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I ride the Amtrak Cascades frequently out of Seattle to both Portland and Bellingham for business and occasional pleasure. I know that there are future plans for hourly SEA-PDX trips in 2 1/2 hours at 110 mph, but that the existing Talgo train sets are speed limited to 79 mph. So if WSDOT or Amtrak wants to purchase new equipment for 110 mph operations, what are their options? I can't think of any existing rail lines operating at 110 mph using diesel power.
irish1 Member # 222
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i think the detroit chicago line between kalamazoo and indiana is now 110mph with standard equipment. this is the section that amtak owns. usually it is the tracks and signals that make the difference.
George Harris Member # 2077
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British Rail has run 125 mph with diesels for quite a few years. South Korea runs 100 mph with diesels. The Santa Fe ran 100 mph for much of the Chicago to Los Angeles line, curves permitting into the 1950's, at least. Illinois Central had one division cleared for 100 mph up in Illinois into the mid 60's, and probably ran faster than that if the gearing of the diesels permitted. Then there is the famous Milwaukee 100 mph spped limit for most of the Chicago to Minneapolis line during the 1930's, but that was with steam!
The plan at this time is to raise the speed limit for a good part of the Chicago to St. Louis line to 110 mph, and that will be with diesels.
There is nothing what so ever that prevents running 110 mph or faster with diesels.
Mr. Toy Member # 311
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I believe the Talgo trainsets and existing locomotives are capable of 125 MPH operation. It is the track conditions that limit the trains to 79 MPH. Once the tracks are upgraded, the trains can go......wheee!
PaulB Member # 4258
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Anything over 79 will require ATS and possibly cab signals. Superliners are "rated" about 110 mph. Most locomotives that Amtrak has are capable of at least 100.
Beacon Hill Member # 4431
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So I did some research to try and answer my own question. First, the Talgos are limited to 79 mph by the FRA due to crashworthiness issues. I don't think the Talgos will ever be allowed to move faster than 79 mph in the USA. What does the FRA know that their counterparts in Europe and Asia are missing? Second, given the state of Amtrak's rolling stock, if Washington State needs 3 more trainsets, and is willing to pay for them, where do they come from? There sure aren't any spare Superliners sitting around today and in 5 years when the tracks may be ready for high speed trains, I can't imagine the situation will be any different. Also, I don't see any European trains that can pass current FRA regulations for 110 mph operations. So where are the trains going to come from?
George Harris Member # 2077
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quote:What does the FRA know that their counterparts in Europe and Asia are missing? - - - - So where are the trains going to come from? [/QB]
For the first part, quite a bit, actually. It appears that in general European design is based on the idea that derailments don't happen. There are a lot of specifics I could go into here, but it would be lengthy. Look up information on the wreck at Eschede, Germany. There has also been a program that I have seen on either Discovery or National Geographic channes on it. They were quite polite, but if you see it, try to read between the lines.
The Talgo cars are toward the low end of European crashworthiness. The Washington state setup with the cars between the two diesels is about like having a string of soda cans lined up with a brick on each end. That they operate at all in the US is by waiver from the standards in effect at the time of their delivery.
As to where new cars come from: They will be built if they are wanted. Passenger cars are not built for inventory by their manufacturers. They are always built upon receipt of order. Of course the manufacturers would like to pull a set of plans out of the drawer and build some more just like whatever is the cheapest and easiest they have ever built, but life is not like that. The customer, whether Amtrak or SNCF or DB AG or JR, or whoever, always wants something different from the last run becuase they have, or at least they should have if they observed what they have already running, figured out that some things should be done differently to make the vehicle a little better.
George
Geoff M Member # 153
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Saying European crash regulations are less strict than American equivalents is somewhat oversimplifying the situation. To say that they're based on "derailments don't happen" is quite simply stupid. Sorry, George, your posts are normally very informative and correct, but this one is not.
Firstly you have to remember that European railroads are lighter in terms of vehicles and of the freight carried. So you don't need a train to stand up to a collision with, for example, a fully enclosed triple decker auto carrier because we DON'T HAVE fully enclosed triple decker auto carriers. So you may be right in that crashworthiness standards are more strict in the US because they NEED to be.
Secondly, European signalling is far more "safe" than American signalling. Crashes happen less often because trains are better protected against human error by the signalling system. Note that American signalling regulations are somewhat more relaxed than the European counterparts, especially with more than one train per block. From my own observations rather than knowledge of the requirements, UK signals are far easier to read from a distance than US signals.
Thirdly, drop a highway bridge onto a Superliner or Viewliner and tell me that Eschede wouldn't have been the same. Even the NTSB acknowledge this fact: http://www.ntsb.gov/speeches/former/hall/jh980708.htm Note that modern European standards do require crumple zones at the end of cars, which this article implies don't exist.
Fourthly, all high speed lines are required to be fenced off. This may be the case in the US as well, but the UK has ALL railways fenced off, which I know is not the case in the US. Grade crossings on high speed lines are banned unless monitored either locally or remotely via CCTV.
As a side note to the previous point, we have been trialling the US predictive grade crossings on minor, secondary, relatively low speed lines here in the UK. To get it approved for use, it had to go through extensive modification to meet European regulations and months of rigorous testing.
All that aside, it should be noted that while standards may vary between the two continents - some good, some bad - the traffic and culture also vary and standards should reflect the differing needs. Why engineer for something that will never be needed?
Geoff M.
George Harris Member # 2077
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Geoff: I do not intend to get in a word war like we did once before, however I beg to differ in part with both what you said and how you took what I said.
Yes, there are things that are "more relaxed" in some of the American train control practices. However the more than one train per block you mention does not apply if one of them is a passenger train. As to the easier to read, I will leave that to be answered by someone who has the experience of operating with both if we can find such a person.
There are also significant differences, or were if you have not completely given up your national sovereignty, between British safety standards and those prevailing on the continent, and British safety standars have always been better than the Continentals. There have been times when I have dealt with some of the more nit-picking of the safety standards both US adn UK and came away feeling that the Americans and British were trying to out-silly each other on certain safety requirements.
I have read quite a lot about the situation at Eschede after our last discussion on it, and the more I read the more I am astounded that any one of several things in the design of the vehicle and structure were ever allowed to happen. Perhaps for some of the design decision makers to face criminal charges was not really unreasonable. It is this crash in particular that made me say, admittedly somewhat facetiously, that European standards were based on the concept that derailments did not occur. I do not get the same conclusion from Mr. Hall's speech that you did, besides which, it is an opinion piece, not a finding of fact.
My first contention was and still is that an overpass built to current, and I mean by that any time within the last 50 years, American standards for bridges over railroads would not be taken down by a passenger train derailment no matter how severe. This also appears to be in line with what I have read about the Eschede accident. First, the bridge piers were individual columns without either a crash wall at the bottom or a pier cap at the top. I know the Germans have in the past used crash walls to a standard very close to that in the US because of a German engineer I worked with on a project some 15 years ago. A pier cap at the top would also have helped keep the piers in place. The lack of these two components was raised as a significant factor in the collapse of the bridge.
A second factor that drastically increased the loss of life was the virtual disassembly of several of the coaches into component parts. Specifically in several the body panels separated along the weld lines resulting in complete failure of the carriage as a container for the passengers. This again would not happen with steel construction, which is so far as I know the only material currently used for American coach body shells. As has been proven over and over, even when banged around by the tumbling of the vehicle, survivability of the passengers is much greater if they stay inside the vehicle.
I still say, that if you did drop a highway bridge on a train of Superliners or other passenger cars built to current American standards, the survival rate would be much higher than at Eschede, aside from the basic fact that a passenger train colliding with an American highway bridge is most unlikely to bring the bridge down in the first place.
As to fencing, the Northeast Corridor is fenced throughout, and the only level crossings are a couple in the vicinity of New London, CT. For other lines in the country, fencing is very hit or miss.
I do agree that the European freight trains are much lighter, and they are also much fewer, so colliding with a heavy freight vehicle is less likely to happen. However, you hit a 40 ton container on either side of the Atlantic. It is just that they are not stacked two high in Europe.
Part of the appearance that signals are much more safe in Europe is in part because so much more dependence is placed on them. We still run a lot of miles of railroad without signals on the basis that engineers and conductors are sufficiently competent people that they will not put their train where it does not belong. Also, American train crews may be more relaxed about rule compliance in some areas but obedience to signals is not one of them. Running red signals is so rare it does not even have a name unlike the frequent reference to “spads” I kept hearing about from some of the English guys I worked with. (SPAD = Signal Passed at Danger)
George
Geoff M Member # 153
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Points noted. Just a couple of clarifications: 1. I would consider myself relatively expert on UK signalling and have a basic grounding on US signalling. My day job is writing signalling simulation software which is in use in all UK compterised signalling centres for training and assessment. European signalling I am less familiar with.
2. "Out-silly each other". Agreed!
3. Mr. Hall's speech was, as I read it, representing the views of the NTSB. I concede that US bridges themselves have extra protection to stop them falling down, but extrusion or monocoque car body design, that highway bridge would still crush anything below it, especially at high speed.
As for using tram wheels on the ICE, well I'm not an expert on that. Howeverm, the principle of a double ring insulated wheel has been around since steam days IIRC.
Yes, SPADs do seem common in the UK but to put it into perspective we have an average 20 per month for the entire country. 90% of those stop within 200yds of the signal and are thus within the overlap (safety zone beyond the signal). Most of the remainder are due to equipment failure (technical SPADs) where the signal goes back to red in front of an approaching train, where the train is unable to stop in time. So there is perhaps only one serious SPAD that *might* result in an incident every few months. Of the 183,000 services running this week, 0.0027% are likely to experience a SPAD in some way, 0.00006% in a serious manner.
While reading the SPAD website (login required, sorry) I noted the comment that "although European statistics on SPADs are collated in different ways and thus are hard to compare, on general terms the UK fares well with the continent".
What does not help with SPAD mitigation is the sheer number of trains running in south London during rush hour. Frequently they are driving on single or double yellows instead of greens which means that occasionally they get caught out by a red (think "cry wolf").
I concede the fact that US engineers really creep up to red signals and stop well short. However, if UK drivers did that as per the example above, the rail network would grind to a halt. I'm not saying they speed up to red signals and then slam on the brakes, but they don't creep either.
Geoff M.
George Harris Member # 2077
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"However, the principle of a double ring insulated wheel has been around since steam days IIRC."
Maybe there, but not in the US, so far as I know. All railroad wheels on the US side of the ocean have been one piece with the exception of steam locomotives for most if not all the last century. And, the locomtive wheels with the spoked centers were not insulated. The tire was heated and shrunk onto the center.
"As for using tram wheels on the ICE, well I'm not an expert on that." So far as I know this has been the only usage of a resilient wheel on anything that operated over 55 mph. It was actually a wrong solution to the problem. The problem is that the German non-ballasted trackform is too stiff, resulting in a hard ride and reduced track component life. This is an inherent design flaw in the Rheda system, inmy opinion. A significantly lower spring rate for the track would have solved the problem, but it would have required a cushioned baseplate under the rails. The more recent versions of Rheda do have lower spring rates, but still leave quite a bit to be desired, again in my opinion, but then I do design track for a living.
As to the bridge collapse: First, with a properly designed and constructed bridge, that is one with a crash wall between and extending somewhat beyond the piers, and with the piers at least 20 feet away from the track, and a pier cap, the possiblity of collapse of the superstructure onto the train would have been extremely small. Second, if it had collapsed, a steel, as opposed to aluminium, car built to current FRA requirements would have been dentedand likely crumpled, but highly unlikely to have been crushed.
George
Geoff M Member # 153
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George, what is the FRA standard for vertical loads on car roofs? I can only find figures for end loads of 800,000 pounds or 363 tons. The bridge at Eschede appears to be in the 400-500 ton range, though I can't find exact figures.
Geoff M.
JONATHON Member # 2899
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The F59PHI Locomotives that pull the Cascades have a top speed of 110 MPH, but yes, the Cascade Train Sets are balanced for 125 MPH Operation.
rY. Member # 3528
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Yay Jonathon for dragging us back on topic
Mr. Toy Member # 311
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The original question was about future equipment acquisitions by Washington DOT. I checked through a few PDFs on their website a few days ago, and saw some info about adding more trainsets, but nothing about changing equipment.
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Thanks for the leads, I've been doing my homework. I read that the design of the Acela is basically an existing TGV design modified with added steel structure and crumple zones to meet FRA standards. I'm not an engineer, but adding weight to an existing design seems sure to cause stress on other components, sometimes in unexpected ways, as we saw about a year ago. Living in a Boeing town we often hear airlines asking for planes that do this and do that, but when Boeing does the engineering for this and that and figures the cost, the airlines usually learn to live with what's already available. I suspect that Bombardier, Alstom and Siemens operate in a similar manner. If anybody followed the Seattle Monorail Project fiasco you'll see my point. While Talgo does offer the TALGO XXI, apparently FRA approvable, none of the other manufacturers appear to have anything for the US high speed market. While I'm sure they would offer something if asked, have we seen the last of Acela engineering failures?
Also for anybody interested in a blueprint for creating high speed rail in the US check out this information http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/rail/amtrakplan-docs/amtrakplan-full.pdf Go to the appendix and you'll see a list of projects that need to be completed, their approximate cost and incremental timetables as the projects are completed. Be prepared for a major case of sticker shock.
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