News (well, as usual, with some lag)! The first ever High Speed Train has entered service in Poland! This marks the official entry in the world high speed ranks and I think it's quite an historical week in Polish history.
Is it just me or does it look a little sad from this angle...?
So what does the Polish High Speed Train look like? Well, it's actually quite a familiar one, the Pendolino. This Pendolino looks the same as many other Pendolinos used across Europe actually. She's based on the New Pendolino platform, with somewhat of an identical exterior to the Italian ETR-600. But similiar to the Chinese CRH5, the ED250 (oh btw this is what this Polish Pendolino is called) doesn't tilt. And guess what, this ED250 has set the speed record both for Poland and for Pendolinos this year with a very respectable 293 km/h or 182 mph. Anyway, the link in the paragraph below will have some more info on the ED250 as well.
I think I'm really digging the color scheme
The progress of achieving High Speed have been somewhat of a turmoil in Poland apparently. I won't bore you with history, politics, or anything of that nature. In term, I'll use my reliable old friend Wikipedia and this stuff is all linked here.
As usual, thank you, Wikipedia and users, thank you, Google (YouTube) and users for your stuff.
Oh and this is the last Friday of the year now isn't it. Thank you for all your support for another year. Have a happy holiday season and all the best in 2015!
The train of this week is a locomotive unveiled in 2009 by the BNSF Railway. Instead of using conventional diesel fuel, it is powered by hydrogen fuel cells (I have very limited knowledge in this area, so please feel free to comment on this post if you are interested in and familiar with the topic of hydrogen fuel cells). It is called the HH20B, a hydrogen-hybrid switcher locmotive based on the GG20B Green Goat diesel-hybrid switcher built by Railpower Technologies Corp. of Brossard, Quebec (acquired by R.J. Corman Railroad Group of Nicholasville, Kentucky in 2009). The GG20B is powered by a 300 hp 4-stroke Caterpillar diesel-engine and a battery pack with a combined tractive output of 2,000 hp. On the HH20B, diesel engine is replaced by hydrogen fuel cells. Hydrogen storage is in a set of tanks installed on top of the long hood of the locomotive in a heavily vented enclosure, above the batteries. The BNSF Railway displaying its low- and ul...
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 ...
So I got a question on pantographs and did some Googling (thanks for your comment/question Tari btw). I'm not very familiar with them on a technical level, so I'm basically going to believe what the inter-web tells me. If anyone thinks what I'm writing here is a complete load of ___, please and please do leave some feedback! Pantographs , well, for those who don't know what it is, it's the mechanism (with arms and linkages and etc.) on top of an electric train, that collects electricity from the overhead cantenary for the train's propulsion. Maybe I can say it's a fancy version of the trolley pole for trolley busses and old school streetcars. Below is a picture showing the parts of a modern Z-shaped single-arm pantograph from the German Wikipedia page of pantographs (there are many types out there, I won't go into history and all that now but they are linked here). Unfortunately I have not a clue what it's saying... je ne comprends pas Allemand and...
The progress of achieving High Speed have been somewhat of a turmoil in Poland apparently. I won't bore you with history, politics, or anything of that nature. In term, I'll use my reliable old friend Wikipedia and this stuff is all linked here.
As usual, thank you, Wikipedia and users, thank you, Google (YouTube) and users for your stuff.
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