Page 485 - 360.revista de Alta Velocidad - Nº 6

High Speed Rail in Spain - a statement from a foreign expert

Comparison of routing data between Madrid - Sevilla in Spain and Shin Osaka - Hakata in Japan.

The routing data for the Sanyo Shinkansen are taken from source [6]. The minimum radius and
the distance between tracks are the same in Japan and Spain, in all other criteria the routing
data of the Madrid - Sevilla line are more convenient for a higher speed than those of Shin Osaka
- Hakata line. But the trains between Kokura and Shin Kobe on the Sanyo-Shinkansen run with a
speed of 300 km/h, as shown in table 2. This fact raises the question how a travel time Madrid -
Sevilla would look like based upon a running speed of 300 km/h. For this step at first the travel
time prolongation in the section south of Puertollano has to be calculated, where the minimum
radius falls below an amount of 4000 m. This calculation is carried out in

Table 4. Calculation of travel time prolongation Puertollano - Sevilla

radius running speed length of the travel time travel time

(m) (km/h) section (km) (min) prolongation
(min)
4000 300 72 14,4

3200 270 72 16,0 1,6
2300 270 28 6,2

2300 215 28 7,8 1,6

The technical data were taken from source [7].

A new travel time Madrid - Sevilla with one intermediate stop at Córdoba can be calculated as
follows :

Basic travel time: 112 min analogous to Zhengzhou East - Wuhan in China. This amount
takes into account a 2 min stop at one intermediate station,

Travel time prolongation: 3,2 min
reserve: 2,8 min

total = 118 min.

A new travel time Madrid - Sevilla based upon a running speed of 300 km/h can be calculated
to an amount of 118 min. This means a travel time reduce of 32 min (= -21,3%) compared to
150 min at present.
Additional remark: on his return trip from Ciudad Real on Saturday 07-10-2017 the author took
train AVE 3993+3943. In the section before Madrid the author could watch that in a car of this
train for a very short moment an amount of 298 km/h was shown.
3.8 Some basic statements for optimizing the AVE traffic

Some basic statements for the AVE traffic must be presented before an improvement for the
AVE traffic shall be developed.

1. Compared with other countries (Japan, China) we must always bear in mind that very
few trains will run over the tracks of the AVE lines,

2. these very few trains must run with the same speed over the tracks of the high speed
line,

International Congress on High-speed Rail: Technologies and Long Term Impacts - Ciudad Real (Spain) - 25th anniversary Madrid-Sevilla corridor 483