...wanna see something really fast?

Train V-150

Actual recorded speed 574.8KMH (357.2 MPH). Only 4 MPH shy from Japan's Maglev record & this is on conventional rails.


Here's a text story link:

V-150 text story

Here's how they did it (unfortunately all in French)

V-150 design

[edit addendum]
On this las t link ther are more vids link of various other vids of the run (including one with a lot of shots from on board as they set the record)

I just briefly heard of this last night. Cool vid, thanks for the link.

I wish they'd done a few more shots that more clearly showed the sheer speed. The one toward the end where it's at full speed and goes under the bridge is pretty impressive.

Umm... this isn't Slashdot.

az, it's relevant to futuristic technology, which is what shadowrun is all about.

...considering that High Speed Rail are mentioned as being a part of the SR setting (both conventional "bullet" trains & Maglev), I believe it does have relevance. Railed locomotives (and I believe carriages as well) were also listed in the vehicle appendix of Rigger 3.

@Lagomorph: Thanks for the support.

Cool, thanks guys. I'll check them out when I have more time.

So next up... how to tie this vehicle into a shadowrun.

...so I wonder if they're going to try a run again just to beat the Japanese Maglev's record? So bloody close (6.5 kmh).

In a nation where the fastest train, the Acela (on a good day over an 18 mile stretch between Boston & New York), tops out at about 240kmh this is far from blase'. Partly because of the US love affair with the automobile since the postwar (WWII) era, along with the private rail lines losing interest in maintaining passenger service, long distance intercity rail travel has declined to the point of almost ceasing to exist. Currently our national passenger rail system (Amtrak) is forced to share lines with slower freights (and in many areas operate on substandard track) which restrict maximum speed limits to 127kmh over much of it's route system.

I am planning a trip to Europe soon and one of high points will be riding the TGV (alas only at 300 - 320kmh).

[Edit: addendum]

Ok so relating to SR.

Rail could see a renaissance in the 6th world in parts of North America. There is mention of the coastal Maglev between Seattle and Cali Free, though it is hard to imagine the service being very reliable until after the rash considering it had to travel through the Tir Taringire and Northern Crescent. With LA having been devastated by the quake, the southern terminis would most likely be San Francisco.

In the UCAS, intercity rail could be rather prominent since many of the cities are relatively close to each other. "Corridors" where high speed conventional and maglev rail might most likely be seen are the Midwest/Great Lakes (Minneapolis, Milwaukee Chicago, St Louis Detroit, Toronto), and the Northeast (Boston New York, Philadelphia, Dee Cee). Is might also be feasible that high speed regional lins between major points (Chicago - New York/Boston) might also exist. Depending on the political situation in Quebec, Montreal and Quebec City could also be involved

In the CAS I could see Atlanta - New Orleans - Houston - Dallas as being the major overland route. There might be corridor service between Houston & Dallas and maybe Charlotte and Atlanta. There could also be cross border interline service between the UCAS and CAS (as there is today in RL between the US & Canada).

Other than that, Air and Highway would be the only way to cross through most the NAN. I do not see them allowing long distance trains from the UCAS to say Seattle or San Francisco without exacting some heavy "right of way" tariffs. There is also the matter of the terrain and history of the private railroads' practices in the west of two centuries ago to deal with as well.

Hmmm KK your ideas interest me and I wish to subscribe to your news letter. Although national borders might be interesting. And wireless would make passports real quick.

KK's right. These days, taking Amtrak will get you to where you want to go. . .eventually. They average 4-6 hours late, because the freight trains have right-of-way, so the passenger trains have to wait their turn.

In SR, a lot of freight trains have been replaced by the Road Trains, the auto trucks that pull 4 or 5 trailers along the freeway system. This way they can reach more isloated areas, like there probably are in the NAN area. Reducing the freight lines may help bring back passenger trains.

...Rail transportation (actually transportation in general) has been kind of a personal life long study of mine. In college, I wrote a thesis concerning the demise of Interurban lines and Long Haul Intercity Passenger trains. I have also been doing an ongoing study on what went wrong with airlines after Deregulation.

Personally, I prefer to travel by rail these days even given the tardiness of Amtrak. At least I can get on the train at point A & get off at point B usually without changing at points C or D while travelling in a lot more comfort than airline coach offers. The US domestic airline industry is a mess right now and was a mess before 9-11. Those few profitable lines (most notably Southwest and Midwest) have remained so by carving unique niches for themselves (unfortunately for Midwest, they have recently become the target of a hostile takeover bid by AirTran...and so it goes).

While the US continues to muddle about with it's half baked transportation policy, China has been looking at TGV technology with serious intent of implementing it over long distance routes. The US, much less so save for a concern in California that is interested in developing a high speed corridor between Sacramento and San Diego. The funny thing is, for the Chinese it will most likely become a reality while California travellers will continue to lope along on Amtrak's San Joquins.

In Europe you have several 'high speed trains' ( with several speeds )

France has the TGV for all the Internal travel ( from most of the big cities to most of them now with the new line ) and with Eurostar for Paris( Brussel/Amsterdam )/London, Thalys for Paris/Brussel/ Amsterdam and Lyria for Paris/Genève ( will probably be extended to Italy at some time in the future ). The French High Speed Tracks don't cover all the destinations, so the TGV actually revert to normal speed once out of the special tracks. ( actually a little bit over normal train speed but not much )

Germany has the ICE ( that did also some speed tests on the same track as the V150 TGV ) that is expanding rapidly.

IIRC there's a TGV between Barcelona and Madrid, either in service or in building.

In Italy there's the Pendolino ( it goes a bit slower than the TGV, but doesn't need high speed tracks ) that use an ingenious system.

There's a (relatively) high speed train also in Sweden between Stockholm and Gothenburg. ( at least )

I also heard that there was a TGV project in South Corea ( IIRC between Pusan and Seoul ) and China is interested...

For the Americas :
- Brasil seems to be interested for a line between Rio and Sao Paulo.
- California with Sacramento to San Diego
- I heard a few years ago that Texas was interested too, though I don't remember for where.

They will eventually go over the maglev speed record, but they are taking their time.
The thing is that the maglev record was made with a specific, experimental train specially built for that record, while the TGV one was done with a done with a standard train with some light modifications. ( that is in a few weeks we will probably see the train [ in his normal configuration ] in the railway stations )

To fit high speed train in Shadowrun, it's relatively easy ( though making a run on such a train is going to be hellish to plan ), as there's been an oil crisis, and moving around in a car cost a lot. Also, security in the trains, compared to the airports ( where the standard sammy will make all the alarms beep ) is a lot lighter... it might be easier to smuggle weapons and concealed ( illegal ) chrome that way.

The thing to consider is price and necessity of maintenance, especially in shadowrun, where no one could consider transportation as a public service (and even today in france they forgetting that it used to be a public service ...)
Anyway, 1 km of TGV track costs 1 million euros ...
Add the maintenance cost that would be maybe a team of 2 engeneers and 20 handworkers for 40 km of track. (i'm not sure of my numbers but its about that scale)
On a side not, the TGV actualy produces more energy than it will use.
Wierd uh ?
The tracks need to be kept in perfect state for the TGV to travel, to avoid risks of accidents but also to limit the adherence on the track. So once it's at full speed, the engines will stop and there is a kind of dynamo system that will produce energy.
The SNCF (train compagny) actualy sell energy to EDF (the electricity compagny)

Sorry for the double post, but just had a story idea for SR4 :
The UCAS has launched a new project for Super high speed train line between Seatle and New York. The train should go at 1300 km (or any speed) and would create a permanent line between the west and east cost (and would break a bit more Seatle's isolation)
Like in the Far West times, the government has promised concession on the line for the first compagny to make the junction ...
Shadowrunners will have tons of opportunities of works ...

There is if my memory is correct a campaign for Deadlands involving the train rush.
Since like in SR there are some NANs too, the problematic was a bit the same.
In a given NAN state, the tribes wont all have the same views. Runners could be hired to make a particular tribe accept that the train pass through their lands.
A tribe could hire runners so that the line will pass through their land and not their rival tribe ...
This kind of setting is nice, since there are really a lot of job opportunities, and that they would be all linked together (Imagine corp XX hires the runner to have tribe A accept the train. Next tribe B hires the runners so that corp XX chooses them to have the train pass. Corp YY hires the runners so that tribe B rejects corp XX and sign with corp YY etc ...)
Well you'll all get the point : there are lots of jobs, and very twisted plots possible

I have a little bit of knowledge (although I don't remember the hard numbers anymore) about the proposed Texas line.

The ultimate problem--beyond cutting through hundreds of farms, dealing with massive right-of-way issues that roads got around by following property lines and being a little more curvy, worrying about FOD (eg, critters) on the tracks (at that speed, a loose cow will ruin your whole day), the showstopper was that it just wouldn't pay for itself.

Without some sort of massive taxpayer capitalization, even assuming that it charged almost as much as it cost at the time to fly Southwest from Dallas to Houston, and was completely full every run, it couldn't pay for the interest on the loan required to build it.

So, it kinda died.

In SR, I still don't know that intercity rail (beyond nearby metros, where you could consider it an extension of the local subway) would be much more popular. Besides, there's a heck of a lot more value in freight than in people. Think of it this way... every fright car on the tracks is one (or more) fewer semis on the road. And while there's often a shortage of people going from point A to point B, with today's rail management systems (much less the massive matrix-based SR ones) they can operate a lot more efficiently with cargo.

...Understood, this is why the private roads got out of the passenger business in the first place. However, as fuel costs increase, air travel will not be nearly profitable except on the long to intercontinental level. Look at how many US airlines are in or have just emerged from bankruptcy, several of them are major players like United, Continental (which has been through chapter 11 twice), Northwest, and Delta (which before deregulation had never posted a loss ). I would be surprised if in 5 years (RL time) we are not down to two or three major carriers ("Ameriflot", Delta, United) all of which are still flying deep in the red and clamouring for more federal bailout money.

In Europe the passenger rail systems have been state run for some time, not as a profit generating venture, but as a basic public service. I am looking at this model for the future. Already there are bi- and multi-state commissions (such as Oregon-Washington & Wisconsin-Illinois) which manage much of the corridor service in those markets. Part of the reason why metropolitan transit systems went public in the 1970s was because the private operators had to keep jacking up the fares and cutting services to maintain even the slimmest of profit margins. Some necessary services just do not lend themselves to for-profit ventures. Look how expensive it is to send a letter FedEx, DHL or UPS as opposed to the USPS.

Yes it means a shift in viewpoint that maybe deregulation and privatisation is not the be all and end all for everything. It will no doubt take a huge shock (like maybe an economic collapse) to force us to see that.

Regarding the security of the lines :
With the TGV, consider that a train line is like 50 meters wide : there is a huge trench with the 2 tracks, and huge fences on both sides (usually barb wired).
Going on a TGV line is quite a serious legal offense (could lead you directly to jail) and even the most simple breach in the line would be fixed in less than a couple hours.

Regarding economical factors :
Like i said previously, it costs 1 milion euros (that's like 1.2 or 1.3 milion dollards) to make 1 km of TGV track, plus heavy maintenance fees.
The trains and tracks are state property, but the tracks and the trains do not belong to the same compagny (the state wants to sell the trains, but continue to own the tracks).
Anyway, the TGVs bring much benefits to its compagny (and actualy they pay for all the small lines that are totaly deficitary).

For less than a thousand kilometers, train will be faster than plane : you dont have check up before the departure you can just come 5 mins before; the train station will usually be in downtown, so you dont have an hour travel to the airport (count that twice for when you arrive).
Regarding fret, someone said it was the way to go for money, well in france its what costs the compagny money (and the state run compagny sold all its assets regarding fret to private compagnies).

Since i suck in american geography, could someone tell us how many kilometers there are between Washington and Seatle ? and how much time it takes in plane ? (with and without check up, baggage retrival and cab from downtown to airport in both cities.)
We would know this way if it would be interesting to use or not a subsonic train (going at around 900-1000 kmph)

...The distance between Seattle and Washington DC is 3738.5 km

It takes about 4.5 hours min nonstop by sub-mach jet +/- adjusting for jetstream and upper atmosphere wind conditions. That is take off to touchdown. The added time for airport/city centre transit can vary widely and is dependent on a number of factors including local traffic, airport usage, time of day, etc) In the US it is generally advised to be at the airport 1.5 to 2 hours in advance of flight departure. I would add at least a minimum of 3.5 hours to the elapsed flight time making it a total of 8 hrs from city centre to city centre.

If there are over-crowding issues at the destination airport, that can add another 30 min to 1 hour to the elapsed flight time for being placed in a holding pattern or waiting on the ground for a gate to taxi to.

Technicaly, this could mean that a very high speed train, like one we could imagine for SR, would be really interesting to use for buisness trips between Washington and Seatle.
Anyway, i dont have the time to work on a train rush campaign, but i realy think it could be fun, and have a "Western" kind of feeling (and imagine the trids that could be done like neo Westerns : "the Seven Shadowrunners", "for a fistfull of Nuyens", "The good, the bad, the Awaken" ...)

The airlines aren't profitable on short hops, like less than 300 miles. It would make sense for fairly rapid trains, not necessarily the 300 MPH plus ones, to handle the short hop passengers, with the option for long distance travel, and the airlines to handle the longer distances.

The problem with US passenger rail is that it was taken over from the rail road companies, but that's it. The government got very little rail for passenger only traffic and no preferential scheduling for passenger trains, which is most annoying. Also annoying is that Amtrak has to use freight rails. That can mean one heck of a rough ride at even moderate speeds. There were places where the train couldn't have been doing more than 50 MPH and I was nearly thrown out of the berth from the rough ride. On the other hand, there are some very smooth sections, unfortunately, those were also right along the Gulf Coast and it is looking like they might never be reopened to Amtrak again.

The right of way issue is a real problem. In the 1970's to 1990's, the railroads sold off a lot of rail and the rights to the land. It is proving nearly impossible to buy it back, and the costs have gone way up due to increase in the cost of the land. So, now that rail is in heavy demand, and a demand that will grow as fuel costs rise, they are having trouble expanding rail milage. Adding dedicated passenger rails will make that all the tougher. It could be done, but the airlines have a very strong lobby and the pols earn more votes with road construction projects than rail projects.

...actually the airline lobby is concerned primarily with bare bones survival now as the few remaining majors are in serious financial straits. The thing is they brought much of it upon themselves during the "expansionistic free for all" and "fare wars" that followed deregulation.