A Contrarian View of High Speed Rail

[natelord]

Dear Al:

     Nystrom trucks were under REAL Hiawatha cars on the C.M.St.P.&P.,  also known as The Milwaukee Road.  Those cars were built in the 1930s.  What you referred to as Milwaukee are the Amtrak trains running between Chicago and Milwaukee now.  The REAL Milwaukee Road trains took 75 minutes for the journey.  They ordinarily ran at least 100 m.p.h. for part of the trip.  All of this occurred before the 1948 signal rules and the unfortunate advent of the FRA--a mere agency subject to whatever Act or Acts of Congress governing it may provide.

[HarveyK400]

The current Horizon (GSI?) truck is comparable in overall design to the Hiawatha Nystrom truck even if the latter is better riding in your memories.  The difference may be more a function of spring rates and travel.  The problem now is that little would be gained without tilt suspension.  FWIW, Europe got away from similar trucks for trains running above 100 mph. 

I was impressed by the soft ride of the old single-level 400's.  They rolled and pitched gently over battered rail joints.  It seems that the bolster snubber was removed.

[blownout cylinder]

henry6

It is not a matter of reinventing the wheel, or others knowing more, but rather adapting a different wheel.  As has been stated, North American railroads chose a heaver standard than did European railroads (for instance).  Therefore thier trains are lighter which leads to other variables and therefore it is not a matter of just bringing a European model over here, put it on the tracks and let it go, Adapting to our rail system is much more comlex than that.  That, at least in general, is how an Alstom VP explained to me why we can't just bring 'em over and run 'em.

It is kind of true too that we are talking about a continent that is also a lot larger. Our scales just do not jive that easily. Another thing that has to thrown in is our population densities are nowhere near what they are in Europe or China. If we were to do this it would have to be done from within our own collective reality anyways. Transcontinental HSR? Doubt that'll ever happen, but city pairs? Why not? I can even see an eventual daisy chain of city pairs across a portion of N.A., but again---? The whole thing about dedicated rails could be decades in coming---what with all the steps and hoops one would need to go through...

 

[clarkfork]

Of course adapting foreign trains to US rail does require some modifications.  However, it shouldn't be impossible.  In the 1970s Amtrak purchased/leased the French RTL and RTG turbotrains.   Those designs were in common use in France.  I understand they were precursors to the TGV.   I don't think they were considered totally successful; however, the design was considered good enough that some were rebuilt for continued use in the 2000s.  I understand that adapting them for US service required a bell and knuckle couplers.  For that matter the Talgo trains are a Spanish design. 

I think that most of the reasons that we can't/don't bring over foreign designs are regiulatory, like impact strength and percentage of domestic components.  But those are arbitrary and can, and maybe should, be changed.  

[HarveyK400]

The RTG were used extensively on non-electrified lines in France in the mid-1970s.  In many cases, they were allowed to run at 200kph (124mph); but the only one I rode did mostly 40 mph on a serpentine line around deep valleys between Bordeaux and Lyon.  Eventually more lines were electrified and the TGV came along.  I have no idea whether their was any dissatisfaction, per se.

Regulations are what they are and hardly without reason in the sense of being arbitrary.  We've been over that in previous topics.  Most would agree that keeping trains apart is a better course than designing for survivability with the forces involved; but this is predicated on a better and costly signal system than is generally the case in the US.  

clarkfork

Of course adapting foreign trains to US rail does require some modifications.  However, it shouldn't be impossible.  In the 1970s Amtrak purchased/leased the French RTL and RTG turbotrains.   Those designs were in common use in France.  I understand they were precursors to the TGV.   I don't think they were considered totally successful; however, the design was considered good enough that some were rebuilt for continued use in the 2000s.  I understand that adapting them for US service required a bell and knuckle couplers.  For that matter the Talgo trains are a Spanish design. 

I think that most of the reasons that we can't/don't bring over foreign designs are regiulatory, like impact strength and percentage of domestic components.  But those are arbitrary and can, and maybe should, be changed.  

 

[al-in-chgo]

clarkfork

Of course adapting foreign trains to US rail does require some modifications.  However, it shouldn't be impossible.  In the 1970s Amtrak purchased/leased the French RTL and RTG turbotrains.   Those designs were in common use in France.  I understand they were precursors to the TGV.   I don't think they were considered totally successful; however, the design was considered good enough that some were rebuilt for continued use in the 2000s.  I understand that adapting them for US service required a bell and knuckle couplers.  For that matter the Talgo trains are a Spanish design. 

I think that most of the reasons that we can't/don't bring over foreign designs are regiulatory, like impact strength and percentage of domestic components.  But those are arbitrary and can, and maybe should, be changed.  

Regulatory, indeed.  I note that CN (pre-VIA) used American-built turbos and dedicated low-slung coaches for years on its Montreal - Toronto corridor.  The trains occasionally had to be pulled out of service for maintenance, but not inordinately so, it seems, as the equipment lived out its normal life before CN got rid of it.  While in service, the trains made much better time on that Montreal - Toronto corridor than conventional trains, even though conventional trains could run in excess of 80 mph when conditions warranted (no ICC 79 mph speed limit for engines without cab signalling).  The turbos probably offered some of the fastest non-electrified passenger service in N. America in the late Sixties - early Seventies.  Yet despite a "home court advantage," they never quite took hold here in the USA.  Note that I am not talking about the Rohr turboliners that Amtrak used with --as you said-- rather mixed success on its upstate New York (exx-NYC) routes.

BTW some of Europe's fastest passenger trains right now are fourth-generation Talgos running as HSR between Madrid, Barcelona and other principal cities.  They are supposed to average (average!) about 180 mph if I am converting correctly from km. 

Yes, regulatory ossification has  kept U.S. rail technology back in the fifties, 1956, when Santa Fe debuted bilevel long-distance coaches (a year or two after some Chicago commuter lines put into service gallery-style bilevel coaches.)  With the possible exception of the Metroliner, there were no more significant innovations and U.S. rail technology just stopped expanding when Budd stopped making transit equipment.  Anything high-tech now is out of non-US-owned companies like Bombardier or Breda.  Even the Accela traces back its heritage to a Swedish tilt design ca. 1990. 

 

[schlimm]

Some of the Spanish HSR trainsets are not Talgos.  The S/103's are Siemens Velaro trainsets, very similar to the German Rail ICE 3's.  US passenger rail technology seems to have come to a halt in the 1960's.