Increase Shinkansen’s speed?

Hi, I would like to ask you a question about the Shinkansen. Year after year, new trains are produced and every new generation of Shinkansen is a bit faster than the former one.
However; as you all know, a train cannot reach crazy speeds because of the railways. Some turnings cannot be crossed at more than a certain speed. And there are many other causes (rail damage, train's sound, vibrations...)

So I would like to know if the current Shinkansen railways, already built, in Japan, are designed to be crossed by faster trains than today.
As an example, the Tokaido Shinkansen's fastest train is the N700, at 300 km/h. Can this road be crossed by a faster train in the future?

Another example: in France, TGV high speed lines are currently crossed by trains that reach 300-320 km/h, and are designed to be crossed at a maximum speed of 350 km/h. However current trains never go over 320 km/h.

Do you know if Japan's high speed lines are designed for speeds like that too?

Oh by the way I'm just talking about the railways already built, so I'm not talking about the "Maglev" project ;)

So I would like to know if the current Shinkansen railways, already built, in Japan, are designed to be crossed by faster trains than today.

In short, yes. As you know the major limiting factor to top speed are the rails, and various factors influence the top speed such as turns, tunnels, noise ordinances, and security for example. There is also a safety margin that is higher than the operating speed of the fastest train.

Of course the top speeds are not uniform across companies and depend on the specific lines that we're talking about. The the 50 year old Tokaido Shinkansen for example currently allows trains to run at 270 km/h, but that will likely be increased to 285 km/h in 2015. Not sure what the fastest speeds are that those rails are capable of handling, but there is probably room for further improvements if they becomes economically feasible. Btw, the N700 trains can run much faster than the current limits, and have had high speed test runs over 330 km/h.

The much newer Tohoku Shinkansen on the other hand allows a top speed of 320 km/h and they are looking to increase that to 360 km/h by 2020.

Noise laws and costs I think are the biggest hurdles. Certainly not the technology. Technology allows for much higher speeds.

For example, the Hokuriku Shinkansen extension was built for speeds of "only" 260 km/h, because building tracks for 300 km/h would have been twice as expensive.

It's technologically possible to maximizing speed. However it's impossible to do this due to safety and laws and acts, environmental reasons.

The French TGV world speed record is 574.8 km/h (357.2 mph), achieved on the 3rd of April 2007, on the new LGV East line (Paris to Strasbourg)

HOWEVER it was a "small" TGV with 3 duplex (2 levels) cars, with 2 powered boogies, sandwiched between 2 power cars. It was the first time they used 2 level cars on a speed record.

See Wikipedia photo.
http://en.wikipedia.org wiki/TGV_world_speed_record#mediaviewer/File:TGV_World_Speed_Record_574_km_per_hour.jpg

According to Wikipedia "The catenary voltage was increased to 31 kV from the standard 25 kV.
The mechanical tension in the wires was increased to 40 kN from the standard 25 kN.

The speed of the transverse wave induced in the overhead wire by the train's pantograph was thus increased to 610 km/h, providing a margin of safety beyond the train's maximum speed".

The train was checked on a relatively short distance (140 km). Obviously the train ran for a longer distance. First to increase its speed from a dead stop to a high speed...then after the 140 km stretch, to slow down to zero zero speed. The maximum speed was reached on a 4 km long segment.

They did several runs, spread on a couple of months, all over 500 km/h.

Before each run a regular TGV, with 8 coaches, did a run at 380 km/h..

Obviously the newer TGV can run faster than they do with passengers etc. but like cars, horses and people, running very fast all the times shorten the life span..
on March 29, 1955 a short train made of non-aerodynamic electric locomotive (with a vertical front) and a couple of coaches reached the top speed of 331 km/h (206 mph). BOTH the tracks and the wires were damaged in the process.

In 1854 a UK steam locomotive reached 131.6 km/h (82 mph)..
In 1935 another UK steam locomotive ran at 180.3 km/h (112 mph)
Faster than current Amtrak trains!!

@yllwsmrf:

Before the Tohoku Line introduced the new E5-trains, that can reach 320 km/h in their commercial speed, how fast were running the former Tohoku trains?



I'm always amazed how early Japanese replace their high-speed trains. In France, most of the TGV trains are between 20 and 30 year-old. The national railway company, SNCF, argues that they don't wanna replace it yet because they still work good, but it gets frustrating to always see those old trains on the station platforms.

Hope new trains will come soon, and hope they will be faster too.

And dont forget that when they do order new trains, they manage to order ones that are too wide to run through stations /laugh

300 kph, izquierda. The E5 ran at 300 for a while until the 320 max now. Before that? Probably 270.

@ "."

lol that was not for high-speed train, just regional trains. But quite ridiculous story anyway!


So if we keep two main things in mind:

1) current high-speed lines can be crossed by faster trains, and new trains (like E5) run faster than the old ones

2) BUT a train that runs too fast damages the railways in a short amount of time, and causes problems of security and noise


In other words, 300 km/h can be beaten, but 400 km/h or more is too fast to be done. So will the next high-speed trains stop being faster, after they reach a maximum of, let's say, 350 km/h?

What amazes me is that every new train set (probably except for the 500 series) consumed less electricity than its predecessor. The N700 uses just half the energy that the 0 series did (at the speed of 220 km/h; and still over 30% less at speed 270 km/h). So, from that point of view, it makes sense not to use old train sets over a too long time period. Still, many shinkansen train sets in Japan get used for around 30 years. The 0 series for over 40 years. In recent times, the duration has decreased to 20-30 years.

In other words, 300 km/h can be beaten, but 400 km/h or more is too fast to be done. So will the next high-speed trains stop being faster, after they reach a maximum of, let's say, 350 km/h?

Yes, there will be a certain limit that will be reached after which it is no longer practical or economically possible to increase the speeds further. A similar case would be the airline industry, which reached their practical speed limit a long time ago. Planes can fly faster than they do now, but it isn't practical or economical to do so on most routes.

Don't forget the laws of physics that limit wheeled train speed.
1. The wind resistance increases cube to the speed, thus the energy it takes to overcome 2. The power wheel friction on the rail. The wheel may spin but the traction on the rail is lost.
That is why Maglev train that has no power wheess is being built.

Well they could enclose the tracks in a vacuum, like Elon Musk's Hyperloop idea. Then there's no more wind resistance ;)

@yallwsmrf:

Well, where is the magic of train transportation in the Hyperloop?

people stuck in a capsule without windows, running through a closed tube, fearing for their lives at 1000 km/h...
I personnaly prefer to run an amazing Shinkansen train !

Well, where is the magic of train transportation in the Hyperloop?

The magic is the speed: 1200 km/h top speed, 35 mins LA to SF! It would be revolutionary!

I�fm not an expert here, but if the rail for the Shinkansen is design the same way adolf hitler design the highways, the Shinkansen should be able to move at a high speed and make light turns without having to slow down at all.

One guy I met in Japan told me that, the Shinkansen is design to drive itself, the operator mainly monitor it and make adjustment.

the Shinkansen should be able to move at a high speed and make light turns without having to slow down at all.

That's right, I've read that a tilting mechanism on the newer models makes it possible for them to navigate moderate curves whilst maintaining high speeds.

the Shinkansen is design to drive itself, the operator mainly monitor it and make adjustment.

I drove an N700 shinkansen simulator in Nagoya earlier this year - the impression that I got is that they don't exactly drive themselves. (^_^)

That's not to say the statement is wholly inaccurate, the trains are certainly very advanced and take a lot of the guesswork out of the equation, but I do see the absolute necessity of having a human driver at the helm.

One is allowed to choose the difficulty setting, from beginner (which I selected) all the way to advanced (which involves even minute tasks like controlling the pantographs, etc.). Even at the beginner setting, it was quite a bit of work making sure the train was travelling at the right speed depending on the angle of the track, applying the brakes and reducing power at precisely the right rate to stop where I needed to stop . . . believe me, I emerged with a new respect for train drivers after that experience.

@Diego de Malina:

I don't know how the Shinkansen is driven, but I watched a TV program about the TGV (another high-speed train), and:
the TGV driver has to maintain pressure on a lever all the time, with his hands. If he stops the pressure for more than 5 seconds, an alarm rings. If the alarm rings for more than 5 seconds, the train stops automatically. And the speed is not an automatic program: the driver itself increases or decreases the speed. Indeed, a human being is absolutely necessary.

Although this program was about TGV only, I'm quite sure it's the same thing for the Shinkansen.


Another amazing feature of the Shinkansen is that the pantographs are not on the first/last cars, but in the middle of the train. There are no "power cars" in a Shinkansen, the engines are in the wheels of all the cars.

There are no "engines" in the first or last cars, the "pointy" ones. Those don't have drive trains at all, only the remaining ones.

@John B digs Japan:

it depends. For example, the Shinkansen E6 series has engines in its two power cars. Whereas the N700 has engines everywhere excepted its power cars.