Page 99 - Vía Libre Special - 25 Years of Spanish High Speed Rail

400 404 km/h AVE s/103
380 Legend RM World record 362 km/h
360 Maximum speed. High speed Speed record. High speed 356.8 km/h
340 Maximum speed. Electric traction Speed record. Electric traction AVE s/100 Talgo 350 GIF
320 Maximum speed. Diesel traction Speed record. Diesel traction
300 Maximum speed. Steam traction Speed record. Steam traction
280 254.6 km/h
260 241 km/h 248 km/h RM
230 km/h
240 222 km/h RM Talgo 353.001 206 km/h BT GIF
Serie 269 601
RM
220
Speed (km/h) 200 Talgo 352 Platanito 443 Platanito 443 brake van
203 km/h
180
160
150 km/h
140 Confederación
120 1997 1997
252+T
252+Talgo 6algo 6
354+Talgo 6algo 6
100 354+T
80 1936, Rápido 13 1950, Talgo II 1952, TAF 1964, Talgo III 1968, UT 900 1996, 252+Talgo 6
1986
60 Norte 252,269,250

40 1961, loc. 1971, elec. 354,333,352,353
20 10.000 432 1975, Final steam 1992, start AVE
0
1934 1936 1938 1940 1942 1944 1946 1948 1950 1952 1954 1956 1958 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016
had been previously been realigned and levelled The five hundreds
but were still fitted with wooden sleepers, two of
the most modern direct current locomotives of Twenty-six years would pass before French
the time, the CC7107 and the BB9004, attempted railways would surprise the world with a new record.
to reach a speed never previously attained by any In a trial prepared exclusively to improve on the exis-
railway vehicle. ting record which dated back to May 8, 1990 when
The first attempt was made on March 28. the TGV Atlantique no. 325 hit 515.3 km/h at kilometre
Neither of the two locomotives could avoid the 166 of the TGV Atlantique line near Vendôme, on April
track slewing effect when they reached 300 km/h, 3, 2007 the train V150 (TGV Duplex by Alstom) was
and BB9004’s pantograph was destroyed. able to put the speedometer needle up to 574.8 km/h
To prevent this second problem from ha- at kilometre 191 of the TGV Est line (Paris-Strasbourg),
ppening again, on the second trial, conducted which was to enter into commercial operation some
the next day, train CC7107 lowered its pantogra- months later.
ph when it reached that point, although the wind In this occasion, relates Iñaki Barrón, the trial
kept it up for some time, and locomotive BB9004, was broadcast live to an audience of five million
with its inductors short-circuited (i.e., the motors viewers, so they needed a twin jet SN 600 Corvette
were not delivering their maximum power), ma- aircraft to film it since nothing else was fast enough.
naged a peak speed of 331 km/h, leaving the track At that time only the Japanese maglev train, at 580
completely out of alignment. km/h, could go faster.
The SNCF beat the record again in 1981,
although while before it was all down to the lo- Spanish records
comotives, now the trial would be conducted on
new infrastructure with a new OHL system. Spanish railways were always held back by the
The success was chalked up to trainset 16 topography of their network and, for a large part
of the TGV at kilometre 155.8 of the Paris-Sud Est of their history, by their technological dependence
line, more specifically, between Courcelles-Fré- which conditioned any home grown developments.
moy and Dyé. Although in trials conducted during However, since the 1960s there have been one or two
the previous day the train reached a speed of 371 contributions of note from the Spanish railway in-
km/h, it was on February 26 1981 when the TGV dustry.
posted the official record at 380 km/h. French rai- First is the speed record posted by the Con-
lways demonstrated with this feat that their rai- federation 2001, which in 1955, hauling two trains
lway technology was in the forefront of the world weighing 435 and 480 tons each, on the stretch be-
because, among other reasons, this landmark was tween San Vicente de Calders and Vilanova i la Gel-
the culmination of a long process of research trú, reached 140 km/h. Some experts say that during
which pointed to high speed as being the railway the testing phase the needle on the speedometer hit
of the future. 150 km/h.

Vía Libre • Special 25th Anniversary of the AVE Edition 99