JAPAN

Formula on the track

Generally, the railway transport is one of the safest means of transportation and even the high-speed trains are pretty safe. For fast driving for long distances you must build motorways and also for high-speed trains you must build special tracks from certain speed. These days such tracks are generally built for the speed of 300 km/h. As for lower speeds (up to 230 km/h) the existing tracks can be adjusted under certain conditions.

As a high-speed train we can call a train, which goes at the speed of 250km/h and more at least for a part of its journey. In Europe three systems of high-speed trains have been developed: French TGV, German ICE, and Italian PENDOLINO, which is now called EurostarItalia. The last one is more or less limited for the development in Italy and it has almost no foreign ambitions except several lines to Switzerland and one to Lyon, France. Only several "pilot" lines are planned to Slovenia or further to Croatia, respectively. Germans have already fully covered their territory with these trains and they continue to build more tracks. From Germany, the high-speed trains also go to Vienna, Switzerland and recently ICE track to Amsterdam has been opened. There have also been plans for building the line to Poland, but here the construction will require a lot of years and high investments. French trains operate in the territory of Benelux, United Kingdom and Switzerland. Also the Spanish project called AVE, which currently only enables the transport from Madrid to Sevilla, can be regarded as a TGV system. The Madrid-Barcelona track is under construction.

The building of the high-speed tracks (VRT) is so expensive that it has to be justified properly. It must connect areas with a lot of inhabitants (at least one million), in a strong economy, which would be able to cover at least part of the track building costs from its budget. Thus it is natural, that in Europe, France and Germany are the biggest pioneers in building the high-speed railways, while Japan is the leader of other continents. As for the United States, low price of gas has eliminated the competition of railway transportation. However, it has started to change.

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Magnetic Levitation

These two words together created the term Maglev, which is the name for the train on the magnetic cushion. This train moves on the tract by means of the pull of electromagnets. Thus, this system is significantly different from the classical railway and enables to attain higher velocities. In the future such track (named Chuo Shinkansen) should be built from Tokio through Nagoya to Osaka. A 18 kilometre long testing section Tsuru - Otsuki has already been completed and the world record of this system was reached here - when the testing train MLX01 went at 552 km/h on April 14 1999. A testing centre with the experimental unit is also in Germany, near Lathen close to the border with the Netherlands. However, the planned Hamburk - Berlin route has not been built for financial reasons. Many projects are also planned in China.

Japan - the pioneer of high-speed railways

Japan Railways started to operate the regular traffic of high-speed trains as the first in 1964 on the line from Toko to Osaka, which was 515,4 km long. At that time the highest speed there was 210 km/h. From the outset, the lines in Japan go under the name of Shinkansen, which can be translated as "new direct (backbone) line". However, this name has also been used for the high-speed trains themselves since than. They have become very popular worldwide and have become not only the symbol of fast express trains but also the symbol of the successful development of the whole economy of Japan. On these tracks the same wheel track as in most European countries is used, i.e.1435 mm although ordinary railways in Japan are narrower - just 1067 mm. Currently, there are five high speed railways there, which are operated by three various companies.

The fascinating Japanese sense of preciseness is evidenced by the creation of the timetables with 15 seconds punctuality or the average delay on the track Tokaido, which was 24 seconds in 1999.On Tokaido the traffic is the heaviest. Minimum interval between trains is up to 3 minutes, 30 seconds here with the maximum velocity of 270 km/h. On Sanyo track the intervals between trains can be 3 minutes, 45 seconds, however at the speed of 300 km/h. In Japan, many types of high-speed trains have already been developed. The most famous is the so-called 0 (zero) series recognizable by its blue-white paint and the round "nose". From 1963 to 1986 incredible 536 units of these nine wagons trains have been manufactured. By now another 338 units of various lengths (6 to 16 wagons) and shapes have been manufactured. They are identified simply as series 100 to 500, 700 and E 1 to E 4. The current record of Japanese trains - 443 km/h - was reached on July 27,1996 by the adapted train of 300 series. Since March 1997 the trains of 500 series on the Nozomi lines have held the world record as for the average speed between two stations (Hiroshima - Kokura 261,8 km/h) as well as between the starting and target stations (Osaka - Hakata 242,5 km/h).

the material has bee prepared by the article of Petr Kadeřávek (ABC magazine, January 18, 2002)

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