Trains

April 06, 2007

High speed trains: planes on wheels

Popular_mechanics_hogesnelheidstrei From an ecological point of view, the strategy to move travellers from airplanes to high speed trains just doesn't make sense.

Trains are considered to be much more environmentally friendly than aircrafts. Unfortunately, they lose their ecological advantage when speed goes up. And train companies seem to be obsessed by speed.

Last week, the French high speed train (TGV) officially broke the 515 km/h speed record of 1990. An adapted high speed train of Alstom reached a speed of more than 574 kilometres an hour on the line Paris - Strasbourg (the video is on the internet).

It used 19,600 kilowatts of electricity, this is equivalent to the energy consumption of a large office building. In a statement to the press, president Chirac praised the train as "friendly for the environment". (Illustration : Popular Mechanics cover gallery)

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Posted in Energy consumption, Speed, Trains, Transport |

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