High Speed Railways, Development Period and Competitiveness With Other Transportation Modes

High-speed Railways in Germany

When the railway appeared as a new means of transportation in the first half of the 19th century, its top speed of 30 to 40 km/h was considered dangerous. In Germany, where Adler transported two barrels of beer between Nuremberg and Fürth in 1835 as the first German rail freight, physicians warned people against such perilous adventures and farmers were worried that their cows grazing alongside...

High-speed Railways: The Last 10 Years

1 October 2004 is the 40th anniversary of the opening of the Tokaido Shinkansen, the world’s first high-speed railway that marked the start of the era of high-speed rail travel. Ten years ago, the October issue of JRTR 3 published a special feature entitled 30 Years of High Speed Railways. This article summarizes the events in highspeed railways in the last 10 years and discusses their future p...

Track geometry for high-speed railways

The present work consists of two main parts. The first part (Chapter 2 and 3) deals with a literature survey where a short introduction is given for track geometry and track/vehicle interaction. After the introduction, a survey over the present standard in Europe and Japan is made. In particular the recent proposals for a common European Standard (CEN) and TSI (Technical Specification for Inter...

High Speed Ground Transportation

High-Speed Railways: Present Situation and Future Prospects

Departing from the present situation, this paper attempts to highlight future prospects of high-speed railways. A panorama of high-speed lines worldwide is first given and the limits of a further increase of rail speeds are surveyed. It is explained that rail high speeds are feasible only for large population concentrations. The impact of high speeds on the reduction of travel times is studied....