Land speed record for rail vehicles
List of the fastest rail-bound vehicles.
- 3.1 rocket sled
- 4.1 Selected average speeds
- 4.2 maximum Speed
Problem of definition
Determination of the fastest rail vehicle in the world varies according to the criteria that are applied here.
Firstly, there are different rail systems like the classic wheel-rail system, the magnetic rail system or about the hovercraft technology. In addition, with unmanned vehicles very high acceleration and top speeds were reached. Also drive forms or types of trains due to different technical parameters affect the speed factor.
To date, there is neither a standard method still rules that specify these parameters to determine world records - unlike, say, cars by the FIA for airplanes by the FAI, the UIC has not adopted provisions in this direction. Thus, for the world records listed here vary among other train length, train weight, the route inclinations, or the measurement path length. Similarly, the measurement instruments used differs considerably. On top of that there are a number of speed records for the 19th century and early 20th century, no official or only incomplete documentation.
Wheel-rail system
A speed record was set by the first truly efficient use locomotive, the Rocket by George Stephenson in 1830 with 48 km / h. 1890, reached a French Crampton 144 km / h
The 200-km/h-Marke was first exceeded on October 7, 1903 at driving on the military railway Marie Felde - Zossen Jiiterbog with an electrically operated motor coach of AEG and Siemens & Halske, who at October 27, 1903 finally 210 3 km / h reached. Faster than 200 km / h are also driven steam locomotives: On May 11, 1936, the express locomotive reached 05 002 on the Berlin- Hamburg Railway 200.4 km / h, a record that only two years later by the British LNER Class A4 No. 4468 Mallard was broken with 202.6 km / h. But already on 21 June 1931, the Rail Zeppelin by Franz Kruckenberg had reached 230.2 km / h, a record that held 24 years.
On March 28, 1955 for the first time broke through the French locomotive CC 7107 326 km / h and a day later the BB 9004 331 km / h 300-km/h-Marke; a record which ran 26 years. He was broken by the TGV PSE 16 on the Paris -Lyon 380 km / h reached on 26 February 1981.
The 400-km/h-Marke was first exceeded on 1 May 1988 on the high-speed line Hannover- Würzburg with 406.9 km / h with the ICE -V. On 18 May 1990, the French TGV set a new record of 515.3 km / h. Even higher speeds failed due to the capacity of the overhead line. After this mark has been surpassed in several test runs in the spring of 2007, reached on 3 April 2007 at the official record attempt of specially prepared TGV V150 a top speed of 574.79 km / h This record was achieved on a specially prepared section of the new LGV Est européenne; see world record trip of 3 April 2007.
Electric
Locomotives and railcars
Railcar trains with distributed power
Multiple units with power heads
Multiple units with dual power ( power heads in addition to distributed power )
In addition, presented the TGV Réseau unit 531 on May 26, 2001, the so-called Opération Sardine a long-distance world record, which, however, has no more stock. Because in China reached in 2009 after the opening of the high-speed railway Wuhan - Guangzhou a polyline on the 1068 km long route at an average speed of 341 km / h
Combustion piston engine
Gas turbine -electric
Steam
Monorail systems
In addition to the classic wheel-rail system with two different rails monorail systems have been developed which are based on magnetic levitation technology or hovercraft technologies. These technologies due to lower friction between infrastructure and vehicle significantly higher speeds.
Rocket sled
Regular trains
Selected average speeds
Maximum speed
Current record
On 3 April 2007, the modified TGV POS unit 4402 a new world record. On a specially developed piece of the new LGV Est européenne (Paris- Strasbourg ) of the test train reached a speed of 574.79 km / h, beating the previous official world record of 515.3 km / h from the year 1990. The top speed was in reached near the village of Passavant -en- Argonne, approximately at kilometer 191 of the new line. The world record attempt was carried out in an east-west direction. In an extensive series of tests prior to the official world record ride the train had already repeatedly exceeded the old record.
The V150 -called train ( 150 meters per second, which corresponds to a speed of 540 km / h) consisted of two power cars of the POS series and two end and a means carriage of a TGV Duplex. The Jacob bogies on the middle car were provided with the drive system of the AGV so that the test train developed a total output of 19.6 MW. Compared to a standard move three of the four pantographs were dismantled and modified the car transitions. The contact wire voltage was increased from 25 kV to 31 kV. In addition, the wheels had a diameter of 1092 millimeters compared with the usual wheels with a size of 920 millimeters.
The series of experiments at very high speeds was a joint project of the SNCF, the rail infrastructure authority RFF and Alstom Group.