DB ICx

By -
News! Well, right now as I'm writing this on the 8th anyway... See I kind of shot myself in the foot when I named this blog Train of the Week...

So the first 12-car ICx has taken to the rails! I had to specify the number of cars because there's also a 7-car, slightly less fast (because it's not slow either), version coming later. I'd think ICx wouldn't be the final name for this EMU though. I mean what's next then? ICy? Anyway, at least for now, to distinguish the two variants, the 7-car version is classed as the K1n, and the 12-car version the K3s.

Clearly I didn't pay enough attention to InnoTrans back in 2012, or I forgot, the ICx was first unveiled there. She's intended to replace the current push-pull IC, ICE1, and ICE2 trains in corridors where it's not practical to operate new ICE trains. At the beginning, K3s was supposed to be 10-car sets, this was changed by DB in 2013. Thank Wikimedia Commons for the picture below.

A mock-up, kind of like a more square version of the Velaro D
The K1n is slower due to the slightly lower hp/ton ratio. K1n is designed to be 3M4T (3 motor and 4 trailer cars) having a top speed of 230 km/h (or 143 of Her Majesty's distance units per hour) in service, while the K3s is designed to have half-M-half-T (i.e. 5M5T before, 6M6T now) having a top speed of 250 km/h (155 mph).

I'll leave most of the exploring to this quite comprehensive ICx website on Siemens Mobility. And down here is a promotional video from YouTube. I wish I spoke German. All I could understand was "something something something Deutschland, ... , something something flexible, something comfortable...". I think I should also mention this, Bombardier components are also used on this new DB EMU although Siemens is the major contractor (like all the ICE trains really). So featured on the ICx trains will be some unpowered Bombardier Flexx Eco bogies (or trucks in North American English) and a Bombardier built body shell, well, according to Wikipedia anyway, this ain't an academic paper so I'm allowed.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Briefly on the AAR Coupler Part 2

By -
Image
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 ...
Read more

Amtrak NPCU

By -
Image
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...
Read more

SD70ACu

By Yi -
Image
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...
Read more