> That's the "great" thing about the old Intercity trains from the 80s (some carriages are even from the 60s, being initially used in Trans Europe Express Trains[1]): They don't have this feature.
The limiting factor is breaking. The PZB train safety system require that you get down from 160 km/h to zero within 1000 meters. For trains that do not have the break hundredths to make this, the maximum speed needs to be reduced. Freight trains usually have a maximum speed of 100 km/h or lower. Or, for passenger trains with varying amounts of mass, impose a mass limit.
Better brakes are difficult because the friction points between the wheels and the tracks are small. The french have approaches on this.
LZB and ECTS help by giving the conductor in-cab information about oncoming signals, but installation on the tracks has been sluggish. IIRC ETCS is mandated to replace LZB, but ETCS is quite expensive.
Right, but those old carriages don't have weight sensors. So there is no way of knowing if they are overloaded or not, apart from optical estimation, right? Break hundredths are entered manually on those trains, AFIAK.
I'm not saying that it would be legal to drive an overweight IC in the upper PZB setting. :D
But I've used Intercitys (and old regional trains) that were so full that not even the conductors could move anymore. That doesn't happen anymore with the new trains. I have a hard time believing that the railroad carriages were not overloaded at that moment.
The limiting factor is breaking. The PZB train safety system require that you get down from 160 km/h to zero within 1000 meters. For trains that do not have the break hundredths to make this, the maximum speed needs to be reduced. Freight trains usually have a maximum speed of 100 km/h or lower. Or, for passenger trains with varying amounts of mass, impose a mass limit.
Better brakes are difficult because the friction points between the wheels and the tracks are small. The french have approaches on this.
LZB and ECTS help by giving the conductor in-cab information about oncoming signals, but installation on the tracks has been sluggish. IIRC ETCS is mandated to replace LZB, but ETCS is quite expensive.