Asleep at the wheel.....

[Dr Mordrid]

....at 170 MPH (274 KPH)

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/pacific_rim/story.jsp?story=382370

Dr. Mordrid

[Paddy]

[Marshmallowman]

well...they have no "wheel" to fall asleep at, and it was on auto.
And I think trains like that have watchdog timer thingys, so after 10 minutes they would automatically apply the brakes if the timer was not reset, that is my assumption it has one, as all long distance trains in oz have them, and not having one would be insane.

But still, I would not like to have beeen on that particular train

[The PIT]

Most drivers on UK trains fall asleep. This mainly becuase there on there own and nothing is happening. Most of them don't even realise they've knodded off as it can only minutes at a time.

[Sasq]

its been in the news here a lot the last few days
They use an 8 min watchdog timer, and effectivly the train cut the power and thats why it pulled up two carrages short of the station.

[Sethos]

Remind me never to ride the bullet trains in Japan.

on another note, what does everyone think of having the bullet train instituted as a form of mass transportation in the states? Some that I've talked to think it a good idea, and others don't...comments?

~Sethos

[Nowhere]

The bullet trains (or InterCity for example, wich we have here; too bad they are about 70 km/h slower; oh well, it's still impressive when they pass the local station; and you can see some fools thinking "hey, the train is on the other end of the station, I can still walk through rails", who are forgetting that IC will be in place where they are in approximately 3 seconds ;P) are a good idea in small country I think (especially with large cities/airports far from the centers); it's faster to travel 300km in train than in plane (and stations are usually in the center of the city, airports - not). But bullet train travel time isn't even comparable with flight when you're speaking about large distances...

[thop]

I don't know whats so frightening about bullet trains The ICE3 here has a top speed of 330km/h. The will soon built courses here for the Transrapid (monorail), which goes up to 450km/h. One of them is already used in Shanghai since the 1.1.2003.
I agree with Nowhere that in a country as big as the US planes make much more sense than trains.

[Wombat]

Originally posted by Nowhere
[B But bullet train travel time isn't even comparable with flight when you're speaking about large distances... [/B]

That really depends on the distance. Yes, flight is technically very fast, but not when it takes 45-minutes to an hour from when I first sit down 'til when we're actually going anywhere.

[UtwigMU]

When I was driving a train (have connections: local train 15m up and down a station, got to see the interiour of TGV too - uber cool) there was a peddal.

When you unpressed it or failed to press it every minute or so (a sign that you're asleep the train would stop automatically).

[Topha]

Always found it strange that you dont use trains in america (only a few), you have so much space for high speed tracks, and it beats the plane for comfort, the car for speed and both for ecology.

[Wombat]

Originally posted by Topha
Always found it strange that you dont use trains in america (only a few), you have so much space for high speed tracks, and it beats the plane for comfort, the car for speed and both for ecology.

You see, that's the problem. With that much space, it's kind of like the last-mile cellular problem. We'd have to change SO much track that it's very prohibitive. Also, the existing tracks work just fine for the freight trains that run on them now (and lease them to Amtrak for passengers as well). There's also the general mismanagement of Amtrak.....