Train of the Week

So I'd like to share a video today of what's up and coming in the next decade in the world of high speed ground travel. The video is the Series L0 Shinkansen pre-production set undergoing endurance testing on Yamanashi Test Line. She will be operating on the, now under construction, Chūō Shinkansen Line . Please feel free to follow the hyperlinks to find out more about this Shinkansen in the near future.

This is probably the 3rd post about the Zefiro 380 by Bombardier. I had previously jump the gun because I was so excited about this Very High Speed EMU. Finally, there have been some actual production trainsets running around in revenue testing service these days. German Engineering. What a beauty The Zefiro 380 is built by Bombardier Sifang Power Transportation in Qingdao, China, a former German colony locally known for its beer (definitely a very suitable place for a German transportation giant), for the sole operator so far of this EMU, China Railway High-speed. The Chinese classification for this beautifully designed trainset is CRH380D. The number 380 bears some significance here. Indeed these CRH380s are the world's first trainsets that are designed for a sustained top speed of 380 km/h or 236 mph in revenue service. Unfortunately the operator has opted for a really plain interior Alternate cars in the Zefiro 380 are powered and they come in either 8- or 6-car con...

I'm sure the excitement of riding some new unknown equipment for the first time lingers in a railfan's heart for a long time. I knew nothing about this EMU at the time I first stepped onto it at Heathrow Airport in the summer 2009, except that the conductor told me we could ONLY do 100 mph. It was a smooth ride to London Paddington, with the gentle whine of electrical wizardry at the helm and blurry scenery rushing by. 100 mph seemed like a hell of a deal for trains where I come from, but here the word "only" went ahead of it. The avid trainspotters of course know it by now, I'm talking about, the Class 332 used in the Heathrow Express service. Class 332 in Heathrow Express Service at London Paddington Then there's the Class 333, roaming the gentle landscape of West Yorkshire, far away from London. They are mechanically very similar if not identical to the Class 332 but have an entirely different interior layout. The Class 333 are used in regional comm...

So the InnoTrans has come and gone for another round. I haven't been in person. My plans to go this year had been prematurely derailed by certain circumstances. Not to worry though, there is still time, I keep telling myself and 2016 is just around the corner that's not terribly far from now. One of the locomotives exhibited this year was the British Rail Class 68 locomotive. Since the dismantling of the British Rail Engineering Limited as part of the Thatcher Privatization, British locomotives have gone the way of the dodo bird. Indeed, the Class 68 is German (but built in Spain). She belongs to the Vossloh Eurolight family and is dubbed UK Light. This locomotive looks pretty "out there". Not bad at all. Traditionally Vossloh in Spain have used EMD engines. This time around it's not very far off either and the Class 68 is said to come with a 3 800 horsepower Cat C175-16 engine. Electrical components, however, are sourced from ABB rather than EMD. This...

Yup so this day would come sooner or later when I decided to blog about the British Railways Classes 42 and 43. This locomotive I blog about today is the locomotive those lovely Warship Class units were based on. The classification number predates today's DB AG and this locomotive is called the Class V 200. Quite a handsome little guy I have no clue what the V's are about in old times DB's classification scheme. It probably doesn't mean speed. Well, that's my best guess anyway. Production of this locomotive ran from 1953 to 1956, during our good old Streamliner days. Of course, like the Warship Class (or rather the other way around), the V 200 is twin-engined and driven by hydraulic transmission. Total power output for the loco is around 2 200 hp. She's used in hauling express trains and has a top speed of 87 mph in service. Apparently the V 200 had been the basis of way more locomotives than the Warship Class ones. These locomotives, along with more i...

I've missed this blog again, this time due to some family medical stuff that required quite some of my attention. All is fine though. Anyway I had a chance to stroll around the vast inter web for some time again, with the hopes that I'd find some technical papers of my interest. I found this, a catalogue of bogies  by Siemens, or in North American English, trucks, offered on various rail vehicles. It's not all that technical, more of a marketing brochure. The interesting bit is though, this catalogue does reference the types of rail vehicles in service each truck has been fitted to. Are some of your favourite equipment listed in the reference sections of the catalogue? Now it's your chance to have a more complete look on what they really look under those skirts. Cheers!

Wait. What? The Class 43 again? Haven't it already been regurgitated on this blog a couple of times already as the locomotive only and the InterCity? Well, this Class 43 ain't our usual Class 43. This Class 43 was a being of the very early 1960s, at the time when TOPS classification still wasn't a thing. TOPS stands for Total Operations Processing System. It was a computer system to manage and track all locomotives and cars used by a railroad. Although made popular among the railfans by British Railways, this system was actually developed by one of the fallen flags in our neck of the woods and was said to be used by a number of our railroads as well. The TOPS system was developed by the famous Southern Pacific Railroad, now part of railroad giant Union Pacific. Anyway, so, the Class 43. Well, she really is pretty much the same as the Class 42 I've briefed about last week, based on the same German twin-engined diesel hydraulic locomotive, except built at a later d...