Train technology owes more to NASA than Brunel

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Jan 20, 2005

Relief may be at hand for Britain's rail travellers, after what seems like decades of declining service and broken promises to improve the system.

Relief may be at hand for Britain's rail travellers, after what seems like decades of declining service and broken promises to improve the system, now that Transport Secretary Alistair Darling has announced an order for 30 Shinkansen trains made by Hitachi worth over GBP 200 million, to be delivered within five years.

The creaking, overcrowded lines which punctuate the start and the end of the working day for thousands of miserable travellers will by 2009 be transformed into technological marvels on which delighted passengers relax to plan their productive days and relaxing evenings.

30 Bullet Trains have been ordered for the commuter lines of Kent.

They will almost certainly also be used on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, and seem likely to be rolled out across many of the nation's key commuter and intercity routes shortly after.

The advantage of importing trains is that the supporting technology is developed, mature and reliable.

Much of the rail network will have to be upgraded to accommodate the Bullet Trains, but the cost of doing this will be more than covered by the increased economic activity that will become possible.

The plan is that Hitachi will build the trains in Japan, in the Kasado works, with many of the key subsystems being supplied by the company's Mito, Narashino or Nakajo plants.

They will be shipped to Britain by sea, ready to run on the newly improved railways.

The Bullet Trains' onboard technology is well proven, much of it actually being standard or modified industrial electronics.

Support and maintenance arrangements will be included in the supply contract and are likely to involve Hitachi's existing network of distributors and service engineers.

"The main traction drive system is an inverter-fed motor, the same as used in industrial applications such as pumps, fans and manufacturing cells throughout industry, except of a much higher power capacity and voltage threshold", explains Stuart Harvey MD of Hitachi's UK distributor, Silverteam.

"The inverter uses power and control electronics to invert and smooth the supply's AC waveform to give a controllable variable speed characteristic to the traction motor which would otherwise be fixed speed".

The Bullet Trains' inverters are large and built at the Mito works to withstand the rigours of high speed travel and to operate over a wide temperature range.

There will be several other inverters on board each train, controlling functions such as ventilation, traction unit cooling and drinking and foul water pumping.

These inverters will be built at the Narashino works, as will those incorporated into the air conditioning units of which there will be two per passenger carriage plus more in the traction unit.

Hitachi SJ300 inverters on air conditioning units will be used throughout.

These are standard models as used in many, many buildings and other fixed installation, although they are modified for rail usage so that they can ride through over- and undervoltages, power surges and other supply fluctuations.

"As you look around a Bullet Train you see many Hitachi industrial automation components", comments Harvey.

"Several different models of HMI are used for passenger and crew information and security.

The full range of PLCs is in evidence with remote I/O; small ones locking the toilet door, medium ones interlocking the access doors and large ones configured to provide highly redundant high level integrated control through the six, eight or ten carriage length of the train.

"Being Japanese, the Bullet Trains are well equipped with catering facilities, electronic entertainment systems, telephones, computer terminals, workstations etc".

"These are all integrated through a control system that is the match of any I've seen in any industry".

"In fact I'd say they owe more to NASA than to Brunel".