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Re: Calif. High-speed rail on track for debacle
Author: Speeder Kevin
Date: 07-17-2011 - 23:19
George, I hopefully can answer some questions of yours - in an encyclopedic quantity :)
I have friends who work for SNCF in France and SJ in Sweden. I usually chit-chat with them once a day or so and learn a little about their systems now and again. I have also been to both countries extensively, ridden in the cabs of the TGV and X2000, and toured their infrastructure and RoW's. Also, toured the UK, Germany, Belgium, and Denmark too and compared and contrasted their networks to each other and ours here.
For the stations-
Normal every-day trains mix and mingle with the high speed trains in the stations. I noticed that compared to here, when they leave, just about over a mile or two out of the terminus, they are already traveling at 60 MPH. Here? Seems like forever to obtain that after going through the yards and neighborhoods. After that, the speeds only increase.
On the lines I have taken out of Gare du Nord and Gare de Lyon, yes, it takes some time to get to the dedicated high speed lines. However, like I said above the tracks that lead to them from the stations are pretty fast.
For the lines-
Even the TGV lines haul freight...somewhat. At night, they have a few special trains that haul mail and other light, time sensitive goods between Paris and Lyon on the LN1. They have special locos and cars that are equipped for 125 MPH operation. The locomotives have the TVM 430 cab signaling (the same as the TGV's) and the cars have disk brakes on them rather than ones that brake using the tread of the wheels. These trains never mix with passenger operations. France, The Netherlands and Germany have spent untold billions creating exclusive RoW's with no crossings, kilometer radius curves, tunnels, and thousands of miles of fencing to make the high speed lines safe.
Thinking of the other high speed lines...the only other one I can come up with that hauls freight on the same lines is Sweden. The same lines that have 125 MPH X2000's on them haul freight, but remember, the axle loads in Europe are significantly lighter than what the US operates with so the track geometry is quite a bit more robust. Also noted in Sweden, their interurban service out of Stockholm operated by SL, runs trains on the some of the same high speed lines that the X2000's do, at 100 MPH. They are mixed in between freights on the same lines.
With some small exceptions in Sweden, all of the high speed lines that I have seen use concrete ties. France and Sweden also use LOTS of expansion joints on their lines, especially on either side of bridges.
For the speeds-
The TGV now has lines that run east to Germany that top out at 200 MPH. I know they tested the Thalys trains in The Netherlands up to that, but what their normal operating speed is I couldn't tell you (probably 186 or 200 MPH).
As for averages, when I took a cab ride on the TGV between Lyon and Paris, they did have slow orders. They didn't maintain the 186 MPH all the time, but it was a good percentage of the trip.
My comments about HSR here.
One, all the lines mentioned above are all owned by the governments of the countries they are in. Most contract out the maintenance on them. If you want to run your own train, it would be similar to a toll road here. Your equipment must be certified to run on the lines you want to travel, insurance, etc... You pay for the weight of the train and the distance you want to travel. Not too sure about what you do at each end for storage, hopefully you have your own spur!
As you know here, darn near all the lines are privately owned and profit driven. Europe has embraced their rail lines and made them grow and be somewhat profitable. I can't speak for the internal business end of their train crews, that is for another topic.
Even though every country there seems to have a different electrical, signaling, communication, and train control systems, that are contained within each country. Europe has done a great job with the TGV, Eurostar, and others that are able to operate on different voltages with the same locomotive. They are also trying to get ERTMS up and running throughout the whole of Europe rather than equipping international trains with multiple signaling systems. GSM-R is looking like it is on the way of becoming the standard for radio communication throughout Europe. Russia, some Baltic countries, and others are still holding onto their HF, VHF, and UHF radio systems for now.
Now, to contrast that with the US. We have the same issue here on some fronts. I am just going to say that infinitesimally close to 100% none of the carriers here use electricity to haul freight, so that eliminates the electrical differences (if there were any!). Signaling, yes, we too have different signals for different railroads, but they are pretty similar. Radio? Well with the narrow banding going into effect here soon, that will offer more channels, but there is also talk of some going digital. Some railroads may have it, some may not, which leads to incompatibilities. One of the biggest, stupid things I have seen recently is the implementation of PTS. BNSF's low-band system will be incompatible with UP's 218 MHz system. Why in the hell didn't the FRA set standards that the railroads had to follow to make their equipment compatible with each other? I have seen recently one of Amtrak's locomotives equipped with BNSF's new low-band system. The Sti-co antenna on the roof gave it away. Next, to make the locomotive ready for UP, it will need another discrete antenna on the roof. That locomotive will have a total of 9 different antennas on it for all the communication requirements to make it road-worthy of traveling on multiple railroads.
Comparing PTS here with Sweden's ATC system. (This system is also used in neighboring Norway and also in France.) The system uses a network of track beacons mounted on the crossties. It is completely land based, near field communication, that relays track signaling, track geometry, and speed information to the onboard computers. Sure, we don't use that here, but it would have cut out the GPS portion, all those land based radio towers, the expense of drilling more holes in the locomotives roofs, and good to over 200 MPH. In my opinion, it is less likely to be affected by interference of the GPS/radio signals, and would have been a better choice for the rail lines here.
I could go on forever about the past 7 years or so of my travels and observations of here and across the pond. There is so much to compare and contrast of why systems is more favorited over another. This is only one persons observations of seeing and reading about different operations out there. If you are still reading this after all the above, congratulations!
-K
References:
[www.ertms.com]
[www.uic.org]
[www.idg.se]
[www.teknogram.se]
(You may want to use Google translate for the last two links)
[www.youtube.com] Mix of passenger and Freight on 100 MPH track in Sweden
[www.youtube.com] 125 MPH freight in France
I have friends who work for SNCF in France and SJ in Sweden. I usually chit-chat with them once a day or so and learn a little about their systems now and again. I have also been to both countries extensively, ridden in the cabs of the TGV and X2000, and toured their infrastructure and RoW's. Also, toured the UK, Germany, Belgium, and Denmark too and compared and contrasted their networks to each other and ours here.
For the stations-
Normal every-day trains mix and mingle with the high speed trains in the stations. I noticed that compared to here, when they leave, just about over a mile or two out of the terminus, they are already traveling at 60 MPH. Here? Seems like forever to obtain that after going through the yards and neighborhoods. After that, the speeds only increase.
On the lines I have taken out of Gare du Nord and Gare de Lyon, yes, it takes some time to get to the dedicated high speed lines. However, like I said above the tracks that lead to them from the stations are pretty fast.
For the lines-
Even the TGV lines haul freight...somewhat. At night, they have a few special trains that haul mail and other light, time sensitive goods between Paris and Lyon on the LN1. They have special locos and cars that are equipped for 125 MPH operation. The locomotives have the TVM 430 cab signaling (the same as the TGV's) and the cars have disk brakes on them rather than ones that brake using the tread of the wheels. These trains never mix with passenger operations. France, The Netherlands and Germany have spent untold billions creating exclusive RoW's with no crossings, kilometer radius curves, tunnels, and thousands of miles of fencing to make the high speed lines safe.
Thinking of the other high speed lines...the only other one I can come up with that hauls freight on the same lines is Sweden. The same lines that have 125 MPH X2000's on them haul freight, but remember, the axle loads in Europe are significantly lighter than what the US operates with so the track geometry is quite a bit more robust. Also noted in Sweden, their interurban service out of Stockholm operated by SL, runs trains on the some of the same high speed lines that the X2000's do, at 100 MPH. They are mixed in between freights on the same lines.
With some small exceptions in Sweden, all of the high speed lines that I have seen use concrete ties. France and Sweden also use LOTS of expansion joints on their lines, especially on either side of bridges.
For the speeds-
The TGV now has lines that run east to Germany that top out at 200 MPH. I know they tested the Thalys trains in The Netherlands up to that, but what their normal operating speed is I couldn't tell you (probably 186 or 200 MPH).
As for averages, when I took a cab ride on the TGV between Lyon and Paris, they did have slow orders. They didn't maintain the 186 MPH all the time, but it was a good percentage of the trip.
My comments about HSR here.
One, all the lines mentioned above are all owned by the governments of the countries they are in. Most contract out the maintenance on them. If you want to run your own train, it would be similar to a toll road here. Your equipment must be certified to run on the lines you want to travel, insurance, etc... You pay for the weight of the train and the distance you want to travel. Not too sure about what you do at each end for storage, hopefully you have your own spur!
As you know here, darn near all the lines are privately owned and profit driven. Europe has embraced their rail lines and made them grow and be somewhat profitable. I can't speak for the internal business end of their train crews, that is for another topic.
Even though every country there seems to have a different electrical, signaling, communication, and train control systems, that are contained within each country. Europe has done a great job with the TGV, Eurostar, and others that are able to operate on different voltages with the same locomotive. They are also trying to get ERTMS up and running throughout the whole of Europe rather than equipping international trains with multiple signaling systems. GSM-R is looking like it is on the way of becoming the standard for radio communication throughout Europe. Russia, some Baltic countries, and others are still holding onto their HF, VHF, and UHF radio systems for now.
Now, to contrast that with the US. We have the same issue here on some fronts. I am just going to say that infinitesimally close to 100% none of the carriers here use electricity to haul freight, so that eliminates the electrical differences (if there were any!). Signaling, yes, we too have different signals for different railroads, but they are pretty similar. Radio? Well with the narrow banding going into effect here soon, that will offer more channels, but there is also talk of some going digital. Some railroads may have it, some may not, which leads to incompatibilities. One of the biggest, stupid things I have seen recently is the implementation of PTS. BNSF's low-band system will be incompatible with UP's 218 MHz system. Why in the hell didn't the FRA set standards that the railroads had to follow to make their equipment compatible with each other? I have seen recently one of Amtrak's locomotives equipped with BNSF's new low-band system. The Sti-co antenna on the roof gave it away. Next, to make the locomotive ready for UP, it will need another discrete antenna on the roof. That locomotive will have a total of 9 different antennas on it for all the communication requirements to make it road-worthy of traveling on multiple railroads.
Comparing PTS here with Sweden's ATC system. (This system is also used in neighboring Norway and also in France.) The system uses a network of track beacons mounted on the crossties. It is completely land based, near field communication, that relays track signaling, track geometry, and speed information to the onboard computers. Sure, we don't use that here, but it would have cut out the GPS portion, all those land based radio towers, the expense of drilling more holes in the locomotives roofs, and good to over 200 MPH. In my opinion, it is less likely to be affected by interference of the GPS/radio signals, and would have been a better choice for the rail lines here.
I could go on forever about the past 7 years or so of my travels and observations of here and across the pond. There is so much to compare and contrast of why systems is more favorited over another. This is only one persons observations of seeing and reading about different operations out there. If you are still reading this after all the above, congratulations!
-K
References:
[www.ertms.com]
[www.uic.org]
[www.idg.se]
[www.teknogram.se]
(You may want to use Google translate for the last two links)
[www.youtube.com] Mix of passenger and Freight on 100 MPH track in Sweden
[www.youtube.com] 125 MPH freight in France
