The writers of the present paper attempt to answer the question ‘what is the financial benefit of reducing a high-speed train's mass by 1 kg?’ They adopt a systems-engineering approach to lowering the mass of railway vehicles while retaining the required performance in other areas. The analysis is based on notionally reducing the mass of a Class 373 Eurostar train by 25% and results in an estimate of the financial benefits in terms of reduced energy consumption and infrastructure maintenance cost as well as lower life-cycle costs. A comparison is made with the financial benefits of mass reduction reported for the civil aviation and automotive industries. Noise and vibration issues and their dependence on rolling stock mass are also considered.
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February 2004
Research Article|
February 01 2004
Benefits of lower-mass trains for high speed rail operations Available to Purchase
B. P. Rochard;
B. P. Rochard
Associate
Mott MacDonald, Railways Division
St. Anne House, Wellesley Road, Croydon, CR9 2UL, UK
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F. Schmid
F. Schmid
Senior Lecturer in Rail Systems Engineering
The University of Sheffield, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Mappin Street, Sheffield, S1 3JD, UK
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Publisher: Emerald Publishing
Received:
April 07 2003
Accepted:
August 14 2003
Online ISSN: 1751-7710
Print ISSN: 0965-092X
© 2004 Thomas Telford Ltd
2004
Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Transport (2004) 157 (1): 51–64.
Article history
Received:
April 07 2003
Accepted:
August 14 2003
Citation
Rochard BP, Schmid F (2004), "Benefits of lower-mass trains for high speed rail operations". Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Transport, Vol. 157 No. 1 pp. 51–64, doi: https://doi.org/10.1680/tran.2004.157.1.51
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