posted
It appears that the Spanish HSR, AVE, is independent of the State owned RENFE, and will be on a par with the Systems found in France, Germany, and Italy.
Apparently though, there will not be any interchange with the other Western Europe systems; I'm not certain if it runs on Standard or Wide gauge:
The growth of the Alta Velocidad Española, or AVE, high-speed rail network is having a profound effect on life in Spain. Many Spaniards are fiercely attached to their home regions and studies show they are unusually reluctant to live or even travel elsewhere.
But those centuries-old habits are starting to change as Spain stitches its disparate regions together with a €100 billion ($130 billion) system of bullet trains designed to traverse the countryside at up to 218 miles an hour.
"We Spaniards didn't used to move around much," says José María Menéndez, who heads the civil engineering department at the University of Castilla-La Mancha. "Now I can't make my students sit still for one second. The AVE has radically changed this generation's attitude to travel."Posts: 9976 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Sounds like things may have changed since my last rail trip in Spain in 1968. Then it was maybe 60 mph behind steam on the Lusitania Express from Lisbon - overnight courtesy of wagon-lit. Come to think of it, an early version of Talgo was running then to Seville.
I don't think our 'young and restless' generation has waited for HSR to start traveling.
But 218 mph is impressive - NY to DC in one hour or Oakland to LA in 2.5. It would be a little hard to 'stop and smell the roses' at that speed. I'll be happy for the day when we have 90mph in the U.S. on all Amtrak routes.
Posts: 2397 | From: Camden, SC | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
AVE is standard gauge. Whether this is the tighter 1432mm as opposed to 1435mm I don't know - the former reduces "hunting" (sideways movement) at high speed.
Geoff M.
-------------------- Geoff M. Posts: 2426 | From: Apple Valley, CA | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
AVE is essentially an extension of the TGV. A lot of French imput. Pretty sure it is 1435 mm gauge. If they are following the EU TSI's (Technical Specificatiions for Interoperability), they are very insistent upon 1435 mm as "standard." And yes, these documents are as verbose as the title would appear to indicate.
Posts: 2808 | From: Olive Branch MS | Registered: Nov 2002
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(Yes, I understand that RR track gauge tolerances are very tight - esp. at high speed!)
-------------------- --------Eric H. Bowen
Stop by my website: Streamliner Schedules - Historic timetables of the great trains of the past! Posts: 413 | From: Houston, Texas | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
Eric, People are always trying to build a better mousetrap. There have been quite a few tweaks with small numbers of millimeters or fractions of an inch in the as applied "standard" gague.
At one time the French were using 1437 mm. I gather they are now back to 1435, but there are others that wuold know a lot more about it than I do. WMATA started out, and maybe are still using 4 feet 8 1/4 inches for straight track and large radius curves. That number being suspiciously close to 1432 mm.
I am not convinced that tightening the gauge reduces hunting or just decreases the width of the bounce. A lot more appears to be gained by getting the wheel tread / rail head shapes right.
Posts: 2808 | From: Olive Branch MS | Registered: Nov 2002
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posted
I stand corrected. I'm sure I read somewhere about the LGVs (French high speed lines) that early trials of the TGV resulted in severe track distortion and they found that was due to hunting, and decreasing the gauge to 1432mm reduced that. But I am no expert on track-related things so I was relying on the media for that. I certainly remember a photo, taken during early trials of TGV I believe, where the track was severely distorted (and, of course, kept as secret as possible). However, despite not being an expert on track as George is, logically I would assume a train travelling at high speed would induce lateral forces much higher than that of a lower speed and thus cause such track distortion. Is that purely due to track gauge or are other factors involves, such as ballast shoulders? I don't know.
While trying to find my sources, I found that parts of the Hong Kong area use 1432mm but they are by no means high speed, even by American standards.
And, possibly my favourite saying, the good thing about standards [such as EU TSIs] is that there are so many to choose from. The engineers' equivalent to the politicians' statistics. Mould them the way you want the answer to appear.
Geoff M.
-------------------- Geoff M. Posts: 2426 | From: Apple Valley, CA | Registered: Sep 2000
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quote:But 218 mph is impressive - NY to DC in one hour or Oakland to LA in 2.5.
That's not physically possible, unless you're using Maglev operating at an average speed of 218 mph. A top speed of 218 mph would result in an average speed hovering around the 150-mph mark, which means NYP-WAS in about 1.5 hours, but nobody's building a railroad corridor that would allow that. (Besides, if the NEC were rebuilt sufficiently to allow the Acela or trains like it to break the triple-digit barrier as far as average speeds go, NYP-WAS in 2:15 is more than feasible.)
Posts: 566 | Registered: Mar 2002
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