Highest Speed

timz wrote:So there are lots of stops, for other trains? Is the line two-track? Nonstop trains run thru stations at full speed?

Got a bit carried away and forgot to answer half of your questions. Sorry.

The Shinkansen is a 100% grade separated, dedicated railroad with its own right-of-way that is completely independent from the regular train network. The shinkansen is double-track throughout; stations where faster trains overtake the slower ones are built with four seperate tracks. The speeds are homogenous, so no other allowances are made for passing. There are very few switches and turnouts on the line. I don't know exactly what signal technology they use, but I think it's more of an accident prevention system rather than a 100% automated deal.

And yes, trains do go blasting through the stations at full speed (or very nearly so). If you're on the train, stations whizz by so fast you hardly even realize you went through a station. If you happen to be standing on the platform when a train goes by, particularly if you have a direct line of sight to the train's wheels, the noise is ABSOLUTELY DEAFENING. But nevertheless, it's very impressive to see a 200mph train up close.

Thanks for all that-- and a couple more. About how many stops would that 89-minute train make? What's its top speed? How about the 52-minute trains?

Do some stations only have the two tracks, and trains pass next to the platforms at 320 km/hr?

Believe me, I love talking about the Shinkansen. Usually I just end up talking at a wall, though, because people don't seem to know or care very much about it. It usually takes a back seat to the TGV when people talk about high speed trains; this despite the fact that it's been around almost twice as long and carries an overwhelmingly greater number of passengers. Go figure.

Anyway. All Kodamas make 5 stops, and take 85~91 minutes depending on the schedule. Hikaris and Hikari Rail Stars make one or two stops, and take 52~57 minutes. Most Nozomis are non-stop, but some of them make one stop, with schedules varying from 44~52 minutes.

As far as I can remember, we passed by some stations alarmingly close to the platform, so I do believe some stations did have just two tracks. I could be wrong, though.

The Kodamas are run with older trains, which have been downrated to a top speed of 220km/h. Hikaris are 270 or 285, depending on what train you ride, and the Nozomi has a top speed of 285 or 300km/h. Those are the fastest trains currently in revenue service in Japan. So I guess they don't quite hit 200mph after all, although I read somewhere that an increase to 320km/h for the Sanyo Shinkansen is being contemplated. A 350km/h tilting trainset is also under development.

Something else you might find interesting is that Japan has two different power systems, 50hz to the east of Shizuoka and 60hz to the west. Back in the 1960s, when the Tokaido Shinkansen was built, a train that could switch frequencies and yet was light enough and fast enough to run at the desired speeds was not technologically feasible, so the decision was made to power the line at 60hz through 150km of 50hz territory between Shizuoka and Tokyo. Rather than utilize frequency converters, I believe that JR decided to build their own power plant to do this.

For a long time, the frequency incompatibility was given as the reason that there are no trains that travel through Tokyo - you always have to transfer in order to continue your journey. However, transformer technology improved immensely since 1964, and the Nagano Shinkansen, completed in late 1997 just in time for the winter olympics, was constructed with a frequency change along the way. With that obstacle out of the way, I don't expect it to be too long before a connection is built in Tokyo and through service is initiated in Tokyo. The rail geek in me can't help but think how cool a sleeper shinkansen from Kagoshima (southernmost point) to Sapporo (biggest city on the northernmost island) would be once the construction is complete. The ~1500 mile journey would be covered in only 10 hours. It would also provide the only redeye shinkansen service in the Tokyo area, which could prove to be very popular.

Oops-- now we're in trouble. If top speed is only 300 km/hr it does sound impossible to do 213.5 km start-to-stop in 44 minutes. You guessed 5 minutes to accelerate to top speed; how long to slow from top speed to the stop?

timz wrote:Oops-- now we're in trouble. If top speed is only 300 km/hr it does sound impossible to do 213.5 km start-to-stop in 44 minutes. You guessed 5 minutes to accelerate to top speed; how long to slow from top speed to the stop?

213.5km / (44 / 60) = 291.136 km/h. That's certainly less than 300 =)

I could be way off on my acceleration time estimates. I just looked it up, and its starting acceleration is 2.7km/h/s. If it managed to keep that up, it would hit top speed in less than two minutes, although physics dictates that with greater wind resistance the acceleration would become slower at higher speed.

The 500 class is, designed for 320km/h operation, but as far as I know it's limited to a 300km/h service speed at the moment. Maybe JR West lets this one train "push" the speed limit for advertising purposes: just so they can claim a 44 minute trip time. It seems that, no matter what route you look at, there's always one train that's just a little bit faster than all the rest.

But if there's one thing I do not doubt, it's that this train actually makes the trip in 44 minutes. The scheduling really is that tight.

I expect you're right about the 44 minutes-- it's the distance or the top speed that doesn't fit.

We can almost manage it if we make unlikely assumptions. If they accelerate at 2.7 km/hr per second all the way to 300 km/hr then they cover the first 4.6296 km in 1.85 minutes. They do the next 206.8704 km at 300 km/hr: 41.37 minutes. Which leaves them with 2.5 km to cover in the remaining 0.77 minute, to the stop. But if they decelerate at a constant 5 km/hr per second the last 2.5 km will take 1 minute.

You know, you're absolutely right. There was something I'd forgotten about the Shinkansen, and it has to do with the way fares are calculated. On JR, no matter what train you ride, there is always a base fare charged per kilometer. I think this base rate is determined by each of the regional JRs companies. Then, there is an accomodations fee that depends on what kind of train you ride. As I said before, you can ride unreserved seats on a local, rapid, or super rapid with just the base fare; if you reserve a seat, go first class ("green car"), or ride an express, limited express, sleeper, or shinkansen, you pay an extra fare, although I don't know the formula for calculating it. Regardless, if you are riding on a local, you only need one ticket, but if you are on anything else you need two - one for the distance fare, and another for the accomodation. In the case of the Shinkansen, the base fare usually ends up.

Anyway, with the Shinkansen, the distances are shorter than the conventional lines, since the tracks are much straighter. But they didn't want the Shinkansen to have a lower base fare than the conventional lines, so they made the decision to calculate it based the distance between the stations on the conventional lines. That way, the base fare for traveling between Hiroshima and Kokura is the same regardless of whether you go by local, express, or shinkansen.

A quick check of the Wikipedia article about the Sanyo Shinkansen (found here) reveals that Hiroshima is at milepost (kilometerpost?) 821.2, while Kokura is at 1013.2. That makes for a distance of 192km, and an average speed of 261.81km/h. While still impressive, it's not quite in the same league.

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As an aside, student discounts are calculated as a 15% discount off the base fare. Students pay the same price for accomodations as anyone else. In the case of the Shinkansen, the base fare and the accomodations fare usually end up being roughly the same, so it's a 15% discount off of 50% of the fare, or a 7.5% discount.

A shot of the Talgo 350 in Spain...I wonder if these are in revenue service yet!

http://railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=96002

orulz wrote:I love talking about the Shinkansen...It usually takes a back seat to the TGV

A back seat to the LGV, right? "Shinkansen" refers to the railroad line, not the trains

Irish Chieftain wrote:

orulz wrote:I love talking about the Shinkansen...It usually takes a back seat to the TGV

A back seat to the LGV, right? "Shinkansen" refers to the railroad line, not the trains

I go through incredible pains NOT to make that all-too-common mistake (you won't find any other place I did that in all my other posts in this thread) and you gotta go picking on me for the one time I do. And I only HALF made that mistake. Read the rest of the sentence:

orulz wrote:It usually takes a back seat to the TGV when people talk about high speed trains...

Note I correctly identify the TGV as the train.

Besides, people in Japan refer to the operation as a whole as the "Shinkansen" while, if I'm not mistaken, the French refer to their operation as the "TGV".

Bah. Gimme some slack.

Now that we're back in sub-300kph range, I nominate the ICE3 of the Deutsche Bahn on the Neubaustrecke (new construction) from Frankfurt Flughafen (airport) to Siegburg (across the river from Bonn). This is scheduled for 37 minutes, which includes a few km of "old" track and connection to the new section, and 57 minutes nonstop (skipping Siegburg and a few other stations) all the way to Cologne main station, including slow running in suburban Cologne and across the world's busiest railroad bridge (the Hohenzollern bridge, crossing the Rhine). This cut more than an hour off the old route via the Rhine valley.

If you can read German here's a nice site with good maps and facts:

http://www.hochgeschwindigkeitszuege.co ... recken.htm

There are 30 tunnels (longest 4.5km), 18 bridges. Total length is 177km from Frankfurt to the end of the new construction near Bonn; all the way to Cologne is 219km; I can't seem to find the exact km to which the 37 min. refers; my guess is about 160km which makes for a 260kph average. But even for the whole length, including the slow running at either end, that's 230kph average!

The top speed is 300kph and I have been on this train several times -- what an experience! They show the speedometer on the bulkhead of each car (like something the Pennsy or NYC would have done years ago) and it's usually pinned on 300. This is rolling country in Hesse state, along the A3, and grades are up to 0.4% which doesn't sound much but try rolling up that grade at 300kph! These are powerful MU's. It takes 7.5km (almost 5 miles) to stop at that speed.

The only fly in the ointment are the local politicians (as usual) -- but this time it's not NIMBY -- it's "please stop in my back yard". Two essentially local stations (Limburg and Montalbur) had to be built and served as "ranson" by the local authorities to stop them blocking everything with interminable court actions. Well, I think this happened in railroad history in the USA too.

So... come to Germany and fly along the ground at 300kph every day... then take the scenic route along the Lorelei on the return trip to Cologne.

"and grades are up to 0.4% which doesn't sound much but try rolling up that grade at 300kph! These are powerful MU's. It takes 7.5km (almost 5 miles) to stop at that speed."

You're right, 0.4% doesn't sound like much. Isn't the French LGV 3.5% maximum?

I guess you mean they start slowing 7.5 km from the stop? Surely they could stop faster if they wanted to.

timz wrote:I guess you mean they start slowing 7.5 km from the stop? Surely they could stop faster if they wanted to.

The TGVs could stop from 300 km/hr in maybe 1.5 miles on full emergency, depending upon track adhesion, and that's about it. They just can't stop in any less space than that. I think the ICE, being a somewhat heavier train, takes over two miles to make an emergency stop from full speed.

Getting back to that 180.9 mph average speed briefly...it might interest some people to know that traveling that fast on a train would result in getting from New York City to Chicago in under 4½ hours. More than competitive with the plane—it actually would beat it from city center to city center. (And detractors claim that HSR is competitive only in short- to medium-distance corridors? That theory can be considered to be blown out of the water...)

Irish Chieftain wrote:(And detractors claim that HSR is competitive only in short- to medium-distance corridors? That theory can be considered to be blown out of the water...)

I mentioned this several times on another (not rail related) forum several years ago and nobody believed me until I did the numbers. State-of-the-art 220 mph high speed rail can average 180+ mph over long distances. This makes it quite competitive with planes in total journey time up to at least 1000 miles. I once figured that if we could get enough high speed routes built so that it would be possible to travel cross country entirely on high-speed tracks, we could do NYC to LA in perhaps 15 hours. A cross country flight takes 6 hours. Once you count the security checks and trips to/from the airports you're probably pushing 9 hours, certainly 8. The difference between the plane and train is essentially a good night's sleep, and I'm sure such a route would easily get 50% or better of the trips. People will trade time for comfort and convenience if the time penalty isn't too great.

Based on what I just said, we're looking at a 6 or 7 hour time penalty for the longest possible domestic trips, and likely no time penalty at all on many of the typical ones. Am I the only one here thinking that nationwide 220 mph rail would probably just about make domestic air travel (and most long distance auto travel) obsolete? Think about it. 90% of flights simply would be done by train. And there would no longer be the range excuse preventing auto makers from manufacturing battery electric vehicles (BEVs). If almost nobody drives more than 200 miles round trip then the whole range and recharge time excuse goes right out the window since current technology can make BEVs with 200 mile range (and incidentally 80% recharge in 15 minutes).

Of course, the idiots in Washington will continue to say people will never leave their cars to ride a train, even a fast one, yet that is exactly what they do when they fly. Now if the train is as fast or faster than the plane door-to-door (and advertised as such) why wouldn't the public ride the rails?