Oui! French train races at 574.8 kph

Im not really impressed. They modded the whole train just to make it run this fast but it will never be able to run this fast for a long time so its useless. Im much more interrested in maglev trains because they can go faster for long times and the ride is supposed to be alot more comfortable. And they just look alot cooler.
 
tongue_of_colicab said:
Im not really impressed. They modded the whole train just to make it run this fast but it will never be able to run this fast for a long time so its useless. Im much more interrested in maglev trains because they can go faster for long times and the ride is supposed to be alot more comfortable. And they just look alot cooler.
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And cars are modded to make them able to do extremely high speeds, often at the cost of usability and the duration of the journey, doesn't make it any less impressive to see what could be your car doing a 1/4 mile run in under 10 seconds. This is not about the practicality of travel at 350mph, it's about pushing the limits of what is technically possible given the sorts of trains we run today, just as it is with a souped up car.

I'm with you on the maglevs though, i think they have much more to give than they are now, and I hope in 20-30 years, they'll be as commonplace as the electric train is today.
 
If we want to tackle GW then high speed trains win over airplanes by far. So Oui for maglev's (hah)...
 
TGVs don't actually have A particular engine car. Thgey have wheelhub motors instead so there's a whole bunch of engines for one train.

Pretty crazy velocity by the way.

Not sure maglev is really the solution. It either requires (a lot) more power than stnadard rails sinc eyou have to levitate the cars in addition to move them along the track. Or you need air temperature superconductors which aren't even close to being realized from what I know. It's certain to be very expensive and exotic tech for quite a while even if you can get these to work outside a laboratory..

So steel rails don't have much competition to fear for decades methinks.
Peace.
 
tongue_of_colicab said:
Im not really impressed. They modded the whole train just to make it run this fast but it will never be able to run this fast for a long time so its useless. Im much more interrested in maglev trains because they can go faster for long times and the ride is supposed to be alot more comfortable. And they just look alot cooler.
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And they can potentially cause cancer faster too.
Or do you still believe that the huge magnetic fields required for lifting hundreds of metric tons of steel, glass and plastic a few inches above the ground and propel it at 550+ Kph have absolutely no effects on human beings ?

Down here we are in the midst of implementing our own 500 Km TGV system, and connecting it to the European network.
They project it will have a cost in excess of 3 billion US Dollars just for the first 320 Km, and another 1.5~2 billion to connect it to the border.
All this until 2012/2015, but i doubt they'll reach that target so soon.
 
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INKster said:
And they can potentially cause cancer faster too.
Or do you still believe that the huge magnetic fields required for lifting hundreds of metric tons of steel, glass and plastic a few inches above the ground and propel it at 550+ Kph have absolutely no effects on human beings ?
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Of course, the giant electric motors and the high voltage lines never have magnetic fields :rolleyes:

Maglev is too expensive, yes. Japanese has been maintaining an experimental line for decades with fantastic performance, but still commercial operation is still years or maybe decades away. Although it's partly because of the method they use (superconducting magnets). A more "traditional" method would be cheaper as in the Shanghai maglev train.

For commercial operation, TGV already has a 320kph top speed line running. Japanese are also planning for a 360kph top speed line.
 
pcchen said:
Of course, the giant electric motors and the high voltage lines never have magnetic fields :rolleyes:
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Surely you're not implying that a TGV needs the same type of open magnetic fields (between track and train) as a Maglev...:rolleyes:
At least high voltage cables can be shielded with relative ease.
 
Actually the magnetic fields of a "traditional" system like the Shanghai maglev train is quite small. The superconductor based system like the Japanese system has higher magnetic fields but it is shielded (otherwise it will cause trouble with pacemakers or even credit cards).

Anyway, even if you believe that magnetic field is harmful, it's very insignificant because most people spend very little time on a train, compared to, say, the time they exposed to cell phones.
 
Rainbow Man said:
TGVs don't actually have A particular engine car. Thgey have wheelhub motors instead so there's a whole bunch of engines for one train.

Pretty crazy velocity by the way.

Not sure maglev is really the solution. It either requires (a lot) more power than stnadard rails sinc eyou have to levitate the cars in addition to move them along the track. Or you need air temperature superconductors which aren't even close to being realized from what I know. It's certain to be very expensive and exotic tech for quite a while even if you can get these to work outside a laboratory..

So steel rails don't have much competition to fear for decades methinks.
Peace.
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There are already some commercial maglev trains in use (china I believe) so they do work outside the lab.

Though I agree steel rails will have little competition. It will be far to expensive to replace all the rails.

And they can potentially cause cancer faster too.
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Dont want to say your wrong as I know nothing about the effect of magnetic fields but dont they say you get cancer from just about everything these days? sitting in the sun: cancer drinking milk: cancer eating: cancer calling: cancer breathing: cancer everything seems to cause cancer these days unfortunatly :(
 
The maglev currently in operation in China is the German Transrapid system which has been functional for, errr, prolly 2 decades. It's not some crazy science fiction technology.
 
Ike Turner said:
Video of the record here
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Crazy speed!
Awesome sight. Like an airplane along the ground almost.
If we could get regular trains at those velocities airplane travel would get serious competition on intra-continental routes at least.
(Wouldn't want to see what a derailing at 570kph looks like though.. Ouch.)

Thanks. Good find.

Peace.
 
You can forget about regulair trains running that fast because the stations atleast in european countries are to close together to get that kind of speed, the tracks would need to be modified as they arnt designed for those speeds, you need to make sure the tracks are as straight as possible wich would be another big problem as the regulair trains move betweer alot of city's so no way you can get a nice straight line and you have to problem of people living near the track wich probably arnt to happy about the noise. Except for maybe a few connections between big european cities you wont see the trains on daily rides. Though that may be different in the USA were you got plenty of space.
 
Obviously new very straight railway lines would have to be built. Maybe raised on pillars to avoid the risk of collision etc. Imagine a flock of escaped cows wandering up on the tracks and a 550kph train comes along.

And the trains would of course not stop at every tiny little hamlet on the continent.. If a really fast supertrain was to compete with airplanes they'd only stop at major urban areas. You'd travel to those stations using other means of trave ljust like jet airliners don't land on Main Street of every backwater hick hillbilly town out in the countryside.

You get your butt to the airport to catch a plane. :cool:
Peace.
 
Tgv lines are protected from wandering animals :)

And the Paris Strasbourg line is scheduled to run in commercial service at 360 Km/h when last part is done.
 
I read somewhere today that it was asking for 19.6MW from the power lines overhead, at Vmax :oops:
 
Rys said:
I read somewhere today that it was asking for 19.6MW from the power lines overhead, at Vmax :oops:
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Those suckers are HEAVY. ;)

But if you want fast and are going to build a raised rail anyway, maglev makes a lot of sense. And something like a Transrapid becomes a good choice.
 
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