[PRCo] Fw: Maximum speed of low floors

[Jim Holland]

wrote in message news:...
 > In article <1194975309.935493.113540 at o38g2000hse.googlegroups.com>,
 > Crown-Horned Snorkack wrote:
 >
 > > Do low floor designs suffer any special restrictions to lower maximum
 > > speed than high floor trains of same gauge?
 >
 >
 > This depends entirely on what type of "low floor" car you are talking 
about.
 >
 > If we are talking about the European "low floor" streetcars which have
 > 100% curb-level floors, those have yet to be built for speeds about 
about
 > 45 mph. This is, however, similar to streetcars operating on the same
 > lines that are not 100% low floor. However, it should be noted that when
 > low floor designs first started to appear on streetcar lines in 
Europe, it
 > was qiuckly seen how superior a low floor design (even a partial one) is
 > at loading passengers, and so for many years no one has ordered any high
 > floor streetcars in Europe. Therefore, there are no practical competing
 > designs to compare.
 >
 > If we are talking about such cars as the "light rail" cars used in North
 > America, those have been built to operate at the same speeds as 
comparable
 > high floor cars. However, unlike the 100% low floor streetcars in 
Europe,
 > they only have about 70% low floor and have standard driving wheel
 > assemblies under the high floor sections.
 >
 > If we are talking about main line railroad services, Amtrak superliners
 > and Bombardier commuter cars have a low floor section and those 
operate at
 > the same speed as everything else.
 >
 > Here in the Pacific Northwest, and for the past 40 years or so in 
Europe,
 > the Talgo trains have operated at *faster* speeds than allowed with
 > standard equipment, and their entire design (including the floor height)
 > is quite low to the ground. They aren't quite as low to the ground as 
the
 > curb-height floors on "light rail" trains, but they are much lower than
 > the USA's standard height floors.
 >
 > So, it all depends on what type of equipment we are talking about. In 
the
 > case of the 100% low floor streetcars in Europe, the answer is that 
those
 > particular designs are limited in speed, but not any more so than
 > comparable car designs that are not 100% low floor. In all other
 > applications, the low floor does not cause any problems.
 >
 > --
 > -Glennl
 > e-mail hint: add 1 to quantity after gl to get 4317.

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Jim  Holland
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Studying Pittsburgh Railways Company (PRCo)
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..............................From 1930 -- 1950
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Pennsylvania  Trolley  Museum  (PTM)
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http://www.pa-trolley.org/
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N.M.R.A.
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http://www.nmra.org/