Page 484 - 360.revista de Alta Velocidad - Nº 6

Andersen, Sven

Table 2. Travel time comparison of three railway connections in Spain, China and
Japan

distance number of inter- running travel commercial
Connection Country mediate speed time
(km) trains stop(s) (km/h) (min) speed (km/h)

250 -
Madrid - Sevilla Spain 472 7 1 150 188,8
270
Zhengzhou China 472 2 1 300 112 252,8
East-Wuhan 6 2 300 119 238,0

Kokura Shin 2 300 113 246,9
Kobe Japan 465 2 29 3 300 119 234,4

The figures in this table raise the question if the Madrid - Sevilla AVE-line couldn’t be upgraded
to a speed of 300 km/h, because the line is designed for an operating speed of 300 km/h.

3.7 Upgrading the AVE line Madrid - Sevilla to a speed of 300 km/h

The profile of the speed of the line proves that it is mainly designed for a speed of 300 km/h [5].
When high speed rail started to become an important topic on the agenda of several countries
in the last century no experiences existed between constructing and operating a high speed
line. When a new line is built daily operation has to deal with the design criteria. Under this
finding several countries now try to gain the highest speed from the infrastructure. In this way a
comparison between the routing data of the Sanyo-Shinkansen line Shin Osaka - Hakata in West
Japan and the AVE line Madrid - Sevilla in Spain could be very informative for Spain.

Table 3. This comparison is carried out in table 3.

tunnel distance distance passing
minimum maximum between vehicle between speed
cross
Route Country radius gradient section tracks width passing between
(m) (‰) (m) trains trains
(m ) (m) (m) (km/h)
2
Madrid Spain 4000 12,5 75 4,30 2,96 1,34 500
-Sevilla

Madrid
-Sevilla in 2,96
a section Spain 3250 12,5 75 4,30 1,34 430
south of (Talgo 350)
Puertollano
4000
Shin Osaka Japan 3500 = 15,0 63,4 4,30 3,38 0,92 600
- Hakata excep- (N 700)
tion

482 360.revista de alta velocidad