Future of High-Speed Railways

SPECIAL FEATURE – 30 YEARS OF HIGH-SPEED RAILWAYS

Satoru Sone

1. Significance and Merits/ stop between New York and Washing- profitable as long it offered high-quality ton in 2 hours and 30 minutes. How- service. However, constructing Demerits of Shinkansen ever, the plan failed due to technical shinkansens does not pay elsewhere The technical content of the problems. It was later modified to intro- unless the construction costs can be cut, shinkansen was first made public at a duce Swedish technology, and today, and improvement of conventional lines lecture held by the Railway Technical the trains connect New York with is usually more efficient than construct- Research Institute (RTRI) of JNR cel- Washington in about 2 hours and 50 ing a new line. It is regrettable that the ebrating the 50th anniversary of its minutes. great success of the Tokaido foundation in 1957 when Japan still On the other hand, after the Tokaido Shinkansen nipped diversified techni- had yet to recover completely from the Shinkansen, high-speed railways in Ja- cal development in the bud. defeat of World War II. In the same pan meant no more than the Tokaido year, the Odakyu Electric Railway and Shinkansen, making real technical de- 2. Quick Response in RTRI jointly developed the first real su- velopment—developing and applying per express car in Japan establishing a different techniques in different condi- Europe new Japanese record of 145 km/h in a tions—difficult. Concretely speaking, European railways, which had a long test run executed by JNR. almost the same system as the Tokaido experience of higher-speed operation at The successful development of the Shinkansen was used for the Tohoku up to 160 km/h, responded quickly to shinkansen owes most to two great Shinkansen despite their great differ- the shinkansen. France and Germany men: Mr Shinji Sogo, the President of ences in the magnitude and seasonal quickly developed locomotives with JNR, who believed in the RTRI group variation of demand. This promulgated high power and excellent performance and showed strong leadership to pro- their characteristically-poor current as well as new passenger cars with rail mote its development under difficult collection by multiple pantographs for brakes, new signalling systems, etc. circumstances; and Mr Hideo Shima, more than 20 years. In addition, there Services soon started at 200 km/h on the Chief Engineer, who coordinated were almost no speed increases in areas favourable lines. Germany planned to technical affairs under the leadership without shinkansen lines. reach service speeds of 200 km/h as of Mr Sogo. The Tokaido Shinkansen was con- early as 1965, but high-speed operation From the technical viewpoint, the structed on a very favourable route was forcibly suspended due to track de- shinkansen owes its success to selec- with the largest and most stable de- terioration. However, as a result of the tion of a completely different gauge mand in the world. Therefore, despite 1966 French success, achieving 200 from the narrow-gauge (1067 mm) the huge investment, it soon became km/h with a train hauled by an electric conventional lines which are unsuit- able for high-speed running, as well as to design concepts combining proven techniques as far as possible. The technical and business success of the shinkansen came as a great shock to the conservative railway in- dustries in Europe and America who had long believed that the maximum working speed of railways was about 160 km/h. It also led to the revival of European railways. High-speed passenger trains were even tried in the USA, where inter-city railway passenger transport was already in decline and where railways were no more than a freight transport business. Five years after the shinkansen com- missioning, a plan was developed in 1969 to operate a super express non- I British Rail HST at Paddington Station (T.SUGA)

4 Japan Railway & Transport Review / October 1994 Copyright © 1994 EJRCF. All rights reserved. locomotive was no longer such a mile- train should not have been able to ac- ogy began showing rapid improvement. stone success. celerate when the adhesion was poor, New speed records and new rolling On one hand, 200 km/h operation was and the braking distance should have stock are now being developed each achieved on conventional lines by ex- been poor. But, in practice, the train year. tending conventional technology, and showed better acceleration/decelera- on the other hand further speed in- tion performance than Japanese 5. Different Japanese and creases were tried by developing new shinkansen and ran stably at high technology and constructing new lines. speeds. Japan could have learned European Styles The success of the shinkansen appar- much from the HST including its high- Even now, the technology and service ently started revitalisation of railways speed adhesion performance, and re- differ greatly between Japan and Eu- worldwide. duced running resistance achieved by rope. It is useful to compare these dif- covering under-floor equipment, etc. ferences, even if the conclusion con- 3. Shinkansen Drawbacks The TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse) firms that Japanese style matches Ja- was developed by France in 1981 as a pan, and European style matches Eu- Answered in Europe vehicle dedicated to new high-speed rope. The British HST (High Speed Train) lines. It resembles the Japanese was the first to achieve high-speed op- shinkansen in purpose, but differs Re-recognition of Regenerative eration. Trunk lines in Britain suit greatly in design philosophy. The dif- Braking and Distributed Traction high-speed running because the curves ferences are attributable to overcoming For comparatively long trains using are gentle and there are almost no the disadvantages of the shinkansen. DC motors, concentrated traction is crossings. The British planned to in- Namely, the TGV was completed by probably more economical than distrib- crease the speed of the HST using the learning the lessons of the shinkansen. uted traction, based on the car con- APT (Advanced Passenger Train) with- Table 1 shows the main differences. struction and maintenance costs. How- out constructing new lines. The HST When France worked out these solu- ever, in Japan, because of the quality of reached 201 km/h on non-electrified tions in 1981, it was Japan's turn to couplers and shock absorbers and be- sections, while the APT reached 250 learn from the TGV, but JNR did not cause the push-pull system is uncom- km/h on electrified sections. HST opera- evaluate the TGV soon enough or cor- mon, most passenger trains including tion started successfully in 1976. rectly. Since then, we have learned shinkansen have distributed traction. The first commercial HST, or 253 Se- many things from the TGV and have at Shinkansen used fully-motorised axles ries, was made up of two lightweight last succeeded in improving the notori- as a matter of course in the early stage, (67 tonne), high-power (1680 kW) diesel ous current collection system. because of insufficient knowledge of ad- electric motive power units with a hesion limits. However, when the HST small baggage room and a small con- 4. Unfortunate JNR Era and other new trains showed that fully- ductor room as well as 7 trailers, or pas- motorised axles were unnecessary, con- senger cars, between them. Current Looking back over 30 years of high- centrated traction slowly progressed as knowledge of high-speed railcars sug- speed railways in Japan, the unfortu- long as floor space was not sacrificed. gested that with this formation, the nate JNR era cannot be forgotten. The Series 100 shinkansen manufac- While the South-East TGV line was un- tured in 1985 has 12 motor cars and 4 der construction in France, the Tohoku trailer cars (12M4T). Two or four and Joetsu Shinkansen were under trailer cars are double-decker to in- construction in Japan. However, it is crease seating capacity. A feature of difficult to say that 20 years of experi- the Series 100 trailer car is its brakes; ence of the Tokaido Shinkansen was re- an eddy-current disc brake activated by flected in any technical or functional the motor current of the adjacent M car improvements. Neither were the eco- is used to lower the maintenance costs. nomics of these lines thoroughly evalu- The Series 300 was developed with ated considering the comparatively the same philosophy in a 10M6T forma- small demand. In fact, their construction. However, while the weight of the tion costs were too large, compared to motor and driving gear was greatly re- the functional improvements. This is duced, the weight of the eddy-current attributable to JNR's critical situation disc brake could not be reduced as regarding labor-management relations much, resulting in heavier trailer cars and finance. This situation was re- than motor cars for non-suspended and flected in the technical field, making it total mass. impossible to develop new technology. Since AC motors require hardly any When the JNR division and maintenance, fully-motorised axles privatisation was finalised, the situa- should have been used for the Series tion was gradually resolved, and the 300 . As a result of learning this lesson, stagnating railway service and technol- the Series 500 had fully-motorised ax- I French TGV Sud-Est at Paris (T.SUGA)

Table 1 TGV Improvements Based on Shinkansen Drawbacks and Influence on Japanese Railway

Quoted from introduction "Recent High Speed Railway in Japan and Europe" (by Satoru Sone) to special edition " High Speed Railway—Comparison between Japan and Europe", OHM, April 1994 (partly modified)

6 Japan Railway & Transport Review / October 1994 Copyright © 1994 EJRCF. All rights reserved. les with the motor mounted on each graphs, but only 2 sets are used. The axle but centralised power supplies. number of pantographs will soon be re- This system, which centralises power duced to two. This method of current units if floor space permits but distrib- collection seems superior to the TGV utes traction motors, has the advantage electrically-connected one-pantograph that all floor space can be used as pas- system and the ICE independent two- senger room. High-speed operation is pantograph system. facilitated because the total mass per effective floor area is small, the maxi- Japanese Advantages in Car Body I JR Hokkaido Series 281 DMU (JR Hokkaido) mum axle load is small, and mechanical Tilting Control track conditions, the Japanese method braking is not usually used. When re- Although many countries have been is good. There are other possible advan- generative brake equipment is used for trying to develop effective car body tilt- tages too such as automatic collection of service braking, the heavy braking ing control systems, few have succeeded data for track maintenance. rheostat—a large onboard source of in improving riding comfort. So far, heat—becomes unnecessary, greatly in- only Japan, Italy and Sweden have Actual Adhesion Limit creasing safety. solved the problem. I have compared High-speed running of the TGV-A Fully-motorised axles are more ad- these three methods on commercial with a centralised power plant (4M11T vantageous for AC driven high-speed trains (JR Shikoku Series 2000 DMU in bogie units), including operation in railcars and will prevail in the future. railcar and Series 8000 EMU railcar rain, showed that the speed limit of and JR Hokkaido Series 281 DMU rail- fully-motorised axles is high enough Electrically-Connected Dual car, FS ETR450 and DB VT610 for the (approximately 460 km/h). This means Pantograph Italian method, and X2000 for the that adhesion itself does not limit the Comparison between the TGV cur- Swedish method). All have no problem commercial speed of wheel-rail rail- rent collector and the Series 0 when passengers are seated, but there ways. But this does not mean that an shinkansen, which uses 8 sets of panto- are some problems when they walk adhesion railway system running at graphs distributed over the 16-car for- along corridors. 460 km/h will be practical. Considering mation and generates much sparking, Since riding comfort differs greatly the weight and size of current electrical shows the superiority of the TGV. To with track conditions and running equipment, such trains would be no increase the speed of the Series 200 speed, it is difficult to determine which more than locomotives, offering hardly shinkansen which has 6 sets of panto- method is superior. The Japanese any passenger space. In addition, there graphs along the 12-car formation, the method is based on a natural pendu- are many other problems other than pantographs were connected by bus to lum. The problems due to time lag in adhesion to solve, such as noise. There- investigate the effect on the current col- the pendulum motion on short curves fore, it is unfair to insist from the adhe- lection. It was concluded that two com- have been solved by "feed-forward" con- sion viewpoint that development of new paratively-separate pantographs are trol of the time lag calculated from cur- super-speed railways is useless. best, except for those at the ends of the vature data stored in an onboard com- formation, because even if one panto- puter, based on train speed and current High-Speed Running Test graph bounces, current collection is position determined by track detectors. At high speeds, aerodynamic drag continued by the other pantograph. This makes passengers feel that the dominates running resistance. The re- Also the bouncing pantograph does not train is running on a gentle curve and sistance is proportional to the square of generate much sparking. The Series offers a comparatively good ride even the speed, while power is proportional 200 and 300 shinkansen operating up under bad track conditions. From the to the cube of speed. From this point of to 275 km/h have three sets of panto- viewpoint of adaptability to varying view, it is unnecessary to establish a speed record higher than 500 km/h in the high-speed running test to achieve a maximum service speed of approximately 350 km/h. Therefore, although the speed record of 515.3 km/h estab- lished by the TGV is a great record, it is not indispensable to achieving commercial railway speeds of approximately 350 km/h. For practicability, a speed 10% to 20% higher than the maximum service speed is sufficient. It is more important to perform sufficient running tests under various conditions than to aim just at higher speed. Because of the distributed traction, I JR Shikoku Series 8000 EMU (JR Shikoku)

Of course, at some times it may be difficult to invest large amounts of money just to shorten the travel time slightly. However, even in recessions, speed increases can be promoted from the software viewpoint, for example, by re-examining stops, lines, and con- nections, etc. It is always important to keep speed increases in mind.

Safety and Environmental Friendliness Typical transport modes competing with high-speed railway are aircraft and cars. Although these three modes of transport should each develop in their own fields to satisfy people's di- I JR Central Series 300 Nozomi at Tokyo Station (T. SUGA) verse needs, more passengers should be unlike the TGV, the Japanese advantageous at low speeds. There- attracted to high-speed railways, be- shinkansen cannot increase the power/ fore, MAGLEV is less attractive for cause railway has a decisive advantage weight ratio by removing intermediate shorter development times, or lower in terms of safety and environmental cars. Test cars have been designed to target speeds. If it is necessary to de- friendliness. Railway personnel should achieve the real test speed, or about 1.2 velop a new railway system comparable more actively appeal this point to gov- times the maximum service speed, by to shinkansen or TGV quickly, ernment, companies and individuals. replacing trailing bogies with MAGLEV will not be selected. How- And railway staff should more actively motorised bogies to increase power ever, the size of present electrical tackle correction of systems or (STAR 21 of JR East) or concentrating equipment makes it difficult for wheel- organisations obstructing development the traction power of four cars into rail type railways to secure sufficient three cars (WIN 350 of JR West). passenger space. For these reasons, Change from National to MAGLEV is attractive at 450 km/h or International Railway Technology Is MAGLEV Development Useless? higher speeds. If such a system can Although railway engineers in each It is unreasonable to say that achieve greater energy saving, more ef- nation share common bonds, internal MAGLEV is useless based on the TGV ficient resource utilisation and higher cooperation is still insufficient. To 515.3-km/h record, which was achieved safety than aircraft, it will be worth de- make railways more attractive and to on a down grade with a dry track. veloping. meet social needs such as environmen- Introduction of new high-speed rail- tal conservation, safety and energy sav- ways is opposed from various viewpoints, 5. How Should Railways ing, we must promote information ex- including noise, vibration, energy saving, change and cooperation. efficient land use and safety. Selection of Improve Transportation? The change from JNR to JR in Japan wheel-rail or MAGLEV systems is re- Further Speed Increases is one step typified by publication of lated to all these items. Both systems Speed is the most important factor in this magazine. However, compared should be evaluated and the superior one the transport competition. However, with Europe, the attitude in Japan to- should be selected. There is an opinion speed does not mean the maximum wards exchange and cooperation is still that high-speed surface transport is not speed but the total trip time including insufficient. necessary, because there are strong com- access time and waiting time. Although Readers must cooperate actively by petitors like airlines. However, if it is pos- speed has universal importance, the en- participating in the debate in this sible to develop a new system that is supe- thusiasm of the transportation indus- magazine. I rior to aircraft in terms of energy sav- try and society for speed increases ing, efficient land use and safety, natu- changes with time. rally, it should be promoted. The most important problem in Japan concerning construction of high-speed railways is Satoru Sone noise. In this respect, MAGLEV has advantages because the car body is very Dr Sone was born in 1939 in Tokyo. He has long been interested in railways and graduated from light and the traction motors are installed university in electrical engineering because it seemed to have a great influence on new railway on the ground, so no noise is emitted by technologies. He has been a professor at the University of Tokyo since 1984, engaging in the current collection. study of transport system engineering and power electronics. He plays a positive role in the However, MAGLEV railways require government-university-industry debate on transport policy. many new developments and are not so