Shinkansen Train Model


B

bklynman01

Active Member
Anyone ever travel to Japan and ride the Shinkansen (bullet train)? I have, and its awesome. It helps a person realize exactly how far behind the US is when it comes to public transit.

Anyhow... now you can have a scale model of the train. And the system that makes it work! It's in Japanese, but the commercial is still fun to listen to...

[video]https://youtu.be/O8RF612yQpQ[/video]
 
I didn't think the bullet train was a mag-lev?
Pretty cool how that works, wonder if the speed is controllable or if it just goes full speed ahead....
 
bklynman01 said:
It helps a person realize exactly how far behind the US is when it comes to public transit.
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That could also have something to do with how far behind the US is in population per square acre. One must have very high density population for public transit to work.
 
Iron Horseman said:
That could also have something to do with how far behind the US is in population per square acre. One must have very high density population for public transit to work.
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Population per square acre is important, I agree. But when there are places like DC, NYC, and Boston all within 4 hours driving, wouldn't it be nice to take a train for 2 hours? Or even less if it was truly high speed. Dense populations are great, but they need to be far apart to make high speed travel valuable. If they're too close, the train can never get up to speed, thus defeating the point.

The bullet train in Japan takes almost 30 minutes to get to idle speed. I traveled from Sendai to Tokyo (about Chicago to St Louis) and there were only 2 stops. Those distances are needed to achieve the great speed. Whole trip took under 2 hours.

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The US, and its large urban areas especially, has a big infrastructure problem. Fixing bridges, sewers, water pipes, etc, keeps most politicians busy. Didn't CA propose a high speed train?
 
OldGuyHO said:
The US, and its large urban areas especially, has a big infrastructure problem. Fixing bridges, sewers, water pipes, etc, keeps most politicians busy. Didn't CA propose a high speed train?
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Last I read, it had been signed for.
 
When the train first debuted, Tenshodo came out with a brass model, painted blue and white. It consisted of the "engine", and 2 or 3 passenger cars. It was a beautiful model and also had a "beautiful" price on it, IIRC, almost $500. We had one at the shop I was working at, and when it ran, it had the typical loud motor and gear noise that most brass diesels had at the time, very, very, noisy. We couldn't give it away.
 
First we need to fix our broken sidewalks here in Los Angeles. That way we could go maybe 5-mph first.

They blew countless millions of Dollars putting ADA approved, sloped curb-way easements for wheelchairs at every intersection. But the parts in between have thrusting -up jagged and broken sections that deny any safe use of people in wheelchairs.

Of course in living here for 30-years in this residential area I have never seen anyone navigating our sidewalks in a wheelchair either before or since. But that doesn't mean they wouldn't spend the money -- just in case it might be needed someday. That is if they aren't swept away by floods in broken water main incidents that happen here every day. Lifejackets installed at each street corner might be a good step.

So we can hold off on a bullet train no one would really use for a while longer maybe.
 
[cynical mode on] High speed would be great, especially across the Great Plains (Chicago to Denver for example). I can just see the East coast. Two hours from NY to DC. and two hours waiting to pass through TSA security lines! And another hour, at least, to get from wherever to the station! Flying is faster...oh, yeah? Denver to Minneapolis or Denver to Phoenix, two hours flight time. Plus an hour from my house to the airport, and you need to allow a couple of hours to get through security lines, and an hour+ at the destination to get to where you are going (by car)! In other words, it's going to kill most of the day regardless. :(
 
Getting there is half the fun of travel for me.

Why cheat yourself out of that? I can take Southwest airline if I'm really in a hurry and want to examine cloud tops from a cramped seat. So I'll just keep taking "pokey" old Amtrak and enjoy the ride. :)
 
And to think that the Milwaukee Road ran trains at over 100-mph in the 1930s on track that was held together with nuts and bolts! We have lost our nerve as a society maybe.
 
Charles Smiley said:
And to think that the Milwaukee Road ran trains at over 100-mph in the 1930s on track that was held together with nuts and bolts! We have lost our nerve as a society maybe.
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I don't think that we lost our nerve, Charles. I think that we have lost some of the pride necessary to build really good track. That track, back then, even with rail only 39' long was laid in place by people that cared about their work. While welded rail is great, with automated machines laying it, I have yet to see the section foreman, (do they even exist anymore?), go along a section that had just been laid, with a 8' spirit level in hand, making sure the track was really level across the rails, or placing it along the top, looking for dips and rises in each individual rail, or using an "elevation tool" that went under the level making sure that the proper elevation for the curves was on the money.

My Grandfather was a section foreman on a branchline of the Southern from 1902-1945, and he always made sure that if the track was supposed to be smooth and level, or had to be set at a certain elevation on curves, it was! Because if it wasn't, he and his crew could be docked pay for shoddy workmanship. His crew never had anything like that happen.
 
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