Well I'll continue to ease into the TGV post by writing about another export model here. This time we shift our attention to Spain, a country currently having the second largest high speed rail network in the world. The high speed service in Spain, operated by state owned Renfe, is operated under the name AVE, Alta Velocidad Española, or Spanish High Speed.
The AVE S-100 looks slightly more rounded than the TGV
The S-100 is the first true high speed train in Spain. The trainset was derived from the TGV Atlantique articulated push-pull trainset (unlike the Réseau or KTX, which the truck immediately behind the power car was powered as well). The first 8 of the 16 sets ordered were built by Alstom in France and the rest by CAF in Spain.
Definitely looks a lot shorter than the KTX-I
Unlike the KTX-I or TGV-K mentioned last week, the AVE S-100 came in a more standard 8-car consist featuring the TGV's signature articulating Jacobs trucks.
First introduced in 1992, the S-100 went in service at a whopping 186 mph. The highest speed this trainset had achieved in test though was 222 mph. The entire fleet was refurbished, halfway through the trainsets' designed service life, by Renfe between 2007 and 2012.
Last week, we've identified the Janney coupler and briefly looked at its elegant design. This week, let's, again, very briefly, look at the different types of Janney coupler that are widely used today. I will only talk about the head of the coupler, and ignore anything that the general public may need to trespass onto railroad property and get in a unsafe situation in order to have a good look at. As far as coupler heads are concerned, there are 3 types in used today. Type E, F, and H. Types E and F are used on freight, and H used on passenger equipment. Since the withdrawal of passenger service in North America by private railroads, the Type H standard is no longer maintained by the Association of American Railroads, a trade group formed of major freight railroads, but is under the control of the APTA, the American Public Transportation Association. Now let me introduce another term, slack. Slack is an allowed gap between two coupled up couplers. In other words, when most ...
The NPCU or Non-powered Control Units are control cars used by Amtrak that are modified from surplus EMD F40PH locomotives. A control car is a generic term for a non-powered railroad vehicle that can control operation of a train from the end opposite to the position of the locomotive. They can be used with diesel or electric motive power, allowing push-pull operation without the use of an additional locomotive. Control cars first appeared in the USA and France in 1960s. Trains operating with a locomotive at one end and a control car at the other do not require the locomotive to run around to the opposite end of the train when reversing direction. In the United States, most control cars are modified from retired locomotives by removing tractive equipment and adding side baggage doors and have been used on several passenger railroads. The control cars are connected through the consist of the train by standard AAR 27-wire multiple unit jumper cables. The NPCUs at Amtrak are a...
After the post on the shiny rebuilt GE road power, it's only fair to have a look into what Progress Rail has to offer on their side of the table. I'm using the company's recently-changed, formal name of course. For those who are not up-to-date on the current state of North American railroading affairs, Progress Rail is the company (owned by Caterpillar) that purchased EMD a few years ago. The SD90MAC was arguably the biggest gong show in EMD's recent memory. It happened at a time when they were comfortably resting on their laurels, unaware the fateful changes that were about to occur in the locomotive market in the not-so-distant future (they got beaten badly by GE). What was supposed to be one of the most remarkable locomotives whose presence is to grace the mainlines in modern history, turned out to be an utter disaster (I'll redirect further readings to Wikipedia). As a result, today, the number of SD90s still in operation on a Class 1 Railroad is, if not id...
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