Trains

Post by **Mike** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 8:25 am

China has just taken the order of new 200km/hr trains How is it that we can not actually get trains to go this fast? Despite the pendalino investment we seem to be lagging behind both France and China for speed. What is going on with that?!

Fez · Post by **Fez** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 4:49 pm

the infrastructure of all britain's rail network was first put down during the latter part of the 1800s, when the average speed of a train was 45mph, later improvements only provided enough safety margins for that to be increased to 75mph at the end of the age of steam 1969 and little has been done since. we could have trains the equal of the chinese, but because the rail, signalling, station and civil engineering is so far behind it would be pointless.

the reason the french, swiss and japanese have such a radical system that allows continual high speeds is that have they have consistantly put the money in the right places, and have provided the means for the rail network to expand as it wants. in this country we waste money on board members, bit part solutions for integarel problems with the infrastructure and a woefully poor safety record. personally, i wouldn't want to travel at high speed on today's rails; fundamentally they were not built to handle such pressures.

mr_e · Post by **mr_e** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 8:10 pm

I wonder how many high-performing rail networks are actually state owned, instead of having part of the government subsidy and fares siphoned off to pay shareholders? I must agree, Fez: the government are all about those bit part solutions, and you can see that right the way across a lot of departments.

Post by **Mike** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 9:33 pm

In 1997 the maximum speed on China's railways was 45kph. In ten years they have increased this speed to 200kph for 6000 miles of track. The still have another 36000 miles to upgrade but still more impressive than our 200 year attempt. :D

John Knight · Post by **John Knight** » Thu Apr 19, 2007 1:51 pm

Why can't we go as fast...... Because just about every other country in the world with high speed trains use dedicated tracks. We run all our commuter trains and freight down the same lines. The TGV runs on its own track with a beefed up electrical supply

The short answer is our infrastructure is shit. You can buy a ferrari which is immensly fast but if your heading down the M1 and two lanes are full of HGV's and the third has an austin metro in it you gonna have to slow down.