At a speed that puts Chicago 2 hours from Washington, DC

[Stinky The Clown]

Chinese passenger train sets new world speed record after reaching 302mph

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1335470/Chinese-passenger-train-sets-new-world-speed-record-reaching-302mph.html#ixzz175ktZQGb



Meanwhile, the repubicans would kill AMTRAK if they could.

[madinmaryland]

1. Sadly, this country decided to invest in highways and air travel.

Look where we are now.

[Freetradesucks]

6. What is so great,

about a train that goes half the speed of an airplane? I really don't get why this is supposed to be so superior...

[madinmaryland]

10. Think about this...

I could be in downtown Chicago in about three and a half hours by train. Taking a plane would be at least five hours (half hour drive, hour and a half early to the airport, another hour after the flight to get downtown.)

I would rather be on a train, have cellphone and internet access, and actually be able to enjoy traveling.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

28. and if you aren't going downtown?

Most of my business travel takes me to random office parks in random suburbs.

[DaveinJapan]

13. Depending on your destination, high speed rail can be much faster than flying. nt

[Tesha]

18. City center to city center instead of "'way out in the burbs to 'way out in the burbs". (NT)

[Tesha]

17. Electric trains work on a form of power we can generate many, many ways.

Airplanes work solely based on liquid fuel (which today means "oil").

The trains will keep running along time, and could do so on green
power. The airplanes? They'll be too expensive to operate soon.

Tesha

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

26. yeah, going from New York to Los Angeles in five hours eats ass

So does getting from my house to office in ten minutes, I wish there was a way I could add multiple stops along the route so I could wait half an hour to switch buses.

[tularetom]

2. It won't work so great if they have to put up a pole every 50 feet

Jesus that's a fucking jungle of overhead lines and supports.

They need a better way of delivering power to the train.

[Tesha]

21. Partly, that's an artifact of the telephoto lens being used.

Here's another image that gives you a fairer perspective:



This is pretty typical for high-speed (or even low speed!) modern
catenary construction.

But if you've got a better way to deliver 10 or 20 megawatts to the
trains, please patent it and make it available to the world! Right now,
high-voltage catenary returning its power through the running rails
is the best alternative we have for high-speed operation.

Tesha

[tularetom]

24. Some European light rail systems are experimenting with Alimentation par Sol (APS)

Which is basically a modern adaptation of the old third rail systems used in many older American subway systems.

Not sure about the upper limits of power transmission by this method but apparently it has addressed concerns about the safety of ground level power supply and eliminated the need for extensive overhead lines.

Also I don't know if it is adaptable for main line passenger service.

But I'm sure somebody is working to adapt some sort of ground level system to high speed rail lines.

[Tesha]

25. It's not very practical for high-powered trains.

The problem is that the power levels for high-speed mainline
trains are very, very high compared to the relative low power
levels for street cars and trams.

Each tram car runs at a power level of perhaps several hundred
horsepower peak, so let's say 150,000 Watts/car peak. (The
average power is lower as trams coast quite a lot and don't
travel fast enough for wind losses to amount to much.) At
the typical 600 volt power level, that means each car is
drawing 250 Amps peak. That's a practical level of current
to collect with a "pickup shoe" sliding along a third rail.

But a TGV-class train is probably running at 12,000 HP
continuous rating so the power rating is more like 9 Megawatts
for the train (continuous rating) and two or three times that
for peak consumption. At 600 volts, that would mean currents
of 15,000 Amps continuously, a completely impractical amount
of current. So the trains run on much higher voltages (commonly
25,000 volts) allowing for a much lower current of perhaps
360 Amps. That's back in the acceptable range of what a sliding
pickup shoe can collect.

But 25,000 volts is much too much voltage to "contain" near
the ground. It requires many inches of clearance to keep it
from arcing over to ground, and the situation becomes worse
in wet weather. And at ground level, the general "wet" is often
combined with salty road runoff, making matters far, far worse.

Also, as speeds increase, it becomes very hard to keep the
pickup shoe in contact with the powered rail (or what-have-you).
A third-rail pickup shoe tends not to have enough "compliance"
so above 100 MPH or so, they tend to make very poor contact
with the third rail. Pantographs running on overhead catenary
wires tend to have much greater "compliance" (as does the catenary
wire itself) so they work better at high speeds, but even so, when
you're talking about 300 MPH, it makes for very tricky design.
(Note that the TGV runs with only one pantograph up; that one
pantograph makes the catenary wire bounce too much for a
second pantograph any where along the train to be able to
reliably contact the wire.)

But all of those factors are why high-powered trains usually
use overhead catenary wires rather than any sort of "third rail"
distribution system, whether it's at the track side or buried in
a slot in the street.

Tesha

[Subdivisions]

3. Cool train! n/t

[Cali_Democrat]

4. China is cleaning our clocks

Republicans would kill something like this in 2 seconds and the Dems wouldn't stand in the way.

[sarcasmo]

5. That thing is the SHIT. It would be awesome to do Chicago to NYC in say 3 or 3 1/s hours.

[Freetradesucks]

7. As opposed to 1 1/2 hours on an airplane?

[Subdivisions]

8. With complimentary sexual assault? n/t

[Freetradesucks]

12. How long before these high speed trains

have the same security as airplanes? If they became popular, not long...

[lunatica]

20. You can fly if you want

I like looking at scenery, having a club car and a bar car, and even a bed to sleep in if I go across the country.

[Posteritatis]

22. Or paying half the price for a more comfortable environment

No being treated like a criminal, no ridiculous fluids rules, permission to stand up if you need to...

[Freetradesucks]

23. Alright, those are all good points!

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

27. Given the TSA is setting up shop at bus stations...

probably not very long - and the Eurostar had airline style security long before 9/11.

[madinmaryland]

11. and two hours trying to getting to the airport early and all the other bs

involved in flying.

[marmar]

14. When you add the transit and security time, that 1 1/2 hours is more than doubled.....

As opposed to downtown-downtown hassle free train travel.

[DaveinJapan]

15. You can travel from downtown Chicago to downtown NYC in 1.5 hours? Wrong.

You're missing a lot of the main advantages here regarding high speed rail.

One big advantage is that you can arrive literally a minute before departure. How much time does it take to go though airport check in lines, security, boarding, sitting on tarmac before take-off, baggage claim, etc? Add a couple of hours to your 1.5 right there, and Chicago to NYC is probably a tad faster by train.

Another advantage is that you can travel from one downtown area to another, as opposed to an airport which is generally far from the city proper. Depending on the city, add another 30 minutes to 1 hour to your flight. Multiply that by two (departure and destination) and high speed rail is WAY faster in MOST cases (flying still trumps riding the rails for trans-continental and intercontinental voyages, of course).

[sarcasmo]

16. For someone who hates airports, YES.

[Tesha]

19. But that's just the flying time. The total trip time is much, much longer.

And getting longer all the time.

Tesha

[asdjrocky]

9. The last thing tptb want-

Is the masses to be able to cheaply and quickly make it to DC. The reason there is high speed rail all over the rest of the world is forward thinking governments who are forced to care about their people build them.