• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

360 Mph

Status
Not open for further replies.

Lanc688

Member
Joined
20 May 2012
Messages
227
Location
Lincolnshire
Channel 5 - 8:00 pm

France's next gen TGV being developed to travel at 360 mph !

Worth a watch heh !.......Good reactions required apparently

Lanc
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

ainsworth74

Forum Staff
Staff Member
Global Moderator
Joined
16 Nov 2009
Messages
27,533
Location
Redcar
I was thinking that and if so this is also rather old news now!
 

dalmahoyhill

Member
Joined
7 Jan 2011
Messages
93
Location
Scotland
also its quite err a channel 5 documentary. IE appeals to the lowest common denominator and trys to jazz it up with dramatic music and nail biting cliff hangers like: will the pantograph rise?

Apprantly many ideas like zig zag catenary, grapite strips on pantographs, sound baffles on tunnels are all tgv inventions
 

ng1980

Member
Joined
4 Nov 2011
Messages
81
Channel 5 - 8:00 pm

France's next gen TGV being developed to travel at 360 mph !

Worth a watch heh !.......Good reactions required apparently

Lanc

What's the title, please? I'd like to download it, if possible.

Thank you.
 

185

Established Member
Joined
29 Aug 2010
Messages
4,969
Lying French....

It was 357.5mph.

Ne pas trop rapide, eh?
 

LouJ

Member
Joined
3 Dec 2008
Messages
303
I dont think the record was broken recently - the film dates from 2007 (subject to someone correcting me!).
 

Flying Snail

Established Member
Joined
12 Dec 2006
Messages
1,625
also its quite err a channel 5 documentary. IE appeals to the lowest common denominator and trys to jazz it up with dramatic music and nail biting cliff hangers like: will the pantograph rise?

It wasn't a Channel 5 programme, National Geographic UK comissioned that series. I had assumed it was a US programme as a great deal of US documentaries are to a similar (low) standard.
 

LouJ

Member
Joined
3 Dec 2008
Messages
303
Here's the record breaking set featured in the Channel 5 programme. It is seen at Zurich Hbf in January 2012 looking a bit work stained!
 

Attachments

  • DSC_4982.jpg
    DSC_4982.jpg
    124.1 KB · Views: 41

DaveNewcastle

Established Member
Joined
21 Dec 2007
Messages
7,387
Location
Newcastle (unless I'm out)
It's not actually running at that speed in service.
Certainly not!
There were quite a number of special arrangements put in place to achieve that record breaking run. Perhap you can help me to remember some of them?
I recall that :
The line voltage was increased significantly,
The wheel diamater was increased, significantly
The track was specially prepared,
The train ran 'wrong road' to minimise the radius of the tightest curves,
The line was otherwise closed to traffic,
There were no members of the public on board.
 

TGV

Member
Joined
25 Nov 2005
Messages
734
Location
320km/h Voie Libre
Certainly not!
There were quite a number of special arrangements put in place to achieve that record breaking run. Perhap you can help me to remember some of them?
I recall that :
The line voltage was increased significantly,
The wheel diamater was increased, significantly
The track was specially prepared,
The train ran 'wrong road' to minimise the radius of the tightest curves,
The line was otherwise closed to traffic,
There were no members of the public on board.

The other obvious ones were:
- AGV motors fitted to the centre bogies, but increased in power from their standard 750kW to 1000kW. Fed from a transformer mounted underneath a modified duplex R4.
- Regular motors on power cars were tweaked from 1250kW each to 1950kW each
- Pantograph air motor and aerofoils modified.
- Modified front spoiler fitted to both power cars.
- Leading power car pantograph well was covered over for aero reasons
- Wheelsets were slightly larger in diameter but also modifed beyond just that - they had weight relief designed into them to reduce the rotating mass.
- Overheads were pumped up from 25kV nominal to 29.5kV nominal (31kV max). Tension was upped by 6 or 7 kN too.
- Banks of computers fitted for engineers to monitor just about every vital system. Extra sensors and wiring.

So, no. Not a standard set, but an impressive piece of engineering nevertheless.
 

DaveNewcastle

Established Member
Joined
21 Dec 2007
Messages
7,387
Location
Newcastle (unless I'm out)
Thanks for that!

Yes, I agree that it was a very impressive achievement. Its unrepeatability in normal service does nothing to undermine that.

And, Perhaps another factor was the short train length.
 

LE Greys

Established Member
Joined
6 Mar 2010
Messages
5,389
Location
Hitchin
I watched it, and it was vaguely interesting, although there were some oddities, like the remarkably American-looking non-streamlined steam engine, surely an A1 would have been more appropriate. They also brought up articulation just after a whole section about the A4s, which ran with articulated coaches. And they missed a chance to explain about regenerative brakes.

The other obvious ones were:
- AGV motors fitted to the centre bogies, but increased in power from their standard 750kW to 1000kW. Fed from a transformer mounted underneath a modified duplex R4.
- Regular motors on power cars were tweaked from 1250kW each to 1950kW each
- Pantograph air motor and aerofoils modified.
- Modified front spoiler fitted to both power cars.
- Leading power car pantograph well was covered over for aero reasons
- Wheelsets were slightly larger in diameter but also modifed beyond just that - they had weight relief designed into them to reduce the rotating mass.
- Overheads were pumped up from 25kV nominal to 29.5kV nominal (31kV max). Tension was upped by 6 or 7 kN too.
- Banks of computers fitted for engineers to monitor just about every vital system. Extra sensors and wiring.

So, no. Not a standard set, but an impressive piece of engineering nevertheless.

It certainly is!

The placement of the AGV motors looked a bit strange. Just out of curiosity, are they frame-mounted on the bogies? If so, I presume that's to reduce un-sprung mass, but how exactly does the power get to the axle?
 

TGV

Member
Joined
25 Nov 2005
Messages
734
Location
320km/h Voie Libre
AGV motors are bogie mounted and have a built in final-drive unit that is part of the axle. TGV motors are body mounted and have a reductor gearbox (which is fixed to the motor), then a cardan shaft which is linked to the axle mounted final drive.

TGV motors (synchronous or asynchronous) are much larger and heavier than AGV motors and are too heavy to be bogie mounted. The AGV (being a multiple unit) can have smaller motors as there are more of them per train, but also, it uses permanent magnet motors which are smaller and lighter. Light enough to be mounted directly on the bogie, which precludes the need for another gearbox unit and the cardan shaft - all of which reduces the bogies mass.
 

LE Greys

Established Member
Joined
6 Mar 2010
Messages
5,389
Location
Hitchin
AGV motors are bogie mounted and have a built in final-drive unit that is part of the axle. TGV motors are body mounted and have a reductor gearbox (which is fixed to the motor), then a cardan shaft which is linked to the axle mounted final drive.

TGV motors (synchronous or asynchronous) are much larger and heavier than AGV motors and are too heavy to be bogie mounted. The AGV (being a multiple unit) can have smaller motors as there are more of them per train, but also, it uses permanent magnet motors which are smaller and lighter. Light enough to be mounted directly on the bogie, which precludes the need for another gearbox unit and the cardan shaft - all of which reduces the bogies mass.

Ah-ha, I see. Thanks.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top