by the Transrapid consortium, made up of Siemens and Thyssen Krupp, and these companies recommended that there be a 300m wooded area on each side of the track. The initial draft of the Shanghai project reduced it to 150 m, which ended up being 22.5 m in the final plans, which is a considerable difference from the initial plans, the possible negative effects of this technology on people's health.
While the United States and Netherlands are also investing in this new technology, in Switzerland the project called Swissmetro is not going well path. South Korea has developed magnetic levitation technology to build its own 'bullet train'. His project is to unite the capital Seoul with Pusan, in the southeast of the peninsula.
The government of Qatar has expressed interest in buying the German maglev train Transrapid. The objective will be to build a first section of 160 km that goes from Qatar to Bahrain, a connection that should be made by means of a new bridge. In the event that this project prospers, the Qatari authorities assure that a second section of 800 km towards the United Arab Emirates would be studied.