International HSR Update
by Rafael
This just in: Brazil to seek bids for high-speed rail line. The 510km (~320mi) line between Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo will need to support speeds of up to 350km/h (218mph) and be completed by 2015, ahead of the first Summer Olympics in South America. The line will feature 7 stations, including two at airports. The estimated price tag is just under $20 billion and, the company that wins this turnkey project will also be the monopoly operator for a whopping 40 years. Whatever environmental impact studies Brazil requires have apparently already been completed. The project is now moving into the actual construction tender phase, well ahead of both Florida and California HSR.
In China, the recently completed 1069km (668mi) Wuhan-Guangzhou HSR line has been certified for a top speed of 350km/h (218mph) in commercial operation. When passenger trials begin on Dec 20, trip times will be slashed from 10 hours to just under three. The test train actually averaged 350km/h over the full distance, reaching a top speed of 394km/h (246mph). That’s some racetrack.
Construction on the CNY 100 billion ($14.7 billion) project began just four years ago, see photos. The line includes 25 stations. Note that virtually all of it is implemented as slab track, the first time this has been done on a line rated for this speed. The technology sharply reduces track maintenance overheads and improves earthquake survivability relative to conventional ballast track, but it has to be constructed to exacting tolerances to avoid excessive stress peaks on the wheelsets of the trains. Otherwise, these could suffer premature metal fatigue.
Meanwhile, Fox Business channel, which is actually pro-HSR, still has to expose its viewers to the basic value proposition of HSR – much like the rest of the mainstream media. You could hardly ask for more graphic proof of the widening chasm that separates the US from the rest of the world when it comes to transportation infrastructure for the 21st century.
LATE UPDATE: Vietnam selects Japanese shinkansen technology for its planned HSR line.
I’d be careful with “facts” taken from China Daily articles. See for example the claims in this article:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-12/01/content_9094925.htm
it cannot be overstated how huge that guangzhou-wuhan line is. that used to be a painfully slow, overcrowded, grotty (if charming) train ride, often timed in frustrating ways. 3 hours across that distance and especially through that topography will be a godsend, both to tourists and to relieving the annual disaster of spring festival mass migration home for the holidays.
it burns me up that china threw such massive funding at a national HSR network for its stimulus, when we wasted that moment on bank bailouts, potholes, and crumbs thrown at rail. the different responses may well make up the difference between success and collapse of their respective economies when oil spikes again, harder than 2006-8.
the thought of getting from guangzhou to wuhan in 3 hours is a mind-blower. hopefully they did a decent job laying that track.
AndyDuncan Reply:
December 10th, 2009 at 10:13 am
I wonder if they’re going to continue to run the trains above their rated speed in production service.
Rafael Reply:
December 10th, 2009 at 11:14 am
No, railways usually want at least 10% top speed headroom on both the rolling stock and the infrastructure. This was a one-off test, in production service the top speed will be 350km/h not 394.
AndyDuncan Reply:
December 10th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
I know that, but in all the articles about this, they’re talking like the run times and average speeds like they plan on running that, or close to it in production.
Was the China line built using Japanese Shinkansen technology?
I understand that due to the Olympics in Brazil, that this is why the HSR there is moving rapidly. But I am still amazed that they could get it approved and built so quickly. How is that possible. Brazil is not China where the government can snap their fingers and plow under thousands of homes. How did the Brazilians do this?
Any update on the Taiwan HSR?
Joey Reply:
December 10th, 2009 at 9:50 am
I wouldn’t place my bets on China using any Japanese technology.
Rafael Reply:
December 10th, 2009 at 10:02 am
The CRH2 is a variant of the E2-1000 shinkansen, one of JR’s older designs and presumably not the most expensive. The Chinese have uprated the motors to support operation at 250km/h on secondary HSR lines.
AndyDuncan Reply:
December 10th, 2009 at 10:11 am
The E-2s are more than capable of 250km/h without upgrades, they run 275km/h in Japan and have hit 360km/h in testing. If anything the Chinese versions are detuned.
Rafael Reply:
December 10th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Turns out you’re right, they didn’t need to uprate the motors on the CRH2s. The newest variant, the CRH2C, is uprated but that’s probably something Kawasaki did – not CSR Sifang. It’s certified for commercial operation at 350km/h, same as the CHR3. Japan itself doesn’t have any lines on which such speeds are feasible, they’re too crooked and they need to run at high capacity.
Peter Reply:
December 10th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
So, there are Shinkansens then that can meet CA’s 220 mph requirement? Then they would still have to be able to negotiate the tunnel into the TBT. Would any of them be able to do so?
Rafael Reply:
December 10th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
There’s no doubt the Japanese know how to build trains capable of that cruise speed, they just don’t have a domestic line to operate them on. I don’t know exactly which loading gauge specs will be used in the design of the tunnel, that will determine if off-the-shelf car body designs will fit or if some customization is needed.
Tweaks might also be needed to allow the bogies to yaw more than usual. JR has a minimum curve radius requirement of 280m on the main lines, which is more than those in the DTX tunnel. The long wheelbase will cause wheels to squeal in tight corners.
The N700 design is particularly attractive because of its high acceleration potential (2.6m/s^2 at rest) and low axle loads (~11 metric tonnes). The motor specs might have to be modified to support 350-360km/h, at the expense of acceleration. The Taiwanese N700T and the Chinese CRH2C are both already certified at 350km/h in commercial operation.
JR also has its own signaling and train control system, which is similar to but incompatible with those used in Europe.
In other words, with some modifications, Japanese rolling stock probably could be made to work in California. Off-the-shelf designs might not be suitable.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2009 at 9:58 am
The N700 also supports high cant deficiencies, which may prove useful if Caltrain insists on not fixing the curves. Ideally the high cant deficiencies would also allow tighter curves and shorter tunnels at the mountain crossings, but don’t count on it – right now CAHSR is planning 13-km curves, where everywhere else in the world 7 is enough.
AndyDuncan Reply:
December 11th, 2009 at 10:12 am
And they’re quieter than the Alstom and Siemens trains. If CHSRA insists on running trains through towns at full speed like they do in japan, those towns should be insisting on Japanese-level noise abatement, starting with rolling stock.
Rafael Reply:
December 10th, 2009 at 9:51 am
I think China Railways get their expertise from lots of sources, but I don’t know if any Japanese contractors were working on this particular line. The CHR3 trains, a variant of the Siemens Velaro family built under license in China, are the only ones in the fleet already able to run at 350km/h.
The HSR line in Brazil was actually supposed to be completed in time for the soccer world cup in 2014, but things got delayed. I don’t know all the details, but I doubt the environmental review hurdles are as high as in California. That said, I hope they’re higher than in China.
As for Taiwan HSR, we already reported that it had been built by a private consortium and financed using expensive bank loans. When exports were hit hard by the recession in the US, ridership fell sharply and the operator went belly-up, forcing the government to socialize the whole mess after all. Afaik, the system continues to operate but some of the fundamental problems will be hard to fix: precisely because provincial governments wanted no part of the project, many stations are apparently on the outskirts of towns. Similarly, the airport station is not at the terminals nor linked to them via a people mover (*cough*Millbrae*cough*).
There are courtesy shuttle buses, but between waiting for those and transferring, the “high speed” aspect of the whole trip quickly goes out of the window. At some stations, there are additional delays related to check-in, which boils down to punching a confirmation code and obtaining a receipt/boarding card. Fares are reportedly half of those for similar distances in Japan and the service is good, but none of that can compensate for the failure to put the stations where passengers want to go. Connecting to downtown areas and airport terminals is a pain during the planning phase plus it’s expensive and disruptive to build, but it’s critical for achieving the high ridership required to justify constructing the HSR line in the first place.
wu ming Reply:
December 10th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
the stations in taipei and kaohsiung are in city centers, linked right into subway systems, and very convenient. the taoyuan airport station is working on a rail connector, but last i was there they had a lame bus connection (and taipei’s building a dedicated rail connection from taipei main station to the airport, so it’ll be redundant anyway). the other stations between the two terminus stations are pretty inconvenient in not going through city centers (depending on the city, it can actually be faster and less hassle to just take the regular train into the downtown stations, than to ride HSR to one station and then take the connector bus), but from what i’ve heard it was local govt’s desire to turn a buck on land speculation in beetfields-turned-sprawl next to the stations, more than not wanting to have anything to do with the HSR.
a Brazil TAV official documents (in English). It seems all studies have been completed.
Apparently two problems remain to be solved:
choosing which cities to serve and which to by-pass,
some government funding will be necessary, the line is expected to pay for only a fraction of its construction.
May I add: The modern high speed rail tracks in Europe are capable for more than 400 km/h. They haven’t upgraded to those speeds because they are currently testing new dampers that would guarantee the same convenience as with 300 km/h at 400 km/h. You know Europeans always want the whole thing which means, when they are finished, those trains will actually ride at 400 km/h.
That’s why I was a little bit concerned about the idea that California high speed rail would “just” reach 250 mph. In 2020, high speed trains aroudn the world will probably ride at a much higher speed.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Emma, there’s a point beyond which speed increases aren’t the best way of reducing trip times. For example, with the Pacheco Pass alignment, less than half the track length will be in the Central Valley, where top speeds will be achievable. Future speed increases should focus more on curve elimination on the Peninsula, trains that can cross Pacheco and Tehachapi Passes at full speed, and, further in the future, a Grapevine cutoff for both passenger and freight trains.
Rafael Reply:
December 11th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Uhm, tracks rated for 350-360km/h in commercial operations have to be tested at around 400km/h during certification. Improved dampers and other technologies may make it technically possible to increase speeds in the future, but whether it actually makes economic sense to exploit that is another matter altogether. It’s taken 25 years to go from 300km/h to 320km/h in France and even then only on the newest line, the TGV Est.
Btw, 250mph = 400km/h. The target top speed for production service for California is 220mph. The higher you go, the lower the line throughput in terms of trains/hour. That’s just a function of emergency brake distance. JR East had to scale back its ambitious plans to run trains at 360km/h on the Tohoku shinkansen line in part because that would have led to an unacceptable reduction in throughput capacity. Instead, they will be upgrading to “only” 320km/h.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
The TGV started out at 260. It only upgraded to 300 in the early 1990s.
Andre Peretti Reply:
December 12th, 2009 at 5:31 am
I once saw a curve drawn by the SNCF showing speed/profitability, with the variables taken into account being: cost of electricity, cost of maintenance, capture of market share.
The curve peaked at around 186mph. That’s what they call commercial speed.
With the AGV, the commercial speed has been set at 225mph. It’s not a speed limit since it has been tested at 357mph. I suppose it could safely run at 250mph if local conditions allow it, such as low cost of electricity, low cost of maintenance. These conditions may exist in China, but probably not in Western countries.
The enemy is air drag. The new nose profiles reduce front compression but little can be done about fluid friction which increases with the length of the train. The record-breaking Alstom train was shorter than a commercial TGV, yet at 357mph it consumed 900 amps with the catenary at 31kv. That’s 27.9 Mw. At that speed a B737 or A320 are certainly greener.
We’ll probably see trains running at 250mph for prestige reasons, but does it make business sense?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 12th, 2009 at 9:22 am
…well a B727 or A320 may use less energy per passenger mile but the train can use electricity generated in many different ways. France gets most of it’s electricity from nuclear. If Canada ever gets around to building the line from Windsor to Quebec City it will run on hydro mostly. The Northeast Corridor has dedicated generators at the Safe Harbor Dam. Ya need a really really long extension cord to get the plane to fly using hydropower…
What, no news about Japan?
The Niigata prefectural government is reneging on its commitment to pay for construction costs of its portion of the Hokuriku (Nagano) Shinkansen extension to Kanazawa. Chief among their concerns are the fear that the Joetsu Shinkansen route to Niigata will be reduced to a branch line with “shuttle” service to Takasaki or Omiya and no through trains to or from Tokyo. (Niigata has a larger population, but Kanazawa is a much bigger tourist draw and would probably need more frequent service. The Joetsu Shinkansen itself was really the pet project of a prime minister from the prefecture and derided as unprofitable from the start, so their fears are probably not unfounded.) It’s as-yet unclear what this means for the extension, which is scheduled to start operation sometime during FY 2014.
Meanwhile, JR Tokai and JR West have indicated that they want to raise the top speed on the Tokaido and Sanyo Shinkansen lines to 320 km/h (200 MPH), once the N700-series trains have fully replaced the older 500 and 700 series in the limited-stop Nozomi service. The N700′s design specification allows operation at speeds up to 330 km/h, but due to tighter curve radii (min. 2500 m) on the Tokaido stretch, this would mostly impact the Sanyo Shinkansen: the time between Osaka and Fukuoka would be reduced from the current 2 hours, 17 minutes, to around 2 hours.
Apart from that, construction on the Tohoku Shinkansen extension to Aomori is on pace for an opening in December 2010. At the same time, the maximum speed will be raised, first to 300 km/h in 2011, then 320 km/h in 2013, in conjunction with the large-scale introduction of the new E5 series on the line.
Finally, the main (Kagoshima) route of the Kyushu Shinkansen is on-track for completion in early 2011, with service from Hakata Station in Fukuoka beginning in March 2011. This will link up the current section (from Yatsushiro to Kagoshima) with the Sanyo Shinkansen, and a through service between Osaka and Kagoshima, called “Sakura”, will be introduced at this time. Less clear is the fate of the Nagasaki spur, which continues to face opposition from governments along the line. It is looking likely that the line will be constructed in the same fashion as the Yamagata and Akita Shinkansen, using existing lines either widened to Standard Gauge or using gauge-change trains, with some new sections of track towards Nagasaki. It hasn’t started construction, and its opening date is still TBD.
The maglev Chuo Shinkansen project under development from JR Tokai is a boondoggle with no practical links to mass transit along the way, and I prefer to pretend it doesn’t exist. They really should focus on their conventional lines, and get some long-needed electrification and double-tracking done to compete with Meitetsu and Kintetsu in Gifu and Mie prefectures.