Evolution of High Speed Rail
science and tech
"Over the years trains have been an essential part of passenger and cargo transportation. Here's a look back of the evllution of high speed rail and its future"
Ever since the industrial revolution begins in the 19th century, the refinement of transportation has been given a major focus. Nowadays In busy cities governments also trying to advocate metro trains due to the fact it could carry a lot of passengers in one go as well as it also helps to reduce the traffic on roads. In the busy lifestyle people are having in the 21st-century speed plays a major role. To cope with that trains has been improved over the years to provide much faster transportation on land than automobiles.
If we take a look back to see the history of high-speed trains first milestone would be the Rocket locomotive created by Goerge Stephenson in 1829. It had a top speed of 50 km/h. It was an enormous achievement in that era.
Rocket Locomotive
After that speed of the train seems to rapidly increase with the introduction of diesel-powered locomotives pulling off 130 kmph by 1854.
In 1903 marked another special breakthrough of high-speed rail when a test ride created by Siemens and AEG reached a top speed of 210.2kmph a world record that would stand for 50 more years. It was achieved by a rail car which used a rotary current system. This process never came into regular railroad operation since the three-phase powerlines required for this mechanism is practically non-viable and expensive in longer railroads.
Experimental three phase railcar of Siemens and AEG
After that experimental run governments and the private sector recognized the significance of researching electric trains in order to accomplish faster transportation. European countries like France, Germany, and Italy invested heavily in developing electric trains. But in 1964 Japan came out on top by establishing the renowned Shinkansen Rail Line of 515 km which clinched an operating speed of 210 kmph (later increased). This was an essential addition to the growing economy of Japan.
The success of the Japanese Shinkansen was a big blow to European supremacy. Especially for a country like France who had invested a big amount of money in research on electric rail. They strengthen their effort and as a result of that TGV was born. TGV went on to secure a maximum speed of 260kmph on its first run from Paris to Lyons in 1981. Later TGV went on to achieve many more top speed records which held for a long time in the record books. This is considered as the birth of European High-Speed Rail (HSR). Unlike Japanese Shinkansen, European HSR was fully compatible with the existing railways. Therefore governments and the private sector invested to broaden this HSR network all around Europe.
TGV
After a very lucrative attempt of HSR in European countries like Italy, Germany, the UK, Belgium, and the Netherlands, Asian regions such as China, South Korea, and Taiwan were also keen on having an HSR in their countries. In the 2000s those countries were able to establish an HSR of their own making high-speed transportation more accessible to people around the world.
Despite all the improvements and advancements achieved by engineers, traditional rail lines and electric-powered trains will always have a limitation in speed due to obvious safety concerns. Therefore people like Elon Musk has invested in developing concepts like the hyperloop to attain much faster transportation even between continents. It is a concept of building reduced air pressure tubes to decrease the drag and having passengers on pods that uses air skies rather than wheels and magnetic levitation as the power source to bring down friction. This is said to achieve a speed above 750 mph (1200 kmph). Although this concept requires a big toll on infrastructure development, this is considered as the future of HSR since it would be powered with clean energy and it could go beyond the speed of any other ground transport can come by.
hyperloop
The next 20 to 30 years going to be a big leap in human transportation evolution since this period would open up new technologies and improvements in high-speed transportation
Contributed by: Gayan Prasad
