Train of the Week

The Class 120 is an inconspicuous looking locomotive (in today's standard, anyway). It occasionally, casually drifts across the rails right in front of my eyes, almost blending into the background, hardly noticeable at all. I would've probably have never thought much of it, until now. The amount of information the English Wikipedia page has provided is a bit of a pity. Luckily, though, it is 2017, and there's Google Translate (well, hopefully at least one version of me in some alternate universe is actually learning German). There is no way this post can contain (nor should it) all the wealth of information found on the locomotive's German Wikipedia page. Here, I'll just show off a few what I think are highlights. Von Benedikt Dohmen ( User:Benedictus ), Archiv-Nr. 63/28 - Eigenes Werk , CC BY-SA 3.0 , Link So beneath the underwhelming looks of the Class 120 is one of the first production three-phase AC locomotives equipped with regenerative braking. It w...

I slacked off last week again, didn’t I. Anyhow, let’s continue with the Paella theme and check out the AVE Class 100. As you may recall, AVE stands for Alta Velocidad Española, the service name used by the Spanish national passenger operator, Renfe, on its high-speed trains. A Class 100 on the Madrid to Barcelona high-speed line The story here sounds similar to some of the other countries that got into the high-speed rail business by importing in the later parts of the 20th century. The Class 100, like the first KTX (Korea Train eXpress), are derived from the iconic TGV Atlantique. Like the KTX, the styling of the AVE Class 100 has been modified slightly, resulting in a more rounded nose. Nonetheless, it does not require any effort to spot the family resemblance. By SeeSchloss - Own work , CC BY-SA 2.5 , Link The trains went into service in 1992, after the first standard gauge high-speed line was completed in Spain from Madrid to Seville (it was almost going to be Iberian ...

A very well made video by YouTube user Mikhail@Novgorod showing various types equipment on the Córdoba to Málaga High-Speed Line I have already written about some of the  Siemens Velaro family of high-speed trains in earlier posts, but I wanted to dedicate this one to the Velaro E (for España), or more commonly known as the AVE (Alta Velocidad Española or Spanish High Speed) Class 103 . A Class 103 towards Barcelona on the outskirts of Madrid On the outside, the Velaro E looks almost identical to the ICE 3 , which is a product jointly developed by a number of companies in Germany. However, due to licensing issues, Siemens re-developed components on the ICE 3 it did not make, thus completing the Velaro platform of high-speed trains. The Velaro E also received an upgrade in the traction department, in order to cope with the demand for higher acceleration and maximum speed by Renfe (the Spanish national railway company). As a result, the AVE Class 103 is authorized for ser...

By Hisagi - 投稿者自身による作品 , CC 表示-継承 4.0 , Link Hyperloop seems to be all the hype these days. Given the progress in its development, it's about time we can call it for what it is (as far as a "new" invention goes). I won't directly address it, however. Instead, here is another system, currently under construction, that will serve as a case study to the rest of the world on the mass adoption of maglev technology. CC BY-SA 3.0 , Link Formally called the Chūō Shinkansen , the new central mainline in Japan is fundamentally different than the high-speed lines that come before it. It utilizes the SCMaglev , or Super Condicting Magnetic-levitation, technology that has been under development since 1962. The SCMaglev uses one of the three principal implementations of magnetic levitation, called EDS , or Electro Dynamic Suspension. The other two consist of EMS (Electro Magmetic Suspension), used by Transrapid, and Inductrack System (Permanent Magnet Passive Suspension...

A glorious 22 minutes (plus an arm and a leg, or 540 SEK), that's what it took me to get between Stockholm Central Station and Arlanda Airport. Sweden is home to many trains I had blogged about ( including this one ) over the years. It wasn't, until now, had I seen any of them in real life. In spite of being from North America, Swedish trains are wide. The 2+2 seating makes them look even wider on the inside (although it appears I had forgotten to take a picture of the train's interior). People would possibly have to shout across the row of seats in order to talk to their buddies on the other side of the aisle. Arlanda Express terminal at Stockholm Central Oh, by the way (as a PSA for people who plan to ride the train from Arlanda to Stockholm), there are three train stations in the underbellies of Arlanda Airport. Arlanda Central serves regular SJ and SL trains (which completely slipped my mind as soon as I saw the sign for the Arlanda Express), while Arla...

I got to meet my childhood hero, and it's everything I dreamed it would be! Yes, by it, I mean a train, of course, given how weird and awkward I am as a human being, this shouldn't come as a surprise. It all happened when I still lived in Asia, more than half a lifetime ago. The Chinese Railways, whatever they called themselves back in the 1990s, bought (or "leased") a set of the X2 (a.k.a. X2000 or SJ 2000) from SJ for services on the KCR (Kowloon to Canton Railway) at 125 mph (the first ever regular service in China at that speed). Granted, being Chinese, they'd also conveniently and inadvertently copied its design, albeit not quite so successfully (see DJJ1 ). 由 慕尼黑啤酒 - 自己的作品 ， CC BY-SA 3.0 ， 链接  (the Chinese X2) This time around, the X2 also brought me about my first impressions of the friendly Swedes. Judging from the sign of me taking pictures like a mad (or normal) Chinese tourist, not one, but two drivers invited me on a tour of the cab. Finally,...

Three months ago, Amtrak released this video after signing a new deal to purchase the next-generation Acela Express from our old friend Alstom. It is called the Avelia Liberty. At the minute mark, it states that this train shares a common platform that has been proven in service. Hold on a minute, what common platform? Revenue service? What's an Avelia? Yes, that was a long-winded way of getting into today's topic, and let me do the Googling, so you don't have to (if you have not already, that is). According to Alstom's product web page, all of their current high-speed trains are now branded Avelia. This includes the Pendolino, the TGV Euroduplex, the AGV, and of course, our Avelia Liberty. What I find interesting, is the fact that this family name has yet to be mentioned much or marketed heavily at all. In fact, I don't think it is that good of an idea. Alstom's high-speed trains ranges are already very well known worldwide, so why cause confusion? This...

Although it is still premature to pop the champagne on the Brightline High Speed Rail between Orlando and Miami, this week marks a milestone in the history of this much-anticipated rail service. The first fully assembled trainset (two Siemens Charger locomotives plus four intermediate cars) has arrived in South Florida, after a special transcontinental delivery from its birthplace of Sacramento, California. With the year 2017 looming around the corner, we can almost hear the "all aboard" call from Brightline's Phase One opening between Miami and West Palm Beach (Click here for more from the Railway Gazette). The second phase of the service, covering the rest of its length to Orlando, however, wanders in limbo. Once promised the funding of this rail service, the Government had pulled the rug from underneath. In the meantime, please enjoy these early footages of what I shall call the "Brightliner," and feel free to explore more about this project o...

4 AM. Excited and foggy at the same time, I crawled out of bed. The instant coffee from the hotel would do. Dressed in clothes warmer than I usually would, in anticipation of beautiful snowy mountains, I marched towards the S-Bahn station in the empty streets of Vienna. A slight hesitation saw to it that the suburban train left me behind. But what was to come, was better than I could have hoped for. A shiny Siemens Desiro came to a stop. As I stepped inside, I was greeted by that new train smell, still lingering in the air. The clock had just ticked past the quarter hour mark past five, but Wien Hauptbahnhof was already a bustling place. Following the signage, I ascended onto the mainline platforms, where my Zürich bound Railjet stood. This was my first time onboard one. The interior was simple but functional, indeed, a very clean and modern design. At 5:30 sharp, the train effortlessly pulled out of the station. Unlike most people, who traveled one station far, I was on thi...

Last week, I disappeared for a little while. But rest assured. I have brought great experiences to share. Succumbing to the craving for some mountains and snow, I decided to head south (yes, south), to where the majestic mountains met the white fluffy. Into the Alps, I went. Conveniently, I had also in my possession, an Austria-Germany rail pass with 3 days still unused, 2 weeks from its expiry. It took two trains (both InterCity Express), and the better part of a day to get to Vienna, where I chose to host my overnight stays, from the NRW. Despite all that I’d heard about German efficiency and precision, 33 minutes proved to be not quite enough of a layover to change trains. As I watched the ICE 3 that brought me to Würzburg depart towards its final intermediate stop of Nuremberg before reaching Munich, 40 minutes behind schedule, an extra 2 hours had befallen into my hands. No love lost at this point, Würzburg had been on my bucket list for a day trip, I just needed to make ...

Remember the Flying Hamburger (or well, a better translation, Hamburg Flyer) I wrote about on this blog a while ago? The good ol' SVT 137 high speed articulated diesel multiple units from the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft  (German Imperial Railway) era? The trainset had also been used for an international service called the, Berolina, introduced in 1959 between Berlin and Warsaw. They weren't replaced by locomotive-hauled trains until the 1970s. Given the trainset was designed in the 1930s, that was quite the life it had. Anyway, I found some more old footages of the trainset on YouTube. The second video on this page is a documentary on how the SVT 137 was made in the factory. It's in German but it's quite entertaining to watch.

So at this very moment that I'm getting ready to update my blog for this coming week, I am fascinated by this Wikipedia page on the list of InterCity Express services offered by the Deustche Bahn. I know this probably makes me a total weirdo and nerd, but I just think the numbered lines are so neat. " ICE-International 1826 Bahnsteiganzeige " by Lüko Willms - eigene Aufnahme (german for: I took the picture myself). Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons . " Db-401064-01 " by K. Jähne - Own work . Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 de via Wikimedia Commons . It amazes me how many places one can go from Frankfurt by train (if you take a moment to look at the actual routes, wow), and in the very near future, there is supposed to be a direct service from Frankfurt to London St Pancras International. " Db-403xxx-09 " by K. Jähne - Own work . Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons . Yes, many of the romantic and nostalgic long...

This week's post will just be a little show and tell, based on something I saw on the news. It's about a new double deck express train the SBB-CFF-FFS has now certified to operate in Switzerland. It is built by Bombardier, and following the company's trend on ending product names with "XX", this EMU is called the TWINDEXX. I won't be writing too much. Instead I will link you to the trainset's web page on Bombardier's website. There aren't videos on YouTube of this train operating in service yet, so a video of this EMU in transit will have to do for now.

The train of this week is a modern electric passenger locomotive from Russia. It's called EP20 and it's the product of a collective effort between Alstom and CJSC Transmashholding , the largest Russian locomotive builder. You may remember this locomotive from recent news, because it's featured in some of the photographs in the articles on the commencing of Talgo sets on the Russian Railways (RZD). " 2 EP20 na Rostov Glavny " by Gwinogradow - Own work . Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons . Unlike the other European passenger locomotives, the EP20 has six axles, and uses somewhat of an unusual axle arrangement. Instead of using two 3-axle trucks, the EP20 has three 2-axle trucks (i.e. B-B-B). Locomotives like this do exist; they are just rarely seen outside of, say, Japan. " Фирменный поезд "Буревестник" " by Айнар - http://www.train-photo.ru/details.php?image_id=142288&mode=search . Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via W...

This week, I thought I'd take a bit more time to write about a high speed electric multiple unit (EMU) from the other hemisphere. To give you some very brief background, a decade or so ago, this country called China bought a whole whack of high-speed trains (among other passenger and freight equipment) from pretty much every major rail equipment manufacturer in the world (Siemens, Bombardier, Kawasaki, Alstom, and Toshiba). They didn't buy it normally though, like how one would put in a order, and a period of time later, some products would show up in shiny wraps. The Chinese bought very few finished products, but the license to use the technology and manufacture products from those companies with whatever equipment supplier they fancy. The feature rail related thingy of the week, the CRH380CL EMU, is a bit of a mash up of a lot of the aforementioned things China has bought from the Western World. “ CRH380C-6301L ”，作者 Jwjy9597 - 自己的作品 。采用 CC BY-SA 3.0 授权，来自 维基共享资源 。 “ ...

This week I feel like blogging about a locomotive from a lesser-known manufacturer in this part of the world. It's especially worth mentioning that this locomotive has recently been added to DB's procurement list to power push-pull DB Region trainsets. „ Lokomotiva 109 E2 “ od Škoda Transportation – http://www.skoda.cz/cs/press-room/fotogalerie/ . Licencováno pod CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons . So the Škoda 109E locomotive, or whichever railroad classification number you may want to call it (it's aka the DB Class 102 in Germany), is quite standard in terms of her specifications go. There are four axles, each powered by a traction motor pumping out about 2 150 horsepower, and the top speed in service is 124 mph. „ Brno, hlavní nádraží, lokomotiva 380.007 (03) “ od Harold – Vlastní dílo . Licencováno pod CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons . Enjoy the pictures and the quite beautifully made YouTube video (you've gotta see this one). I actually quite like ...

So this week, the world speed record has been refreshed again by the Japanese Shinkansen Series L0 (a maglev train) for the 2nd time in 2 weeks. The 7-car L0 achieved 590 km/h (367 mph) last week, on 16 April, and a whopping (not that 590 wasn't fast enough but pffft, it was only in the 500s) 603 km/h (375 mph) on this Tuesday, 21 April. Wow. " JR Central SCMaglev L0 Series Shinkansen 201408081002 " by Hisagi - Own work . Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Yeah... I got carried away by other stuff this week and forgot to update this blog on time. Anyway, I guess I'll do the easy thing and make it a show and tell again. Below is a very high level film made by the NHK about the Japanese high speed trains linked from YouTube. The narrator sounds like a Brit so it must be legit.

Well, the term "new line" is used loosely here, it's really a new extension. But, good news! The Hokuriku Shinkansen extension to Kanazawa is finally open for business as of this month, cutting the journey time between Tokyo and the City of Toyama on the other side of the Honshu Island by 2 hours. I will use some pictures to do the talking this week, because my level of knowledge of Japanese high speed railways is relatively bare (although probably better than the average Joe). This map below shows what's up with post. " Hokuriku Shinkansen map " by Hisagi ( 氷鷺 ) - Own work . Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons . Since the Hokuriku Shinkansen goes through some quite mountainous terrain, a lot of tunnels and viaducts have to be deployed, and the trains can't go crazy fast like some of the flatter areas. Series E2 , E7/W7 are currently operating services on this line. They operate up to a, still very respectable, top speed of 260 km...

This is a brief one again but it kind of has gone under my nose undetected until not long ago. Did you know that the Turkish State Railways also bought the Siemens Velaro D (well, it's called the Velaro TR in this case) and it went in service in 2014? I didn't, until maybe a month or two ago when I accidentally stumbled upon this video of it on YouTube (this one I'm posting here below). I gotta say that's a very nice color scheme for the train and North America is pretty much officially the third world of passenger rail travel... it makes me a little sad to think about this latter thing.