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      >> Super High Speed Main TGV, Thalys and AGV Eurostars ICEs and Velaros AGV Shinkansen Maglev Sokol from Russia Pendolinos Swiss Cisalpino Pendol. Watching sf. Paris GNo SNCF TGV Roster Super High Speed News Super High Speed Lines         |
4rail.net - Super High Speed Trains | |
 This section references the most successfull of the Super High Speed trains and their stories. There will also be articles on the infrastructure needed and advanced technology needed. These 3 parts form the super high speed environment! We have also opened the news section on the High Speed Trains. High Speed Reference Super High Speed class in Europe: Currently Europe is the leader in Super High Speed technology: TGV & AGV : The French highly successful Super High Speed solutions. ICE : The German challenger on the high speed and super high speed classes. Eurostar : Effectively a disguised TGV, the Eurostars mainly traffic between the Great Britain and the Continental Europe. 
While the TGV's form the majority of the super high speed fleet today these types are referenced on
TGV / AGV page in closer detail: TGV-A (Atlantique), TGV-Hybrid (double decked Réseau sets), TGV-Dasy (Asyncronous Double Decker),
TGV
Duplex (DD), TGV-POS (Asyncronous engine with Réseau trailers), TGV-PSE (Paris Sud-Est), TGV-R (Réseau), AGV (Automotrice
à Grande Vitesse)
Eurostars are referenced
on Eurostars page as well:
Eurostar Capitals & Eurostar Regional as well as the future of the Eurostars.
Russian
super fast plans are
reviewed as well! Updated
recently For the nonconventional trains the German Maglev is the probably the most interesting, floating on the "rail" it has reached speeds of up to 581 kph! Ave High Speed class in Europe: Pendolino X2000 ICE-T Super High Speed in Asia: Currently Asia is the challenger in the use of Super High Speed technology: Shinkansens : The original bullet train run on the new rail line, the Shinkansen. Chinese Super High Speed Efforts will no doubt lead to number one ranking in the world in just 10 years! The Shanghai Maglev line is one example of the might of the rising Asia. TGV in Korea High Speed in U.S.A.: Currently the U.S. is trying to get started with the super high speed efforts. There is an Acela high speed network in operation in the east. California is planning the super high speed network to connect with it's largest population centers. Super High Speed Efforts in the U.S. NEW!
Super High Speed News
Special Super High Speed News Page Opened! NEW!  London - Paris in 2:15
starting November 14th on Eurostar NEWS (14.11.2007) London St Pancras
International opened for high speed traffic NEWS (07.11.2007) Transrapid Maglev for Munich
Germany! NEWS (26.9.2007) Karelia Trains to order 4 Pendolinos
from Alstom NEWS (19.9.2007) Other High Speed Articles To be linked. |
Some of the newer additions:  Brand new TGV-POS's pose in Paris Gare du Nord for the camera. Almost brand new...the locomotives are new, while the coaches are from the TGV-Reséau sets. Single story trains of 320 km/h serve well the limited numbers of passengers between France and Germany. once the volumes pick up, it's guaranteed that the double decked coaches will be swapped to these units. Picture by Sanna Siissalo 2008.  A Thalys PBKA number 4243 boarding in Paris-GNO. As 40% more passengers are expected to travel the Thalyses within next 3 years, seventh daily return trip between Paris and Amsterdam will be added beginning March 2008. Picture by Sanna Siissalo 2008. |
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| Traditional Super Fast Trains | |
| TGV's and AGV's | |
 TGV Atlantique unit 354, one of the numerous single story TGV trains in France. Picture by Ilkka Siissalo. |
TGV
has become an icon of the Super Fast Trains. Currently there are well
over 400
trains trafficing daily on the large TGV-fleet of the SNCF and other
railway operators. In addition to being the technological success story the TGV has
been an immense economical success as well with it's
carefully balanced combination of high tech and traditional and tried
solutions. In the beginning there was the lack of money...the TGV story starts with a 30 year struggle for the money before the first TGV Paris-Sud-Est could dash between the French cities of Paris and Lyon in 1981. Since then, there has been continuous succesfull expansion with new high speed lines opening to new territories every few years... Today the French Super Fast Train Network is the best in the world. Technologically advanced high speed links connect the largest cities both in France and abroad. While much of the France has been built already, the networks have now expanded to connect with the neighboring countries as well. Further information:
TGV's
by type...
(TGV-Atlantique, TGV-Dasy, TGV-Duplex, TGV-Hybrid (Duplex),
TGV-POS, TGV-PSE, TGV-PSE-La Poste, TGV-Réseau, ...) Updated
recently AGV (Super High Speed EMU by Alstom)...
NEW
Thalyses...
Updated
recently
Eurostars... Updated
recently
Future additions:
Superfast networks in
France, national and international... |
  
 More
pictures on the TGV / AGV page... |
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| ICE's | |
 The ICE3 unit unboarding is in Munich Germany. Design meets with a state of the art engineering! |
ICE
is a backbone for the German super high speed railway operations. There are
today several types of the ICE trains. While ICE3 and velaros are the latest in
technology, the ICE1 and ICE2 trains still form the backbone for the traffic.
There is also a ICE-T tilting version for the high speed traffic on
conventional rail lines. The Super High speed in the German area The history of the German high speed... NEW ICE 1 and ICE 2... Updated
recently ICE3...
NEW
ICE-T...
To be added
Thalyses & TGV's...
Updated
recently
German super high speed corridors...  
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| Eurostars | |
 The Eurostars are serving mainly Great Britains connections to the continent. The travel from London to Paris only takes 2,5 hours currently on these trains! |
Eurostars
operate internationally from the United Kingdom as well as within Great
Britain and inside France covering some schedules for the TGV's.
Essentially a disguised TGV train most Eurostar sets are nearly double
the length of a normal TGV train (393m vs.
200m). Taking a closer
look you will find numerous interesting design differences making it easy to place
the origins of the train sets outside the continental Europe. Read further information on the Eurostar Capital and Regional: Eurostars... Updated
recently Other TGV-type trains can be found at:
TGV's
by type... Updated
recently
The
AGV... NEW
Thalyses...
Updated
recentlyFuture additions:
Superfast networks in the UK
and Channel Tunnel... 
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| Pendolino (from the Hogh Speed Class) | |
 Trenitalia ETR555 "Eurostar" (written on the train!). As fast as older TGV's, true Eurostars and ICE's (max. 300km/h), Italy is less known for it's super high speed networks and trains. |
Pendolino
is a family of tilting high speed unit trains originally originally
built by FIAT Ferroviaria, but which since has been acquired by the TGV
manufacturer Alstom. Variants can be found in several European
countries like Italy, Finland, Switzerland, soon to be followed by
Russia, ... 
...
 
The Finnish VR-Yhtyma variant of the Alstom Pendolino. More trains will follow in 2009 to start the fast traffic between Helsinki Finland and St Petersburg Russia. New units have been ordered to Switzerland as well to replace the aging Cisalpino model 470's. These new units will run 250 km/h unlike the Finnish-Russo new units which support just the 220 km/h traditional maximum speed. Both are good results for the tilting train sets in the demanding winter conditions. |
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Pendolino theme page on
4rail.net... NEW
Cisalpino (ETR470 Pendolino)
story by Ilkka Siissalo in the Swiss section... NEW
Cisalpino 2 (ETR610 Pendolino)
ready for operations in Switzerland... NEW
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| Japanese Super High Speed & Shinkansen | |
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Shinkansen
is a pride of Japan. Started in 1964 the ever developing network is operated with a dozen types
of bullet trains. In the picture on the left a Japan Railways Central/West Shinkansen 300 is resting at Osaka station
in southern Japan. While the Shinkansen series 300 is capable of speed up to 300 km/h, the design speed for most Shinkansens, even the newer ones are, is slightly slower. We belive this is mainly due to the frequent earth quakes in Japan, since there should be no technical limitatons for the high tech country like Japan. Interestingly, Japan originally chose a different solution from France for the suoper high speed lines. While the Japanese "bullet" trains have their own track all the way, and are more or less confined there, the European super high speed trains have their own corridors, plus they can leave to the normal track at any point to enable much more flexible approach for the service. For example the French super fast network has been built one piece at a time, and all the time TGV's have been running almost anywhere on the traditional network as well. In 1984 at the time of the first LGV (super high speed line) between Paris and the Lyon the editor travelled between Paris and Nice on TGV, "flying on the ground" where the LGV was opened and travelling slightly faster than a normal train where the traditional tracks had to be used. Japan's Super High Speed Page... Updated
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| Chinese Super Fast Efforts | |
| This Japan railways Series 300 looks quite similar to the Chinese CRH 2 (CHR 2 nose is slightly more futuristic looking), while Cina is using it's wast resources to exploit every technology available for the license manufacturing. |
While
China is a huge country, measured both with population and area, it has
started an impressive program to develop much of it's railnetworks and
to learn every technology, which might enable it to gain a dominant
foothold in the future of the super high speed. Despite the fact that China's starting level has been backward at best, the recent developments aim for high technology, high capacity solutions. To name one: China (Shanghai) is the only country with a working magnetic levitation railline between it's airport and the center of the city. China has as well started several long distance high speed line projects, which aim for establishing it as a number one super high speed nation, measured with every factor except the highest used speed. Below you find a chart one some of the Chinese super fast trains today (some units are still in order). This generation is built on licensed technology, but this will change in the future as the Chinese will develop their own technologies and solutiuons. The key: much higher volumes than any other country can offer!  |
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| Chinese Super High Speed Train Types at Glance | |||||||
| Train type |
Units |
Top speed km/h (mph) |
Electrical system |
Power kW |
Structure |
Passengers |
Notes |
| China National Railways | |||||||
| CRH 2 |
60 |
250/300 ( / ) |
25 kV 50 Hz |
9600 |
CU+2P+2U+2P+CU |
610 |
Looks like Japans series 300/700 |
| CRH 3 |
60 |
300 ( ) |
25 kV 50 Hz |
8800 |
CP+1U+1P+2U+1P+1U+CP |
600 |
Looks like German ICE3 |
| CRH 5 |
60 |
250 ( ) |
25 kV 50 Hz |
5500 |
CUP+1UP+1UU+1UP+ 2U+1PU+CPU |
600 |
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| Maglev Shanghai | |||||||
| Spanish Super Fast Trains | |
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Spain
is improving it's rail networks with impressive projects. Although many
projects have been in substantial trouble with timetables, the projects are now showing
results and the passengers will be able to travel a large network of
several types of high speed rail vehicles. The Spanish fleet of super high spedd trains consists of the TGV, Talgo nad Velaro/ICE3 solutions. We will try to cover this subject later in more detail. |
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| Russian Super Fast Efforts | |
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Russia
is last of the bigger European nations to add super fast trains fleet
on it's networks, although it has had efforts on this sector for
decades. In the Soviet Days the Sokol-prototype train was to
compete with it's western counterparts. Although Sokol never got
anywhere
(there is one half built prototype though pictured on the left), the
ambition lives on. Russias Sokol Picture Tour on the test rink... Updated
recently Russia is currently using it's wealth to expand it's super fast rail networks between the bigger cities. RZD, the Russian Railways has started many ambitious track improvement projects and ordered new rolling stock. Siemens of Germany will deliver 8 units of it's lower speed (250 km/h max.) Velaro model. At least one of these was eeen at Innotrans 2008 and is most likely already in test use. In joint venture with Finnish Railways the RzD will buy from Alstom in Italy 4 units of max 220 km/h Pendolinos. So the start will be very humble, when both types of units are delivered in 2009. The traffic between St Petersburg and Moscow is expected to start in 2010 and it remains to be seen, how well just 8 units will serve between these two huge cities. The Pendolinos are aimed for international service from 2010 between Helsinki Finland and St Petersburg Russia cutting the travel times drastically from the current 5,5 hours. |
| The
Soviet Union had it's day with the high speed trains as well. Following
the path of Japanese "bullet train" on shinkansen, the Soviets went
ahead on their project to shorten the travel time between two of it's
largest cities Moscow and Leningrad (now St Petersburg). A
decision was made to develop high-speed train with speedrange of
200-250 km/h. In 1967 an order for the prototype of 14 modules
was issued for 3 kW DC (the current too little for high speed for real
not providing enough power for acceleration). Alltogether over 50
different organisations in USSR were involved in this project, so it
must have been one of the top projects on the priority list! In
December 1973 the first train rolled out of Riga vagon building
factory. Only two ER200's were ever built after all this effort.
Interesting is, that initial idea was to make all vagons powered, like
on some Japanese bullet trains, but in reality first and last
vagons were built as not motorized. The use in passenger traffic began only March 1, 1984 after almost two decades of extensive testing! The ER-200 train has aluminium body. Every second vagon has pantograph. The second train was built no before than in 1988! It has some differences in electrical control schematics. Visually, from the front train has extra light on top of cabin and doubled vertical side lights. In order to have replacement for the front vagons, and to build the third train in the future, in 1990 additional two front-end vagons were built. Travel time on ER-200 between Moscow and Leningrad is 4 hours 39 minutes. In April 2008 Russian Railways announced future withdrawal of ER-200 type trains due to development of the new high-speed line between Moscow and St Petersbu | |
