by "Cé hé sin" (michael-m-mouse)
Published 12/11/2017 at 16:56
by "Cé hé sin" (michael-m-mouse)
Published 12/11/2017 at 16:56
Tags: TGV
; EV
STARS: 2
The EV I was on today. It makes really good progress and to emphasise that the onboard wifi provides you with a map.
When we slowed down to 250 or so it felt as if we’d almost stopped.
"For Sweden" (rallybeetle)
12/11/2017 at 17:25, STARS: 0
oh no I can hear the jingle in my head
"facw" (facw)
12/11/2017 at 17:46, STARS: 0
Meanwhile, in the US, a new “high-speed” line is undergoing final testing:
The Brightline in Florida will run from Miami to Orlando with a rather pedestrian top speed of 125mph (201kph), though almost the entirety of that route will be less that 110mph (177kph), and a significant portion will top out at 79mph (127kph). Better than nothing I guess...
"Cé hé sin" (michael-m-mouse)
12/12/2017 at 14:25, STARS: 1
That’s privately owned though and there’s no way a private company is going to justify the investment for a high speed line, which is absolutely colossal. They’re building a second very high speed line in the UK at the moment, imaginatively called HS2, and current estimates are £55 billion for 330 miles. Few believe even that figure will be kept to.
Also of course Brightline are using diesel locos. They have a terrible power to weight ratio compared to electrics (a diesel is something around the 100 tonne mark and has up to about 4,000 bhp at the engine, quite a bit less at the wheels, while an electric would be around 6.4MW or around 8,500 bhp at the wheels for less weight) and while they could go faster than 200 kmh the time taken to accelerate wouldn’t be feasible..
"facw" (facw)
12/12/2017 at 14:28, STARS: 0
Yep, the state of rail in the US is disappointing, but I don’t blame brightline for being unambitious, this stuff is expensive, and they are already doing a ton of work double tracking the line, most of which had been degraded to single track. The line does seem to has a huge number of level crossings which seems like a disaster waiting to happen though.