ITALY | High Speed Rail

[joseph1951]

Originally Posted by Trainman Dave

Thank you. I dug a little deeper on that web site and found a map which would sugest that there probably less than 25 km which has a speed restriction

1- The maximum project speed of the new Italian HSL's is 300km/h.
The commercial speed will be 250km/h.
This was on the TAV and Italferr Web sites. Now disappeared.

Maxim projectula speed does not mean maximum servicing ceiling on commercial operations.

The new Italian HS Lines are built according to the French philosphy, but not according to the most recent French technical specifications.
The Feench cantenaries are very thick and strong. On the newly built French HSL the critical oscillatory movements of the catenary start at around -600-620 Km/h. On the "Old French 1500volt d.c. heavy style catenary, the critical ondulatory movements occur at around 449 km/h.

3 -In the German High speed system the critical ondulatory movements of the catenary occcur at about 591 km/H.

In Italy on the old 3000 volt d.c. systems of the the DD (first HSL Line) the critical ondulatory phenomenon starts at around 280Km/h.

In the Rome-Florence High Speed line, the 3000v d.c. Italian catenary is light and "elastic", far less performant that the old French 1500 dc.

In fact, in France, on the old section Paris-Bordeaux two double decker TGVs travel at 220km/h with 4 PANTOGRAPHS raised.

In The Italian DD it is not possibile to travel at speed of 250km/h with 2 pantographs raised. It has been done with the testing of the ETR500, but at night, with huge flashes.

Running an ETR500 in the Rome-Florence High Speed line energised at 3kw d.c. above 250 km/s, with two pantograph raised there is the real risk of fusing pantograph annd catenary, and pulling down both the overhead cables and the supporting poles.

Indeed, on the DD HSL line the ETR500 can only travel at a top speed of 200km/ with 2 patogrpaphs raised.

Above this speed, on he DD the ETR500 must run only with 1 pantograph raised, this with only one loco active which supply only half of the maximum train power.

The pulling down of the cateranry has happened several times on the historical Milan-Bologna, with Pendolinos, and ETR500, with only one pantograph active and at speed below 200km/h. On the histrorical Milan-Bologna (with 132 km of line authorised for speed up to 200km/h) the ETR500 can use the two pantographs only up to 100km/h.

In the new Italian High Speed lines, are built according to French philosphy, but with Italian technical specifications for HS mixed traffic lines. Therefore the catenary installed on these lines is thinner or less rigid than the new French catenary. On the Italian newly built mixed trafic HSL the critical oscillatory movements of the cantenary (when the pantograph tends to loose contact with catenary and causes electrical arches), start occurring at about 370Km/h.

This value, is the critical theoretical value for the begining of critical oscillatory movements of the catenary on the newly Italian HSL.

The new Italian lines are also built as "High Speed and High Capacy lines", thus "planned" for mixed traffic, and designed with lower gradients (inclines), and with a lower lateral non-compensated accelerations, copmare to those used for pure HSL lines.
Therefore the Italian mixe trafficl HS/HC lines are built with constraints and costs that the "pure" HSLs built on other Countries do not have, because the latter were built as HSLs exclusively dedicatd to passenger traffic.

They new Italian HSL AV/AC are also built for a maximum axial load of 25 tons, compared to the 17-18 maximum axial load of the pure and more cheaper versions of HSLs totally dedicated to the transportation of passengers.

The Italian AV/AC philospophy of having mixed the two concepts has had bad consequences, such as the soaring of the cost of builiding the infrastructures and of the lowering of the maximum potential speed of these lines.

It would appear quite clear that the labelling of these lines as AV/AC (High Speed /High Capacity) were a mere political expedient.

Also the usage of this lines for freight trains is quite doubtful, at least for the foreseeable future.

Furthermore, the idea of a fture underground crossing of Bologna central station (with a speed limitation of 60 km/h -mas 100km) the further speed liimitations to the transit of the fast trains, on the yet to be built or completed Firenze-Belfore Station , imposes several crossings at considerable speed restrictions, which will greatly reduce the maximum commercial speed on the Milan-Rome- Milan- Naples services.

Therefore, after the completion of the entire works I do not think that the journey times of 2h and 30 minutes or even less, between Milan - to Rome, from Milan -Central Station to Rome-Termini, can be easily achieved. It seems to me a whishful thought, too difficult to turn into reality.

In Italy, given the short distances between medium size cities, the max speed is not the most vital factor. Acceleration is. The Spanish high speed non tilting Talgo 350 - the Duck or "El Pato" - would offer a far better performace than either the TGV, or the faboulous ICE3 (its Velaro version has reached 403 km/h without any modification to the standard set).

The Talgo "El Pato" "S103?" is extremely light. It has reached a top speed of 362 km/h. It will be used on the Madrid-Bacelona line for stopping fast trains, whilst the Velaro will be used for long-distance non-stopping trains.

Practically the El Pato acceleration curve, from 150 km/h to 300 is almost vertical. It takes only 3 km for El Pato to pass from 150 to 300 km/h. On commecial service, El Pato has a commercial speed of 330 km/h. Obviously, the omologation of a train for a given commercial speed is: max speed +10%

Even after modifications to the ETR500, by adding extra motors to the two carriages adjacent to the two locos and make it reach 400km/h, it would not be possibile to use that speed in commercial service or, indeed just for a records.

The risk of pulling down the catenary and the supporting poles, at speeds around 370 km/h is real.

Also both ETR500 locomotives of first and second series do not conform with the new EU crash worthiness standards, and the construction line of this type of trains has been closed.

It is rumored that the new bogies to be mounted to the ETR500 2nd series will be those built by Alstom.......

On the Turin-Milan High speed section the reduced formation of the ETR500 touches 300km/h after 50 km of slow accelaration.

Onthe ETR500, to pass from 150 km/h to 300km/h is slowly painful. It is the wrong train for fast speed, in short distances.

The same can be said for Milan-Bologna "record".

The 355Km/h were achieved after 10 minutes and 44 seconds. The train started accelerating after 20 km, south of Milan (wired under 3kw d.c.), then it enterd the new HSL at 199km/h, then it took 10 minutes and 44 second of painfully slow acceleration to reach 355km/h, which were maintained just for a few seconds.

In y opinion the best usage of the ETR500 2nd series in 2 locomotive + 12 carriages compostions is for long -non stop services between Milan -Roma and Milan -Naples, Turin -Rome, Turin-Naples .

For fast trains, making fequent intermediate calls, better and faster services could be provided with a totally different type of train.

Let's for a moment look at the new HS Milan-Brescia-Verona-Vicenza-Padua-Mestre-Venice line.
The first 20 km from Milan towards Brescia are under 3kv d.c., with a top speed of 200km/h and the remaining 55-60km to Brescia will be on 25kv ac.

The 80-83km from Milan-Brescia will be covered, at best, in 30-35 minutes, at an avergae speed of less than 160 km/h.
One can easily see that the ETR500 is not the best train for fast journey on this line.
Incidentally, the new ETR600 Tilting trains have a top sped of 250km/h. It is possible to build active tilting trains capable of +320 Km/h.

The fact that the newest tilting trains have a max speed of 250km/h and that they will be partially used on the newly built HSLs suggests that for the foreseeable future the mmaximum commercial speed of the passenger trains running on the new HSL will be of 250km/h, with some superfast trains capable of short peaks at 300km/h, to make up time, in case of late running.

Given the short distances between many cities served direcly by these lines it seems to me that the journey times forecasted are very decent.
Namely Milan -Bologna 65 minutes . Which can, perhpas, be reduced to 60 minutes , for some flag trains.
Bologna-Florence 35 minutes.
Florence-Rome 1h 30. On some (very few) flag trains the journey tme could be shlashed 1h 25' -1h 20
Milan. Central -Rome Termini 3 hours. Perhaps 2h 50' - 2h 55' for a few flag-trains, from Mi.Cle. To Rome -Termini

A possibile reduction in journey times between Milan Central and Rome-Termini to 2h 30 minutes or, indeed to 2h flat appears to be fairly unfeasable.

The Montezemolo AGV ( NTV) will be limited to a top speed of 300km/h. This does not mean that the NTV's AVG will be able to travel on the Italian high Speed lines at sustained commercial speeds of 300km/h.

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Here is the speed diagram of the reduced formation of the ETR500 (2 locos + 8 carriages) used on the Turin-Milan High Speed line.


http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/5...ovarasvtv1.png

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On The Milan-Bologna HS Line the 355 Km/h were achieved with the ETR500 Y or X, which are capable of running under 3kv d.c. / 25Kv a.c., but the 2 ETR500 Y/X are tests train of a reduced/modifiable formation of 2 locos + 3 carriages/ 2 locos and 8 carriages.

It is not clear which formation was used and, I believe, that this detail is quite irrelevant.

Similarly, it is standard practice to test a newly built line at speeds in excess of the maximum planning speed.

In other counties record speeds well above 355km/h have been obtained several times, long time ago, using either trains in normal revenue services or "doped" trains.

The doping or tweaking of trains, the strengthening of rails and catenaries, is not done merely for national propaganda purposes, but also to push the technology to its technical and conceptual limits and, last but not least, for research and for marketing purposes,.. to sell trains in the global market , etc, etc.

[gincan]

Very interesting read there. I wish there was some way to get hold of the acceleration graphs for all the diffrent high performance trains.

[plottigat]

I'm sure you're a real train lover, and I completely agree with you about ETR500, but...

Originally Posted by joseph1951

Merely for politcal reasons.

Economic reasons, to enter the so-called euro zone Italy had to cut, postpone or slow a lot of projects.
We're proud parents of one of the biggest public debt in the world (don't remeber if it's the 2nd or the 3rd or something like that).

FS had to invest over 6.900 million Euro of public money only for the Milano-Bologna stretch. And the goverment gave all those euros veeeery slowly, they simply didn't have the cash avaibility.

In Italy, if you work for the goverment as a supplier, today you have to wait at least 200 days from the date of your invoice to get your money. You are your country's bank...
Trust me, my company is always waiting. I don't work in engineering, but I'm afraid that they have the same problems.

Bologna - Florence
For its size, complexity, financial investments and deployment of technical and human resources, the high speed Bologna-Florence line is unique on a global level: 93% of its about 78.5 km of total track runs through tunnels within the Apennines, in a geological context which is among the world’s most difficult, varied and complex (from flyschoid formations to clays, from argillites to loose soils).

The line numbers a total of 9 tunnels, whose length ranges from a minimum of 600 metres to a maximum of 18.5 km and which are separated by short overground stretches (less than 5 km in total). This almost makes the Bologna-Florence line a single, immense tunnel.

The line tunnels are accompanied by a 10 km service tunnel, most of which runs parallel to the final stretch of the Vaglia tunnel, and 12 access tunnels, known as “windows”, with a total length of almost 9 km, used to create intermediate tunnel faces in the construction of the longest tunnels and, later, when the line becomes operational, for line maintenance and, in the event of an emergency, as an emergency service and escape route. The link with the existing line is also underground, with 2 tunnels with an overall length of about 9 km between Pianoro and San Ruffillo in Bologna.

To ensure that the engineering works were carried out efficiently, it was necessary to work on 40 faces contemporaneously: a deployment of men and resources which makes the sites of the Bologna-Florence line one of the most important projects currently in progress worldwide.

The tunnels in figures:

78.5 km total line length
73.4 km tunnel length
3.4 km manmade tunnels
70 km natural tunnels
- 10.7 km Pianoro Tunnel
- 3.8 km Saturano Tunnel
- 9.1 km Monte Bibele Tunnel
- 10.4 km Raticosa Tunnel
- 3.5 km Scheggianico Tunnel
- 15 km Firenzuola Tunnel
- 0.5 km Borgo Rinzelli Tunnel
- 0.3 km Morticine Tunnel
- 6.7 km Vaglia Nord Tunnel (up to Km 71+500)
- 10 km Vaglia Sud Tunnel

8.8 km access windows to line tunnels
10.6 km service tunnels to line tunnels
9 km link tunnels for connection with the existing line

Originally Posted by joseph1951

One has been completed : the Direttisima Florence-Rome.

From an official source. I apologize if somebody has already posted it (I'm sure that joseph1951 saved all FS site on his hard-disk )

Florence – Rome
The direct Rome-Florence line was Europe’s first high speed line.

Opened in 1978, the line was built with the aim of upgrading the characteristics of the line and the railway service of the time by integration with the existing rail network and the potential to allow for the circulation of traditional freight and passenger trains as well.

The line – which crosses 3 Regions (Tuscany, Umbria, Lazio), 5 Provinces (Florence, Arezzo, Terni, Viterbo and Rome) and 30 municipalities – is 241 km long: it begins at the Station of Settebagni (16 km outside Rome) and terminates at Bivio Rovezzano (4 km outside Florence’s Campo di Marte station). There are six interconnections with the old Rome-Florence line: Orte, Orvieto, Chiusi, Arezzo, Valdarno and Rovezzano.

The maximum speed on the line is 250 km/h. On the Valdarno Sud-Figline section experimental simulations have been undertaken with ETR 500 trains which have reached a speed of over 300 km/h.

From the point of view of the timing and construction of infrastructure, the direct line can be subdivided into three separate phases, adopting homogeneous engineering and performance standards:
• phase one: Settebagni to Città della Pieve (constructed between 1970 and 1977) covering a total of 122 km, and Figline to Firenze Rovezzano (constructed between 1970 and 1980);
• phase two: Città della Pieve to Arezzo (constructed between 1976 and 1985);
• phase three: Arezzo to Figline (constructed between 1985 and 1991).

Phase two saw an improvement in line standards, made possible in part by the more favourable terrain in this area.

During phase three, the needs for greater comfort and higher performance led to a further improvement of standards. During this third phase, the problems caused by the insertion into the environment of this new infrastructure were also addressed, adopting mitigation measures for the first time on high speed lines in Italy.

With the construction of the new high speed lines between Turin, Milan and Naples the need arose to reexamine the characteristics of the direct Rome-Florence line.

The upgrading of the direct line to conform with the standards of the new high speed lines under construction required works on existing civil engineering structures (tunnels, viaducts etc), electrical traction facilities, signalling and telecommunications.

This upgrading process was implemented with a targeted plan through both night time interruption of service and the interruption of traffic on some sections and interconnections with the old Rome-Florence line.

Sorry for my English and the little OT, Cheers!

[Coccodrillo]

- 6.7 km Vaglia Nord Tunnel (up to Km 71+500)
- 10 km Vaglia Sud Tunnel

This is a single tunnel about 18 km long (and with a maximum rock coverage of about 650 m, but this type of information is still hard to find).

I don't know why it is considered as two tunnels. Even the Sanremo tunnel (13,2 km) on the Genova-Ventimiglia railway is officially composed by three tunnels.

[GENIUS LOCI]

Not exactly HS station, because it will be built underground, but tho overstnding Bologna station will be completely 'rebuilt'

This is the project by Arata Isozaki presented yesterday





The underground HS tracks



http://www.urbanfile.it/index.asp?ID=3&SID=666

[GENIUS LOCI]

Not exactly HS station, because it will be built underground, but the overstanding Bologna station will be completely 'rebuilt'

This is the project by Arata Isozaki presented yesterday





The underground HS tracks



http://www.urbanfile.it/index.asp?ID=3&SID=666

[GENIUS LOCI]

Other pics









http://www.multimedia.ilsole24ore.co...7e96b7.shtml?1

[GENIUS LOCI]

Other pics









http://www.multimedia.ilsole24ore.co...7e96b7.shtml?1

[X38]

Napo, please repalace those not-working links by working links.
Thanks, X38.

[foxmulder]

well, they need these stations badly. good to hear.

[GENIUS LOCI]

Today NTV (Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori) spa, which will be a private competitor with national railways (TrenItalia) on HS stretches, presented its own train: Alstom NGA

Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori
NTV’s Italian journey has begun: starting in 2011, the passenger service of Italy’s leading high-speed railway operator will get underway.

With its fleet of 25 new trains, NTV offers trips rich in entertaining experiences and service, as well as the utmost comfort.

NTV shall be the first operator worldwide to use the new Alstom AGV train, holder of the world railway speed record.

With the arrival of NTV, a new way of travelling is born, focussed on the quality of the passenger’s time: on the train, in the station and at the destination.

The fleet NTV
The company Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori will use only AGV model (Automotrice Grande Vitesse) high-speed Alstom trains equipped with the same traction system as the train that set the world rail speed record of 574.8 km/h on 3 April 2007.

This extraordinary performance confirms that Alstom’s experience in the field of high-speed operation is unequalled: worldwide, 70% of the trains currently used at speeds of more than 300 km/h were built by Alstom, whose equipment has travelled more than 2.8 billion kilometres and carried 1.6 billion passengers.

In other words, the AGV train, designed by Alstom and adopted to the world of NTV for the very first time, is nothing less than the state of the art in high-speed railway technology.

The AGV is based on a brand new concept, being built to travel at 360 km/h, in addition to being the only train to satisfy in full all the latest European specifications of interoperability (STI 2006), as well as European Union and Italian standards on safety and the environment.

The trains operated by NTV will hold 460 passengers in a total of 11 cars (length of train: 200 metres) and will travel on the Italian high-speed network at 300 km/h. The interiors are styled by Italdesign-Giugiaro.

There will be 25 trains in the NTV fleet.

http://www.ntvspa.it/en/nuovo-traspo...ly-description







video (simulator)

news broadcasted by Italian network

[Dale]

Originally Posted by GENIUS LOCI

Poor?

I don't understand what you mean with poor

If you mean that it looks a bit oldand too dirty, you're right; but now they're completely restructuring it

If you mean they have to tear down (or partly tear down) the station to add a new futuristic structure it would sound to me as a vandalic act...

Do you mean they are renovating the station ? What is the timetable ?

[Dale]

Originally Posted by GENIUS LOCI

Today NTV (Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori) spa, which will be a private competitor with national railways (TrenItalia) on HS stretches, presented its own train: Alstom NGA





http://www.ntvspa.it/en/nuovo-traspo...ly-description







video (simulator)

news broadcasted by Italian network

Ferrari red - I love it!

[GENIUS LOCI]

Originally Posted by Dale

Do you mean they are renovating the station ? What is the timetable ?

If I'm not wrong: in 2009, but I'm afraid they're a bit late

Anyway this is official website of Milano Centrale http://www.cantieremilanocentrale.it...t_en/index.php

Recent pics of renovation from this thread on Italian Forum http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=610009

image hosted on flickr










image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr

[city_thing]

I'm dying from jealousy at the moment. God damn you Milan, you're beautiful.

[Dale]

GENIUS LOCI -

Splendido! on the renovation.

[hans280]

Originally Posted by Dale

GENIUS LOCI -

Splendido! on the renovation.

Yeah, I agree. The essence of the renovations looks very similar to the ones they just completed at Gare de l'Est here in Paris. With the one difference that Milan's railway architecture looked much grander to start with.

[Kuvvaci]

wonderful stations

[Perennial Quest]

A couple of weeks ago a new livrey for the ETR500 was presented.
Here a couple of pics where you can see the old and the new livrey (the red one):

[Railfan]

Nice train!