When the newly opened China-Laos railway, the streamlined body gallops forward; when more and more people around are accustomed to taking the high-speed rail, thousands of miles apart... People can't help but forbid going back and exploring——
From now to the future, the "old" invention of the railway, which was born in 1825, this once despised "sunset" tool, is how to spread wings for the city and for human life.
March 26, 2018, Laos Moding, the construction site of the China-Laos Railway Friendship Tunnel. Xinhua News Agency photo
The "sunset theory" rippled, and many countries began to dismantle railways
On September 27, 1825, the Stockton-Darlington Railway, the world's first railway made in Britain, was officially opened. It is understood that it took three years to build a successful, fish belly-shaped wrought rail, weighing 13.9 kg per meter. At that time, there were only two locomotives, less than 1/20 the size of modern ordinary locomotives, with a pair of upright cylinders and a pair of moving wheels with a diameter of 122 centimeters, with a total weight of nine tons and a travel speed of about 13 kilometers per hour.
After more than 100 years of rapid development, under the background of the development of new means of transportation and new technologies, railways have entered the "downhill road" in many countries and regions. At that time, the construction of ordinary roads and highways was in full swing, and there was a great momentum to replace the railway; the safety of civil airliners was increasing day by day, the cost of travel was becoming more and more reasonable, and the number of international and domestic routes surged. In both passenger and freight areas, the status of railways has been impacted.
At that time, some people once thought that "this is the obsolete technology of the 19th century" and "there will be no hope of living until the 21st century"; along with it, some countries demolished more than 100,000 kilometers of railways in one go, so violently that the ripples of the "railway sunset theory" spread, and Britain and Germany began to dismantle.
However, the irreplaceability of the railway as a mode of transportation ultimately stimulates its own potential, adheres to technological innovation and breakthroughs, continuously improves efficiency, finds a broader application scenario, and "lives" better and better.
List the five main modes of transport in the world, and compare them from five dimensions: transport efficiency, transport costs, transport conditions, developmentability and mobility. Rail transportation with railway as the main body has high transportation efficiency, low transportation cost, good transportation conditions, strong developability, and high mobility; road transportation, medium transportation efficiency, high transportation cost, general transportation conditions, poor developability, and high mobility; waterway transportation, high transportation efficiency, low transportation cost, harsh transportation conditions, and poor mobility; air transportation, although the transportation mobility is extremely high, the transportation cost is high and the transportation conditions are harsh; pipeline transportation has an advantage in efficiency and cost, but the mobility is poor.
Look at the rail network data of countries around the world. According to incomplete statistics, russia has nearly 100,000 kilometers of operating mileage, nearly 30,000 kilometers in Japan, more than 40,000 kilometers in Germany, nearly 20,000 kilometers in britain, and nearly 30,000 kilometers in France. According to the land area, the railway operating mileage per 10,000 square kilometers, Germany, britain, and Japan are the top three. In terms of annual passenger traffic, China, Japan and Germany rank high. In terms of the number of rides per capita per year, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom are higher. In China, as of July 2020, the railway operating mileage exceeded 140,000 kilometers.
At that time, more than half of the Christmas cards sent to Europe by Japan were shinkansen photos
It's a little-known anecdote: After the first Line of the Shinkansen connecting Tokyo and Osaka opened in 1964, the president of the Franco-Japanese Friendship Association lamented: "For a long time, more than half of the Christmas cards sent to Europe by Japan were photos of the Shinkansen, and they were eager to let the world know about the Shinkansen." ”
With the development of technology, the successful operation of high-speed railways proves that railways are a competitive modern means of transportation. As a result, the "race for supremacy" is more intense, and behind it is a race between countries for systems engineering scientific research capabilities.
As of 2020, the Japan Shinkansen has a total of 9 lines, including 2 mini Shinkansen with shorter lines, connecting most of Japan's important cities. The Shinkansen is designed to meet the needs of both fast and large-scale transportation, so the construction and operation technology is different from that of traditional railways, such as the full use of power decentralized trains, the full use of three-dimensional crossing of the track, the automatic control system of the train, etc., and the shortest can be operated at intervals of 3 minutes. With the exception of the Mini Shinkansen, trains run at a maximum speed of more than 300 km/h.
In France, the construction of the TGV south-east line from Paris to Lyon was approved in 1971, with a total length of 417 kilometers, of which 389 kilometers were newly built high-speed railway lines, and the entire line was completed and opened to traffic in September 1983. The maximum speed of the high-speed train is 270 kilometers, the travel time between the two cities has been shortened from 3 hours and 50 minutes to 2 hours, and the passenger traffic has increased rapidly. In 1989 and 1990, France built the Atlantic Line from Paris to Le Mans and from Paris to Tours, with trains reaching a maximum speed of 300 kilometers per hour. The Northern Line, also known as the Nordic Line, runs from Paris via Lille, through the English Channel Tunnel to London, and is connected to Brussels in Belgium in northern Europe, Cologne in Germany, and Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and is an important international passage.
In China, last year's 250 km per hour CR300 Fuxing EMU was successfully developed and put into use, and a number of high-speed railways in Hangzhou-Shenzhen, Lianzhen, Guiguang and other high-speed railways will be put into operation. At this point, the Fuxing series EMUs with a speed of 160 km to 350 km per hour have all been put into use. China's high-speed rail has a mileage of more than 20,000 kilometers.
"Railway construction is inseparable from the integration of high and new technologies, and the improvement of related scientific research and engineering capabilities includes multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary frontier promotion, which is a systematic and wide-coverage comprehensive system." Qi Xueyin, former party secretary of Shanghai University of Technology, said.
For example, with the increase of speed, the two trains stagger and pass the air is squeezed, and the dynamic influence of the train affects the body and speed; when the train travels at high speed, it is like a giant ship in the sea breaking the "invisible wave", which is how to deal with the pressure and possible deformation of different soils such as the surrounding soft soil and thaw soil; the railway crosses the river, spanning thousands of kilometers, multiple climate zones, facing the huge temperature difference environment of minus tens of degrees Celsius to tens of degrees Celsius above zero, how to ensure the performance of key materials such as the body, rail, and roadbed.
"These forward-looking explorations in the fields of basic and applied research, as well as the transformation and innovation of high-end engineering technologies, have brought about the cluster growth of key technologies, mutually promoted with the development of railways, and formed a spillover effect to benefit a wider range." Qi Xueyin said. In addition to technical indicators, equipment levels and facility construction, the improvement of soft power such as basic services and social governance promoted by railway development is also an important technical reserve.
The gap between 400 km/h and 700 km/h is the focus of the global research frontier
The race never stops. In the current land transport demand coordinate system, the speed of about 200 kilometers per hour is covered by the automobile highway; the speed of 400 kilometers per hour is continuously consolidated by technological innovation; and the speed of more than 700 kilometers per hour is completed by aircraft. The remaining 400 km / h speed ~ 700 km / h this gear is vacant, the global rail transit research frontier is also focusing on this. It is reported that the Central Shinkansen under construction in Japan hopes to seize the site of speed of more than 500 kilometers per hour through the depth and large-scale application of magnetic levitation technology.
Investing heavily, just for the sake of being fast? This is clearly not the case. To some extent, the railway network is like a human blood vessel or nerve, connecting urban areas and suburbs, cities and cities, cities and wildernesses, and even through the mainland and across the strait, its transportation capacity is one of the decisive factors in the strength of the body, and the relevant layout has been elevated to the height of the national strategy.
Let's take a look at the transportation development plans formulated by various countries for the future.
In 2011, the European Union issued the Roadmap for European Transport Integration – Building a Competitive and Resource-Efficient Transport System, which states that by 2050, half of road transport over 300 kilometres will be converted to rail and water transport. The roadmap covers areas such as transport infrastructure and investment, innovation and the internal market. The goal of the white paper is to make European transport competitive.
In japan's Land Strategic Plan 2050, released in 2014, Japan proposed a transportation development strategy to strengthen Japan's global competitiveness. These include: the realization of new forms of dynamic urban spatial agglomeration in the new progress. The construction of the Chuo Shinkansen completed the integration of the Tokyo Metropolitan Area, the Osaka Metropolitan Area, and the Nagoya Metropolitan Area. In the metropolitan area, the plan includes four large international airports, two large international ports, and the traffic between Tokyo and Osaka is like an urban connection. It is reported that after the opening of the Chuo Shinkansen, it is expected that the drive between Tokyo and Osaka will be shortened from about 2 hours to 1 hour. The goal of the metropolitan area pattern is to promote the impact of the metropolitan area on a larger scale through the high-speed transportation network composed of shinkansen, aviation and highways, attract and collect people, money, materials and information from all over the world in a fiercely competitive international environment, and promote the common development of cities, regions and countries.
China's Outline for Building a Transportation Powerhouse and the 2045 U.S. Transportation: Trends and Prospects outline the development of three-dimensional transportation networks, including railways.
The future is coming, pondering "fast" and "slow"
In the era of intelligence, what will happen to high-speed rail? Academician Ding Rongjun, a scientist at CRRC Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Research Institute, said in a report entitled "The Development of Global Science and Technology and Rail Transit Technology": "The future development direction of rail transit will continue to be intelligent and informatized, and to achieve its leapfrog development, innovation will never end." In his view, the fourth industrial revolution has arrived, and various technological innovations characterized by digitalization and intelligence will subvert the existing forms, divisions of labor and organizational methods of many industries.
It is worth mentioning that the "smart train" released by CRRC has been unveiled at the International Rail Transit Technology Exhibition in Berlin, Germany, and its intelligent control system is led by CRRC Zhuzhou. "The 'smart train' is not a simple concept that can be completed, for a high-speed train with more than 40,000 parts, it needs to be intelligent in many core parts." He said.
"Railways and trains are not only modes of transportation and tools, but also can take people to see the scenery, which is also a landscape in itself." Qi Xueyin believes that through the humanistic communication contained in it, it is closely embedded with one station and one city after another, and the regional history and culture and modern technological innovation intersect to form a unique concrete.
Train windows outline picturesque scenery along the road. Xinhua News Agency photo
West of Bangkok, Thailand, on both sides of the Maikorn Railway, which crosses the wet market, hawkers and tourists are in their place, and the city is full of fireworks; from London to Istanbul, the 138-year-old Orient Express travels through the European continent with a legend, and there are nearly 10 movies based on it; the Glacier train in the Alps, known as the world's slowest express, travels at a speed of 30 kilometers per hour, and the huge glass windows bring a panoramic view, and hundreds of thousands of people enjoy the beauty of ice and snow along the way every year...
The explosive development of new technologies such as information technology and artificial intelligence has led to the improvement of the energy level of modern railways, all the way to the future. There is no contradiction between being faster and slower.
Column Editor-in-Chief: Gong Danyun Text Editor: Peng Deqian
Source: Author: Peng Deqian