On track for high speed

[M II A II R II K]

On track for high speed


WILLIAM ILLSEY ATKINSON

Read More: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/science/on-track-for-high-speed/article153935/

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- Expresses such as France's train à grand vitesse and Japan's Shinkansen (Bullet Train) routinely link major centres in a few hours, hitting speeds of 300 kilometres an hour or more. Taking everything into account -- driving to an airport, parking, checking in, shuffling through security and taking surface transport to your downtown destination -- you can't go much faster by plane over intermediate distances. So where is Canada's high-speed train? It's coming, say several of the country's top rail experts, and new technology from British Columbia is hastening its arrival.

- A lot of the drawbacks that most people list under high-speed (HS) trains come down to simple friction. As a rule, the rail lines need to be straighter than Canada's existing mixed-use links, which carry both passengers and freight. But every rail line has curves at some point, and curves create problems. First, there's the noise. As a high-speed train negotiates a turn, its tortured squeal of metal wheels on metal rails annoys passengers and infuriates nearby residents. Second, there's the expense of testing, repairing and replacing metal parts whose life is shortened by the friction that generated the noise.

The Canadian solution? Lubricate the rails.

That may seem simple, but it's not. The coefficient of friction, or resistance to the relative motion of two surfaces in contact, can't be the same at all points of the wheel-rail interface. The outside circumference of the train's wheels must have a certain CoF where it meets the top of the rail. Too much friction, and noise and wear are unacceptable. Too little friction, and locomotives won't grip properly during acceleration; nor will cars brake as efficiently.

Unlike car and truck wheels, train wheels have a track interface other than their rim. This occurs at the flanges, the steel wheel projections that overhang the rails and keep the train on track. The flanges are not used in braking or acceleration, only to stabilize the car atop the rail; and here, a much lower CoF is called for. Too much friction where flange meets rail results in noise, wear and side-to-side forces that subject passengers to uncomfortable pressure and vibration. Proper flange lubrication minimizes shake, rattle and roll on high-speed trains.

"Controlling friction is particularly important on high-speed trains," says Don Eadie, vice-president of technology for Kelsan Technologies of North Vancouver. "That's why we've developed methods to control high-speed friction."

On the flange interface, Dr. Eadie says, Kelsan technology uses solid dry-stick lubricants mounted onboard a train's locomotives and cars. These stick lubricants are applied continuously to the flanges of the wheels. As the train moves along, the lubricants are transferred to the "gauge face" of the rail, the surface that the flange contacts. Strictly speaking, this involves not rolling friction but a form of sliding friction, which the lubricants greatly reduce. The Kelsan lubricants, termed LCF for low coefficient of friction, constitute a kind of lip gloss for flanges.

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[Second_in_pie]

Hmm so instead of actually building the infrastructure we need, just get a cheap, poor quality bandaid solution. Yep, definitely sounds like the Canadian solution.

 

[Hipster Duck]

Why do you think this is a "poor quality" solution? It seems like a really cheap, easy solution that can be implemented with very little pain and some immediate gain.

This reminds me of all the Republicans who dissed Obama's idea during the 2008 election, when he reminded Americans that keeping their car tires properly inflated would save them 15% in fuel costs every year. You would think that a party that is supposedly Libertarian would be all for a solution that doesn't involve any government interference or taxpayer money and where private citizens take repsonsibility for their own lives.

 

[reaperexpress]

I don't think the coefficient of friction is really a problem on our railways. We've had trains capable running in excess of 200km/h. The reason we don't run them that fast now is because our signaling doesn't meet regulations for high speed and our tracks suck.

The main thing restricting speed on our railways is passenger comfort. The trains are quite capable of going much faster than they do, but then passengers would be bouncing around and would be thrown off to the side when going around corners. Quite frankly, it amazes me that VIA goes as fast as it does (160km/h) given the track quality.

If we want to run faster trains then we need to upgrade the signals and make the tracks less bumpy.

That said, lubrication could be useful on the Yonge-University-Spadina line, if it can reduce the noise trains make while going around the sharp corners.

 

[Second_in_pie]

Why do you think this is a "poor quality" solution? It seems like a really cheap, easy solution that can be implemented with very little pain and some immediate gain.

This reminds me of all the Republicans who dissed Obama's idea during the 2008 election, when he reminded Americans that keeping their car tires properly inflated would save them 15% in fuel costs every year. You would think that a party that is supposedly Libertarian would be all for a solution that doesn't involve any government interference or taxpayer money and where private citizens take repsonsibility for their own lives.

But this is being used as a "why build important and much needed HSR infrastructure when you can grease up the tracks instead?" Obama said that people should keep their tires inflated, but he didn't say that if they did that then he wouldn't work as hard to tackle global warming or rising fuel costs.

Sure this is a neat idea (though I'm cringing at how the tracks would look after just a few weeks of this,) but it doesn't replace what's actually needed. What's needed is real HSR infrastructure: straight, welded, electrified, passenger only tracks and high speed trains to run on them. The government does this, and they say, "Look! You have your HSR now, so we can ignore your needs for another 20 years and see how you're feeling then."

 

[wyliepoon]

There already is HSR technology that eliminates friction. It's called Maglev. Only problem with it is that it's too expensive.

If HSR gets built in Canada (such as on the Quebec-Windsor corridor), I'd imagine that negotiating curves would be the least of our problems. I'd imagine that in many countries that currently have HSR, HSR routes have to negotiate a greater variety of terrain (such as mountains in Japan) as well as more densely populated areas that are laid out more haphazardly than here in North America. If we use suburban HSR stations at major cities instead of downtown stations, we can build HSR routes virtually in a straight line between cities.

 

[Second_in_pie]

^^ Doesn't eliminate air friction though, which is by far the biggest factor against any trains. What maglev allows is high "traction" while maintaining low friction with the riding surface. The magnets allow the train to accelerate quickly as though the entire "wheel" itself was being pushed, but also so that when it reaches it's desired speed it can have virtually zero friction with the rail by maintaining electromagnet pulses with the speed of the train. At those speeds, whether it be magnets, rails, or even tires, air is by far the biggest source of friction.

 

[M II A II R II K]

It largely depends on how much new track would have to be laid to accommodate the high speed trains to not have to share the tracks or get caught up in other trains delays. Then Maglev could be the way to go, but then it wouldn't have the flexibility to share tracks or have other trains use the high speed tracks if need be.

 

[Justin10000]

Even if you had to build a new rail network, it would still be cheaper than Maglev. Maglev is still a very expensive technology.

 

[The Mad Navigator]

Even if you had to build a new rail network, it would still be cheaper than Maglev. Maglev is still a very expensive technology.

Maglev is completely unrealistic here, so dreaming of it ever happening between Toronto and Montreal is utterly pointless. Maybe in 500 years (when rail technology is potentially an obsolete mode).

 

[Mapleson]

Our railroad network was built and designed primarily for freight traffic, and we've just squeezed in some passenger rail along the way. Maglev is great for independent passenger rail service, but we're too cheap/weak willed to build even a regular passenger rail service.

On friction, material science has made most of it's progress in the last 60-70 years. Think of your synthetic engine oil Vtech Supreme today to regular oil. Finding a lubricant that balances friction well and holds up over time and is inexpensive to manufacture isn't some "cheap" or "easy" solution. It takes years/decades of research and thousands/millions of dollars. Or do you think material innovation is to be frowned upon compared to technological innovation?

 

[dsantesteban]

Oiling our rails is the most incredibly stupid thing I've ever heard. For the same long-term cost, Via can easily build its own dedicated tracks between Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, London, Kingston, Guelph, and Windsor. Maybe integrate the express to PEarson with that. If you need local service, do the Amtrak thing and run some buses to wherever your nearest station is. The reason why we don't run fast service is because the tracks are shared with freight, so between the reduced (aka newly inexistant) cost of paying to use CPR and CNR tracks, the much faster service (can charge slightly more), and the savings in fuel from not having to stop every 20-30 minutes, it'll easy pay off in some 10-15 years. Don't even worry about a new fleet, just run the LRCs at top speed for now.

 

[reaperexpress]

The reason why we don't run fast service is because the tracks are shared with freight, so between the reduced (aka newly inexistant) cost of paying to use CPR and CNR tracks, the much faster service (can charge slightly more), and the savings in fuel from not having to stop every 20-30 minutes, it'll easy pay off in some 10-15 years.

Actually the main cost savings due to high speed rail are due to the increase in ridership. WAY more people will take it if it's faster than the plane. The income from fares will go through the roof, yet the cost from running longer trains will only be marginal.

Then there's the little catch of trying to get the government to invest such a large amount of money to build it. We need to build it in a way that they can simply build small increments at a time.

Start by building a high-speed line (300km/h) between Oshawa and Kingston. That is currently the worst section of track, in terms of sharp curves. The rest of the tracks are straight enough that we can simply straighten them out some more and add a pair of passenger-only high speed tracks adjacent to the freight tracks. That way we save the trouble of getting a new corridor.

If the government wants to spend big money on rail travel, they can extend the high speed tracks between Oshawa and Kingston. If they only want to spend a smaller amount of money, they can straighten out the CN tracks between Kingston and Ottawa, Ottawa and Montreal, and Kingston and Montreal.

In stead of triple tracking the Kingston Subdivision, we could have gotten started on a high-speed line from Oshawa to Belleville.

Don't even worry about a new fleet, just run the LRCs at top speed for now.

Sorry, but they were retired about ten years ago. The P42DCs have a top speed of only 110mph.

 

[Haljackey]

If HSR is to be built in Canada, it has to be true HSR, not some cheap workaround like they're doing in the US (except for California).

HSR needs to run on separate tracks if it is to be true HSR, that's the only way for it to achieve speeds of 300-350 km/h. See this image for an example:

Curves need to be minimal and as flexible as possible. If lubricating them helps as well, do that too.

 

[dsantesteban]

The income from fares will go through the roof, yet the cost from running longer trains will only be marginal

Don't run longer trains, genius. I'd rather have more frequent trains. Right now, when I travel to Detroit by Via Rail, I have two reasonable choices for arrival times. And on the way back, I only have one.

That way we save the trouble of getting a new corridor

The existing corridor is OK for the most part. There are a few curves that aren't too good between Clarington and Prince Edward County, but we can just use bridges and tunnels to make the curves more gradual. I think the real issue is just the fact that Via Rail is too local. I've been on trains that go 160, but they're stopping way too often. Get rid of local service and run buses through all those stupid towns in the middle of nowhere. Then you'll have true HSR.

Sorry, but they were retired about ten years ago. The P42DCs have a top speed of only 110mph.

Because that's such a minimal increase compared to what we have now. Most people would die for a service that can get you to Ottawa in 3 hours.