131–140 of 192 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a good point, wonder if they can even open the side windows to look out? I think the windows on trains generally serve to give situational awareness at the station, once you are up to speed reacting to unexpected impediments isn't so time critical since the train isn't likely to stop fast enough anyway.
Reacting to things is still important and time critical. You just can't react to anything in sight. Instead the things you can react to are data and camera feeds from far up ahead. What are the other trains doing? Did the next junction switch successfully? I think that raises a question of: what is the point of having a driver on the train? Why not have people in a control room drive the trains, coordinating the syst…
These are not things the train driver would react to. There will be a signal protecting the switch, which won't be "green" until the change is successful. If the driver tries to pass a red signal (or exceed the speed limit), the emergency brake is applied automatically.
The driver needs to react to unexpected events -- which might mean applying the emergency brake on their own train and maybe pressing the emergency button to stop all trains in the area. Possibilities:
- their own train has a serious mechanical failure
- something falls of their train, like a container or (somehow) a passenger
- the track has a serious failure (flooding, damaged rail, nearby fire)
- foreign objects are on the track (cars, trees, people)
Other trains will react automatically as necessary. The driver is then there to deal with the situation, which might include proceeding at slow speed, reversing, or waiting for assistance while keeping passengers informed.
> some trains automatically stopping in cases of signal violation.
On high-speed trains like this, all of these safety systems you've heard about are standard, and most of them are considered critical for normal operation.
> what is the point of having a driver on the train?
A better question is why does the driver actually drive the train? (Why do they control the speed?) I think that's to help maintain situational awareness in case there is a problem they can react to.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a good point, wonder if they can even open the side windows to look out? I think the windows on trains generally serve to give situational awareness at the station, once you are up to speed reacting to unexpected impediments isn't so time critical since the train isn't likely to stop fast enough anyway.
Reacting to things is still important and time critical. You just can't react to anything in sight. Instead the things you can react to are data and camera feeds from far up ahead. What are the other trains doing? Did the next junction switch successfully? I think that raises a question of: what is the point of having a driver on the train? Why not have people in a control room drive the trains, coordinating the syst…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
High speed train works well in France (and it's just 300km/h) because the country is small. Australia is huge. And so is the US. This would make sense along coasts though but you wouldn't be able to cross the country from sea to sea in a few hours of course. What's good with trains is that you can hop in at the very last moment (when the bell rings, happened to me a couple times) and the train stops in the center of…
> it might become more interesting to dig long tunnels under cities for these trains rather than increasing the train's maximum speed. That’s actually part of what the Stuttgart 21 project is doing, and why it’s so expensive (it’s not just a train station): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21 They’re building several massive tunnels below the city and through the surrounding mountains to put the entire station…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
High speed train works well in France (and it's just 300km/h) because the country is small. Australia is huge. And so is the US. This would make sense along coasts though but you wouldn't be able to cross the country from sea to sea in a few hours of course. What's good with trains is that you can hop in at the very last moment (when the bell rings, happened to me a couple times) and the train stops in the center of…
> For instance the TGV has to slow down when entering cities (because of the noise) and at some point in the development of the high speed rail network, it might become more interesting to dig long tunnels under cities for these trains rather than increasing the train's maximum speed. It has to slow down anyway if it wants to stop.
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High-speed rail also works well in China. It’s the same size as the United States, which is about the size of Australia. There are only 25 million people in Australia though.
China's population is concentrated in one part of the country. That makes it easier to serve them more efficiently with mass transit. This isn't true for the United States. The population resides on the coasts, which you can serve with high-speed rail, but connecting the two coasts with the inland population centers via rail is a much, much bigger project.
- larger curve radiuses (spelling?). Not much of a factor when a line mostly crosses sparsely populated, flat areas.
- less steep inclines (but if a steam engine can climb an incline, so should every modern train)
- Switches that allow high speeds on the diverging branch. But again, if the population is sparse, you don't need many of them.
And when building a part of the line to HSR standards is too expensive, the HSR train just turns into a regular train while using it. The only part that's expensive even if the geography is great is electrification (having to carry fuel or batteries limits your speed).
Switzerland does not use HSR despite prioritizing rail. I couldn't find numbers, but AFAIK it's very densely populated if you exclude the uninhabitable parts of the alps. Germany is slightly less densely populated and does use HSR. France has less than half the density and its HSR is significantly faster than Germany's. It does not look like HSR requires a high population density. The opposite is the case: HSR works better when it can go long distances without stopping and re-accelerating.
And even if HSR does not make sense everywhere, that is not a reason not to use it where it does.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reacting to things is still important and time critical. You just can't react to anything in sight. Instead the things you can react to are data and camera feeds from far up ahead. What are the other trains doing? Did the next junction switch successfully? I think that raises a question of: what is the point of having a driver on the train? Why not have people in a control room drive the trains, coordinating the syst…
Remote control systems can and will fail.
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Most of their "world leading" High Speed Rail, as you call it, is actually using Siemens Velaro D/E rolling stock — the same train used in Europe as "ICE" or for some of the Eurostar lines :)
Siemens Velaro have gigantic issues in good old Germany. And China has indeed homegrown machines, such as the CRH380A or the CR400AF. Further, there is also a lot of shit tier technology in Germany. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-Bahn Siemens is actually still offering that system. If you ride it, you will wonder how it was possible to combine all disadvantages of all existing people mover rail technology and to pro…
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Here in the UK we enjoy low speed trains every day. ;) Just seeing this stuff in other countries really makes me sad about how my countries technological developments have been left to rot.
Hmm well its not soooooo bad - 185mph/300kmh for High Speed 1 (1), with High Speed 2 (2) under construction at the moment (in some parts of the coutnry anyway) and pegged at 250mph/400kph (2). London-Edinburgh is old and goes at about 125mph/200kmh. London-Glasgow is slightly-less old (in terms of trains) and does 120mph/225kmh). Suburban trains are slower of course, but they stop pretty frequently anyway. tl;dr - it…
For example, there is a train every 20 minutes from London to Manchester (320km), but only one train per hour from Berlin to Hamburg¹.
This is part of the reason for the higher prices.
¹ There are slightly more, but they are slower such that it's not worth using them.
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Either "kph" or "kmph" is a casual, sloppy, but common way, along with abbreviations like "gms" (grams) or "mts" (metres). None of these are unusual in the UK. The correct way is km/h, or (occasionally, for mathematicians or scientists) km·h⁻¹ or km h⁻¹.
I have never seen 'mts' used before, why would you, when 'm' is both more concise, and more correct? I may have seen 'gms', but I can't think when. I have seen kmph before, but not for several years. 'Kph' it's definitely current in spoken language, but increasingly rare in written form.
I don't know, but it's particularly common with construction materials. You can search "mts" and see many sites using the abbreviation.