
Trains reach record speed in Beijing-Zhangjiakou test run - hoba
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201910/21/WS5dad249aa310cf3e35571a61.html
======
dustinmoris
When I travelled to China for the first time I've spent one month there
travelling across the entire country via their highspeed train network. It's
amazing, all major places are so well connected and the trains are really
cheap, offer 1st, 2nd, 3rd and business class acommodating all various budgets
and comfort styles and they run really smoothly and are amazingly on time!

After departure it doesn't take more than a handful minutes before the train
reaches its desired speed of just over 300km/h and it remains consistent at
this speed for the entire journey unless it has to stop at a station.

I wish Europe was so well connected via such an efficient and affordable train
system. I think then we could easily raise the tax on airplanes to ridiculous
premiums and happily expect people to entirely ditch short distance flights.

China is doing amazing things and they get way too little credit for all the
innovative things they do. Unfortunately we only get to read the negatives,
but I went back to China again and I really love how people live there in
increasingly better conditions and not only outpacing other countries
economically, but also making huge efforts in creating a fair, enjoyable and
sociable environment for everyone.

Say what you want, but you'll never understand until you've been there
yourself and experienced China first hand yourself. It's nothing what the
media makes us believe!

~~~
0b0001
Even with the current train connections, it would be a great improvement to
book a single ticket for multi-country journeys.

Right now, I need a ticket for Germany, France and Spain to get to Barcelona.
If any of the trains runs late and I miss a train, I'd have to buy a new
ticket for the connecting train.

So a single booking agency with guaranteed connecting trains would be great.

~~~
claudius
I thought you could buy tickets from Germany to e.g. Barcelona with Deutsche
Bahn? The "only" problems are that one needs to visit a physical office of
theirs as online booking is not possible and you may pay a lot more than
buying individual cheap tickets with the operators.

~~~
0b0001
TGV tickets are sold there, but separately - without any liability for missed
connections.

~~~
_-___________-_
I thought EU Rail Team sorted out the missed connections issue? Germany
through France to Spain should be covered.

------
bufferoverflow
The actual world record for a train was set in 2015 on the Japanese Yamanashi
Test Track: 603 km/h

The non-prototype record is set by the French TGV in 2007: 574.8 km/h

But even in China trains have been traveling at 486.1 km/h in 2010
(Beijing–Shanghai HSR).

------
spodek
> _reached a record speed of 385 kilometers per hour, 10 percent higher than
> the designed speed_

Not to be outdone, an Amtrak train reached a record 38.5 hours late to Penn
Station on the same day.

------
ucha
The train reached its record speed but 385km/h is nowhere near a record. China
Daily is a state-owned newspaper.

~~~
_trampeltier
They will travel (with passenger) with 385km/h. That would be a new record.
Until now the fastest travel with 350km/h.

But of course the "top speed" without passenger is much much higher.

~~~
Stevvo
I think this speed is just for headlines, morjority of trains on the line run
at 250km/h, because it's a lot cheaper than running them at 350km/h.

~~~
robjan
Sounds about right. The Shanghai maglev works this way, as an example,
travelling at 430kph a few times per day then 300kph the rest:
[http://www.smtdc.com/en/jszl1_2.html](http://www.smtdc.com/en/jszl1_2.html)

------
ummwhat
I don't envy the guy with the job of getting this right.

The last train wreck in China is still being talked about. Not because of the
tragedy of the accident, but because of how it became emblematic of corruption
and cover-ups and realities that are "unpatriotic" to say out loud. I
guarantee any problems with this train line and you are sure to see someone
bought up on "corruption charges".

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
Immediately after the accident in question, the local authorities smashed the
trains with backhoes and buried them in pits in the ground. No accident here,
no sirree, just carry right along.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wenzhou_train_collision#Wang_Y...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wenzhou_train_collision#Wang_Yongping's_press_conference)

------
newnewpdro
Why aren't these things at 600+km/h already?

It's fairly trivial to travel at 300km/h on a motorcycle with far more severe
packaging constraints of fuel and powertrain, awful aerodynamics, and no rails
to glide down.

------
kuu
385km/h

------
willyt
574km/h is the record on steel rails set by a french TGV with some slight
modifications from the in service version.

------
TheSpiceIsLife
> the line is expected to be the world's first autonomous, driver-monitored
> railway.

I wonder what this will look like to the driver. I'm imagining the train
displaying it's intended actions, but I wonder if the driver has to
acknowledge anything at all?

~~~
kuschku
such lines already exist for slower-speed connections, and if you’ve ever seen
a subway or train which uses LZB in certain sections, you’ll see that the
driver only has to handle opening/closing the doors for passengers, if
anything at all.

------
_trampeltier
One thing is to have a such train, the other thing is to build the track. I
think it is really hard to build a smooth track for such speeds but it seems
they could do it.

------
nnq
> 10 percent higher than the designed speed

...wasn't smth like "doing research on a live production system to get X%
higher than designed output" what the _Cernobil_ engineers were trying to do?
Hope their sticking to trains with this mindset and not generalizing it to
more dangerous industries :|

Anyway, at least electric trains are the kind of technology that will benefit
everyone when it gets exported, so yey!

~~~
kuschku
> Anyway, at least electric trains are the kind of technology that will
> benefit everyone when it gets exported, so yey!

It’s not like this is new tech — they’re using trains built in a joint venture
by Siemens (EDIT: apparently, they’re now building trains based on the same
technology themselves), and the top speed China is trying to reach is 385km/h,
unsurprisingly the top speed of the exact same model Siemens sells elsewhere.

~~~
jayalpha
I don't think the Chinese would like this if you say they are selling "Siemens
trains".

They claim to have developed the technology further. The joint ventures were
terminated after the technology transfer.

~~~
kuschku
To actually develop this technology further, they’ll have to spend another
5-10 years on it. I’m sure they’ll manage it, but for now, there’s nothing new
about these trains. Yet.

