Pendolino
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Pendolino (from Italian Pendolo ['pɛndolo] "Pendulum" and -ino, a diminutive suffix) is an Italian family of tilting trains used in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Slovenia, Finland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, China and shortly in Ukraine and Russia. It was developed and manufactured by Fiat Ferroviaria, which was taken over by Alstom in 2002.
The idea of a tilting train became popular in the 1960s and 1970s when various rail operators, impressed by the high-speed rail services being put into place in France and Japan, wondered how they could similarly speed up travel without building a dedicated parallel rail network (as those two countries were doing). By tilting, the train could round curves designed for slower trains at higher speeds without causing undue discomfort to passengers.
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[edit] Italy
In Italy various possibilities along these lines were explored (including one early design for fixed carriages with tilting seats). A number of prototypes were built and tested, and in 1975 a prototype Pendolino, the ETR 401, was put into public service, built by Fiat and operated by Italian State Railways. In 1987 operation began with a full fleet of updated Pendolinos (called the ETR 450), which incorporated some technologies from British Rail's ill-fated APT project. In 1993 the next generation, the ETR 460, began service. Later two new models were produced: ETR 480 and ETR 600.
[edit] Finland
- See also VR Class Sm3
The Finnish model, the S220, is based on the ETR 460, adapted to the specific requirements of VR (Valtionrautatiet, Finnish State Railways) and to the cold climatic conditions. The first two units were made in 1995 by Rautaruukki-Transtech, a rolling stock company which was part of Spanish Talgo until 2007, but is now back in Finnish ownership as Transtech Oy. Currently there are a total of 18 units operating.
The Pendolino has been conceived as an EMU (Electric Multiple Unit) to keep axle load to an extremely low level in order to allow the train to negotiate curves at a speed up to 35% faster than conventional Intercity trains (loco plus coaches).
The electrical traction equipment, with continuous power of 4000 kW, includes GTO chopper/inverter and asynchronous motors. The tilting system in the bogie, located entirely under the body, has permitted the reorganisation of the vestibules and passenger compartment areas. The bogie-to-body connection is extremely simple and easy to make, with clear advantages for maintenance.[citation needed]
The body, which exploits large aluminium extrusion technology, has substantial modularity and allows for extremely low axle weight, whilst fully respecting the highest safety standards, and allows the best exploitation of the space with different loading gauges.
The trains for VR are composed of 6 vehicles: two traction units, each of which consists of two motor coaches with a 4QC/inverter/converter with four traction motors (one for each bogie), plus a trailer coach with high voltage equipment (25 kV and 50 Hz) and traction transformer; and two end coaches with aerodynamic driving cab. One of the trailer coaches (TTC) has a special featured bar section.
The Finnish Pendolinos have received a lot of bad publicity in Finland for their serious reliability issues, mostly caused by technical problems with their tilting system and couplers. The coupling problems have grown important when the Pendolino network has been extended, requiring coupling and uncoupling at intersection stations. Because of unreliable uncoupling the train units often end up into different places than where they should be, often resulting in Pendolinos being replaced by commuter traffic equipment.[citation needed]
[edit] Karelian Trains
On August 28 2007 Karelian Trains, a joint venture between Finnish VR and Russian Railways, ordered four 1520 mm gauge seven-car Pendolinos for use on 220 km/h St Petersburg - Helsinki services expected to start in 2010.[1]. The model will be an improved version of the model in use by VR, with specifications better adapted to winter conditions solving the previous coupling problems. [2]
[edit] United Kingdom
In 2004 Virgin Trains in the UK began operating custom-designed Pendolino trains known as the Class 390 on its West Coast Main Line (WCML) franchise.
These trains were constructed by Alstom and are leased by Virgin Trains from Angel Trains.
Due to the failure of the WCML upgrade to provide in-cab signalling these units are limited in service to 125 mph (200 km/h) operation rather than their 140 mph (225 km/h) design speed. Virgin Trains are currently examining running these at 135 mph through the Trent Valley as part of their new WCML Franchise Proposal.
The Class 390 Pendolino are maintained by Alstom (West Coast Traincare) under contract to Virgin Trains until 2012. The main maintenance locations are Wembley, Midlands (Oxley, Wolverhampton), Manchester (Longsight), Glasgow (Polmadie), and Liverpool (minor work only) and several "Traincare Points" along the line of route (such as Euston and Carlisle). Headquarters for West Coast Traincare moved from the former Metro-Cammell factory at Washwood Heath in Birmingham upon its closure in November 2005 to Manchester Longsight depot with some functions being based at a new office facility at Oxley depot.
Options to add a tenth (and possibly eleventh) car to the nine-car Class 390 trains in the near future (possibly by another party, not Virgin) to increase passenger capacity is being considered by the DfT.
Two decades earlier British Rail had planned to bring tilting train technology to the same line with the APT project. Technical problems caused by pressure to launch the service early and lack of the political will to provide sufficient funding to overcome them forced the abandonment of this early attempt, although much of the technology was used to design and build Pendolino trains.[citation needed]
On 23 February 2007, a Virgin Trains Pendolino train was derailed near Grayrigg, Cumbria. Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson credited the Pendolino with saving lives in the crash, describing it to BBC News as being "built like a tank."[3] A report released on the 4th of September 2007 found that faulty points were the cause of the accident.[4]
[edit] Portugal
In Portugal the Pendolino is named Alfa Pendular and is operated by the Portuguese state railway company CP. It connects the cities of Braga, Porto, Aveiro, Coimbra, Santarém, Lisbon, Albufeira and Faro, among others, and has a top speed of 220 km/h (136.7 mph). The bogies had to be redesigned for operation on Portugal's broad gauge track, and the trains were assembled by Alstom at the Portuguese Amadora plant.
[edit] Slovenia
Slovenian Railways operates a Pendolino tilting train similar to the Italian model on its main lines. The ICS links the major cities of Slovenia in one line: Koper (only in summer), Ljubljana, Zidani Most, Celje and Maribor, with a frequent service that acts as a high-speed shuttle. Once per day the route from Maribor to Ljubljana is extended as international train to Venice via Monfalcone serving Trieste. For further information, see InterCitySlovenija.
[edit] Czech Republic
In 2000 Fiat Ferroviaria undertook an order of construction of Czech tilting train and changed it to Pendolino. The first set was delivered in 2004 as Pendolino ČD 680. While testing from Břeclav to Brno on November 18, 2004, the Pendolino reached a speed of 237 km/h and created a new Czech railway speed record.
The train was featured in the 2006 James Bond film Casino Royale. While in reality the Czech Pendolino does not actually operate the route, in the movie it was shown to journey from Switzerland to Montenegro.
During the testing period, the train had problems with the Czech signalling system. The problems were said to be solved and the trains entered regular service in December 2005 between Prague and Ostrava. As of late January 2006, all five Czech Pendolino trains that had been put in service suffer from software and functional problems. The range of problems was spanning from failing air-conditioning and heating to failures of the tilting control. The supposedly ERTMS compliant control system ATLAS is not able to properly join several discrete systems each based on different software platforms. Similar problems have also been reported from Finland. All problems were fixed.
In December 2006 Czech Pendolino was given permission to operate in Slovakia and Austria. Since 10 December 2006 Czech Railways operates 7 times a day route Prague-Pardubice-Olomouc-Ostrava (SuperCity Pendolino), 2 times a day between Prague-Brno-Vienna (SuperCity Johann Gregor Mendel and SuperCity Smetana) and once a day Prague-Brno-Bratislava (SuperCity Slovenská strela). On December 1st, 2007 a Pendolino derailed in Prague. No one was injured but the train was severely damaged.
[edit] China
China Railway High-speed (CRH) purchased technologies from Alstom to assemble 60 sets of high speed EMU trains, which have been named CRH5 and are based on Pendolino trains used in Finland. The CRH5 are non-tilting trains.
[edit] The future
Currently, a number of countries in Central and Eastern Europe have ordered Pendolino trainsets. For this reason, the Pendolino-type train is set to be the one with the greatest penetration in the high-speed market of Central and Eastern Europe.
[edit] References
- ^ Karelian Trains awards Pendolino contract. Railway Gazette International (2007-09-05). Retrieved on 2007-09-06.
- ^ "Uudet Pendolinot kestävät talvea", MTV3 News, 18 May 2008
- ^ [1] "It is a very sad day - Branson." BBC News. 24 February 2007.
- ^ [2] "Train crash points not inspected " BBC News. 4 September 2007.
[edit] See also
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