The 7 year itch for rail speed

[E_T_V]

For the train nerds (and those who admire engineering excellence), today is the 7th anniversary of the setting of the rail speed record.

Attached is a video of the record attempt.

Youtube video link

The team smashed the previous record and achieved a speed of 574.8km/h
(that's 357mph for us imperial UK folk). My interest is the company I work for made the rails it ran on.

The record has stood for 7 years. I wonder when (and where) it'll be broken?

[Guest]

Have seen this before and watched various videos on it, very impressive. I'm not a train buff but have an admiration for high speed rail.

As for who could probably set a new record well I think the French would try and do it again but I also think Japan would be the only country that could compete for it.

[Russ]

I think this country still holds the diesel record with the HST, but not sure if one of those Spanish things beat it?

[Guest]

I think this country still holds the diesel record with the HST, but not sure if one of those Spanish things beat it?

Yes I believe the HST still has the diesel record to this day.

[E_T_V]

A useful link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_sp...#Fuel-electric

[Russ]

Glad we still have the official record and was done when the HST had proper British engines and were in service with a proper company in a decent livery. As opposed to the current state of them working for bus companies in crap colours with Nancy boy German engines silenced to hell

[Guest]

Glad we still have the official record and was done when the HST had proper British engines and were in service with a proper company in a decent livery. As opposed to the current state of them working for bus companies in crap colours with Nancy boy German engines silenced to hell

I have to agree with you there Russ, gone are the days when all HST's had Paxman Valenta V12 engines, the only ones remaining with a Paxman enigne are the East Midlands Trains with a VP185, rest are all German quiet things, completely lost their character.
But the other way to look at it though is atleast the HST is still in service, it was inevetible there would be changes to the power provided.

[Russ]

The vp185 ones don't sound too bad, I remember route learning on one when they were first converted, but it had a problem where it would go into single bank firing on the move as opposed to when you remove the key. When this happened under load it sounded like a class 25
I suppose I'm lucky as the 20s,37s and 47s I drive have their original power units