Train of the Week

The SD70ACe/LCi is heavy haul locomotive specially designed for the western Australian iron ore rail operations compliant with EPA Tier 2 emission standard. She incorporated some fundamental changes from the standard American SD70ACe . The letters “LC” in the model name implies limited clearance, and the letter “i” implies international model. The LCi measures 188 inches tall compared to 191 inches of the standard North American models. Most performance figures of the LCi is similar to the standard North American SD70ACe but the LCi weighs 12 tons heavier due to a beefed up under frame to withstand the heavier gross rail load (over 350,000 lbs.) of Australian iron ore operations. Special micro alloy low stress wheels have also been used on the LCi’s. Air brake compartment under the cab is occupied by heavier duty air conditioning system and air brake components have been relocated to the B-end underneath the rad fans. Between BHP Billiton and Fortescue Metals Group, 83 units have been...

This week’s post is about a Train Show in Berlin, Germany that is happening as this blog is being updated. I wish I can be there and I will be one day. InnoTrans is the world’s largest trade show focused on the railroad industry. The show first started in 1996 and have steadfastly grown in number of participants every 2 years. For the first time, the InnoTrans 2012 has all the exhibition space leased out at the Messe Berlin Exhibition Center. InnoTrans includes both indoor and outdoor venues where technology and rail vehicles are shown off and is open to public the weekend after the industry events. InnoTrans has been the place for passenger train manufactures to unveil their latest and greatest offering to the world. Here are a few links I’d like you to visit to see more about this great fair: InnoTrans 2012 official website Railway Gazette International’s coverage on InnoTrans 2012 Alstom at InnoTrans 2012 Bombardier at InnoTrans 2012 Siemens at InnoTrans 2012

The Frecciarossa (red arrow) 1000, a.k.a. V300 Zefiro, a.a.k.a. ETR (Elettro Treno Rapido, rapid electric train) 1000, is the next generation of VHST (very high-speed train) to serve the top notch high-speed service, the Frecciarossa, of Trenitalia , federally owned railroad operator of Italy. Being part of the Zefiro family, the Frecciarossa 1000 is the flagship next generation highly efficient HST and VHST Bombardier Transportation of Germany is developing. For this Italian flavor of the Zefiro , Italian firm AnsaldoBreda also joined forces. The 50 sets of V300 is Bombardier's second order of the highly anticipated very high-speed Zefiros. The Frecciarossa 1000 comes in 8 car consists and is designed to have a maximum speed of 250 mph (220 mph in revenue service). Click here for a Google translated press release page (with pictures) from the State Railways of Italy on the Fecciarossa 1000. Do also check out the film below made by Trenitalia about this beautiful new very high ...

The Class 89 is a one of a kind (literally) electric locomotive designed by Brush Traction and built at British Rail Engineering Limited Crewe Works in 1986. One unit, 89001, was ever built. She was named Avocet by Margaret Thatcher in 1989, whose Party instrumented the murder of the British Railways in 1993. The Class 89 was thought to be used in the Channel Tunnel and also replace aging Class 86 locomotives. These tasks however ended up with Classes 90, 92, and 9, but some of the Class 89's designed lived on in these later locomotives. Eventually the Avocet ended up hauling InterCity trains on the then newly electrified East Coast Main Line between London King's X and Leeds wearing the InterCity livery. She was sidelined in 1989 due to a major failure and put in storage, just days before the Class 91, power for the InterCity 225 went in service. During a motive power shortage in 1996, the Great North Eastern Railway , TOC then for the InterCity East Coast franchis...

Research on running high speed trains on existing railroad network began jointly by Deutsche Bahn and a group of railroad engineering companies (Siemens, Krauss-Maffei, Krupp - now ThyssenKrupp, Thyssen - now Thyssen Krupp, Henschel - now Bombardier, AEG - now Bombardier, and BBC - now Bombardier) in 1974, a year after (10 years after Japan launched the famous bullet train running at 130 mph) DB launched its 125 mph Inter City service with locomotive hauled trains much like the Northeast Regional . The decision came in 1982 that a test train with 2 locomotives (DB Class 410) permanently coupled to 3 cars be built to evaluate the concept of such a train. This train was dubbed the Inter City Experimental , delivered in 1985, the forefather of the sleek high speed trains today running DB’s Inter City Express services. The Inter City Experimental was renamed to ICE V and continued to run as a test train for research and evaluation purposes until 1998, 7 years after ICE 1 (DB Class 401) ...

Let's having some Italian again and Ferrovie dello Stato means State Railways I believe. The ETR 200 (Elettro Treno Rapido, or Rapid Electric Train) is one of the pioneers in world high-speed train development. She was 3 car articulated electric multiple unit designed in the 1930s by Breda for Italy’s newly electrified Milan-Naples main line. The first ETR 200 was introduced in service in 1937 on the Bologna-Rome-Naples line and had a top speed of 100 mph and was featured in the Universal Exposition in New York. In 1939, one of the ETR 200 sets set a speed record of 126 mph. Quite a thing of beauty I must say

They say that a picture says a thousand words. So this week I'll let the picture here say the rest of this post. It is a map. And for those of us who live in North America and therefore are faint hearted in the railroad sense, it will take your breath away, big time. It is a map of rail transport in Greater London, and it includes, again in our English, mainline railroads, streetcars, subways, and interurbans. Click on the above snapshot to see the original document and have fun with it!