Bidders for new high-speed train listed
The designers of both the Japanese bullet train and the French TGV were named on Thursday among the short-list of bidders to build a new generation of high-speed trains.
The new trains will replace the ageing fleet of diesel InterCity125 trains, the 30-year-old workhorses of Britain’s long-distance rail network. The first trains are due to go into operation on the East Coast and Great Western main lines in 2015, although a test batch will be introduced from 2012. Final proposals are due next summer and a decision will be announced the following winter.
Plans for new Oslo – Gothenburg express train
An express train which will travel between Oslo and Gothenburg in Sweden in two hours, half the present travel time, may become a reality by 2020.
French team to sign MoU for high-speed rail corridor
If everything goes well, the team is likely to sign an MoU with the government to assist the Indian Railway in the project, a senior Railway Ministry official said.
The high-speed corridor, also known as bullet train proposal, comprises four routes and is estimated to cost about Rs 25,000 crore for each route.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority has a video of their project which has been sputtering along in the study stage for years. One part of their plan is a high-speed train able to travel at speeds of up to 220 mph (354.1 km/h) The cities linked by this proposal include linking San Francisco to Los Angeles in under two and a half hours, and Sacramento to Los Angeles. The Governator has approved funding for continued study, but not the actual start of this new system.
I’m not going to get into them today, but as many of us already know public transportation is not just a simple issue of energy conservation. There are sociological issues involved. The great thing about high-speed trains are built in elements of comfort and and some assurance of their personal security. Then there are the positive economic ripples that like job creation. There will not be zero environmental impact, but many of these new high speed transport routes can be built on corridors that have already been built like highways and old rail routes.
update: SkyCab is a new “green” intelligent transportation system. Best comparison I can think of right now is a one person version of the cars that ran on tracks in Minority Report. There are illustrations at the link and some pdf files you can download.
…the process of making the plastic for the water bottles consumed in the U.S. uses approximately 17 million barrels of oil per year.
I’m sympathetic up to a point. Substituting water for soft drinks to good for your health, but those water bottles can be washed with a little baking soda, rinsed and refilled with good old tap water.
