icn

Removing humans isn't the most important point. Removing variability is. Many (perhaps most) accidents occur because the rules were not followed and not because the rules were wrong - computers are better at following rules than we are.

Coop (the other big supermarket) also appears to use these in Aclens and Schafisheim: the latest ones are pictured in https://www.zagro-group.com/en/our-company/news/detail?tx_news_pi1[action]=detail&tx_news_pi1[controller]=News&tx_news_pi1[news]=106&cHash=e39a19500caad73a63ac497450945452 , and what I presume was the first one is at: https://www.railcare.ch/de/schweiz-ist-zu-klein/ (Technically they seem to belong to Railcare, but Railcare is part of Coop and primarily transports Coop goods.)

Trouble would be platform length, unless they operate the 5-car Azumas that way - mind you the bi-mode Azumas arrived around the same time as electrification and would've solved the same problem differently. But for Cross Country electrification wasn't an issue anyway, so I suspect it's more about paths and the like.

Isn't this what Emergency Call in GSM-R is for (although I see that's a relatively recent development in the UK)? I suppose it depends on the driver remembering to trigger it, but presumably you do want to use it in any circumstance where egress might be expected.

3 different pans isn't uncommon - or in fact required - on stock that can operate Germany-Switzerland-Italy. 1950mm Carbon for Germany (and Austria and a few others), 1450mm Carbon for Switzerland, 1450mm Copper for Italy - although that's for only 2 different power systems. On the Giruno I think they decided on two 1950mm pans and one of each of the 1450mms - and I imagine it's similar on most locos because they spend more time in Germany? Although since these locos carry 4 pantographs it's entirely possible they have 4 different variants after all. On the other hand, some of the Swiss network around Basel is built to be 1450/1950mm compatible allowing German equipment to reach some stations or yards without additional pantographs, but that's only a geometry change again without a power system change. As a bonus, there's now a new 1600mm standard that's supposed to be used for new construction at least for transeuropean lines (as in: lines need to be built compatible with both 1900mm and 1600mm trains), but I don't know if any vehicles use that - I imagine it's a question of waiting for the infrastructure to be adapted first, and at some point new rolling stock can start using it.

If you're referring to the range shown on the speedo: I don't believe that would be true. ETCS software should be consistent and compliant, but it doesn't have to be identical and in fact you'll have different software running on different trains. Compare for example the Giruno which has a speedo up to 300 km/h (train is certified for 250kmh, uses an ETCS installation from Siemens): https://bahnblogstelle.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/ad2b9506_2.jpg vs a CFL KISS with speedo up to 200km/h (train certified for 160 km/h, ETCS manufacturer unknown): http://picup.oliverlamm.de/files/IMG_c25533b136eea9ea34ed12c08505cc1f_$1$eqvCjbXZ$D_7yaTJYTKtluo_aVEl_U_.jpg

It's about the timetable and not the speed - every 15 vs 30 minutes can be quite a difference when you're arriving tired and just want to get home. But I suspect business travel will be their main moneymaker regardless - IME there's too little advance notice to be able to get the cheaper fares, so there are plenty of business travellers on it and most of them at full price.

There's travel for business, and there's travel for work. I don't doubt that the former will continue, as it mostl depends on "meetings" and lunches and dinners and what not for the simple reason that most business for the time being depends on relationships (whether or not that's a good thing is a separate question, there's a reason that governments use public procurement but public procurement also has tons of issues). But travel for work is a different matter. There's plenty of long distance collaboration at my employer, and we get by just fine without much travelling - because people have realised that relying on written communication helps a lot with record keeping and knowledge sharing, and video meetings are almost good enough for the rest (meeting in person is still helpful at the beginning of long-term collaborations if you ask me, and in those cases travel is usually approved). We used to be allowed and encouraged to travel, but that's gone down massively since the pandemic - the fact that our productivity jumped during the pandemic gave the decisionmakers all the data they wanted. I've seen similar for many companies - unless it's for dealmaking (internal or external) there's just far less travel. The significant sustained drop in business-class fares on what is/was one of our most hotly travelled routes appears to confirm - there's less company-funded travel going on.

And Stadler have the Giruno with articulated powered bogies, albeit not true high speed at only 250km/h. The claim that you are better off with power cars above 5 coaches is conditional on various factors. The choice of EMU for the latest Swiss double-decker intercity trains was driven both by capacity factors (claimed 10% increase in capacity over an equivalent 400m train which ends up needing 2 locos), and acceleration. The latter factor is less important for long intercity routes such as what the TGV operates on, but for other locations it is important. The former would need to be weighed against various other costs and it might not even be necessary for many routes. Just because locomotives might be purportedly better for the UK doesn't mean that they are better everywhere else in the world. Finally, if the evaluation was based on arbitrary locos and arbitrary coaches then it doesn't translate to a dedicated loco paired with dedicated coaches that are never mixed and matched with other trains. Nay I suspect one important factor instead is pantographs. The TGV - like Swiss IC double-deckers - has a continuous upper floor, as opposed to an intermediate deck at the coach ends as is seen on most double-deck trains. In the case of an EMU that leaves you with a single location for your pantograph - right above the cabs. Good luck fitting two pantographs there. If my memory serves me correctly two pantograph widths are needed for France alone. Next, I'm not sure what pantograph arrangement is used when two units are coupled together, but if they want to use the foremost and rearmost pantograph then there's the question of whether a pantograph at the very front of the train - as opposed to 20m further back at the rear of the power car - is even safe or reliable at 320km/h. You could perhaps fix the pantograph issue by making the end-cars single-deck, but you'll lose the continuous upper deck and therefore trolley access for these cars. You'll also lose some more capacity (beyond the space taken up by distributed traction equipment), at this point you might not have much of an advantage over locos. Or perhaps you can use a variable width pantograph, but it's not clear whether they're suitable for 320km/h - the version that was designed for the Swiss ICs was only designed for 200km/h and isn't even being used yet because these trains are staying domestic for the time being. Combine these factors with the potential noise and comfort downsides of distributed traction, and it's not clear why the SNCF would want to risk investing in a double-deck EMU.

Very true - there's plenty of Siemens Velaro kit around the world now, not just China but Spain, Russia, Turkey and soon Egypt. But if I may be honest, the Germans are also not particularly good at actually building the rails to run those trains over. Better than the UK mind you.

What's the story with the West Highland seated coach these days, and will this change anything about it? Turns out it's quite easy to find out for the curious: https://www.gov.scot/policies/government-finance/

It always surprises me how often China is brought up. It's understandable given how much high-speed rail they build, but surely places such as France and Spain are much more relevant (weather aside for the latter). They're also a lot better at building it than the UK. Comparing against those countries might help figure out what can realistically be changed.

My (possibly incorrect) understanding is that the electric boxes can be retracted, mind you I have no idea if that's universal or only on specific units. Although another issue seems to be that some couplers have two airpipes and some have only one, which no doubt adds some more things to verify. Getting away from the UK: in Switzerland they often seem to send in a rescue+firefighting train if an MU has failed. These aren't fitted with autocouplers but I suspect they have a complement of adapters on board. I'm guessing this is only a feasible solution because they need these trains due to the many tunnels, and they'll necessarily be on standby - I haven't heard of anything similar in the UK (Eurotunnel appears to use almost-road-vehicles for firefighting, and normal locos for dragging). It's still a bit surprising, since you'd think that normal MUs will be closer than the nearest rescue train on most occasions, on the other hand requisitioning a passenger vehicle might result in more disruption to schedules - not that a train stuck on the line won't already be disruptive. I guess one advantage of this solution is that the rescue train crew are fully trained in dragging various trains.

Coupling adapters do exist, but I have no idea if they're carried or stored in convenient locations. And, of course, you need a loco nearby - finding another multiple unit is presumably more convenient as opposed to the only possible solution. And I'm not sure how much hassle the brakes are. And there's that whole topic of multiple coupler types around the UK. I suspect that finding a compatible MU is the preferred solution because it's faster ad easier. Mind you the incompatible coupler issue should go away eventually thanks to the push to standardise on Dellner (interestingly it's reuqired by law for high-speed trains in the EU, but is being done by choice elsewhere I suppose).

The latest European attempt at a cargo-multiple-unit is a bit different: it's arguably not an actual multiple unit (even if it reuses Flirt/GTW electronics), instead there are two very short locos that you'd be forgiven for thinking are just shunters sandwiching some wagons you'd be forgiven for thinking are just normal wagons: https://blog.sbbcargo.com/42416/sbb-cargo-und-schweizerische-post-testen-innovativen-pendelzug/ The more interesting parts are: it's hybrid, it's using the new automatic coupling internally (although judging by the photos they don't have the electrics installed on the coupler yet and are relying on permanently attached cables for now, and it's not clear whether the locos are fitted at all), and seems to be fitted with automatic brake tests and the like. I suspect they'd be using it to validate some of the work around the "digital automatic coupling" that's going on, although I wonder how much testing they'd really be doing if it's staying in the same formation all the time. Although it's not a true EMU, it's arguably more flexible, perhaps cheaper since it reused existing locos, and doesn't appear to be much worse than the Japanese M250 (120km/h vs 130km/h, similar power output despite shorter length).

Unless you've had the misfortune of staying close to a train station in the US before, the average person from any other country would have no idea just how bad things can be. I won't make such a mistake ever again, but the first time was a shock - station with a crossing on each end meant each train had to do the 4-horn sequence once before arrival, once on departure, and of course the inevitable bells. And in my case this being the Bay Area the trains are somewhat frequent. (Construction methodologies probably didn't help with the experience either.)

What I said applies to transpac as much as it does to transatlantic - and keep in mind that transatlantic to the west coast is also in the region of 12 hours. Try to take a flight out of LA for example and most of your options are on United, Delta or AA - only the last has something approximating first on a very few routes, and even they are apparently getting rid of it. Some of the other airlines will offer first e.g. Lufthansa, Swiss, Cathay, JAL, ANA - but the first class cabins are absolutely tiny in comparison to business (and note that this is generally limited to their LA/SF routes, I can remember only business on most flights out of Seattle for example). Plenty of other airlines don't bother with first for transpac such as Air NZ, EVA, Virgin, China Airlines. In other words: first is indeed limited, and its declining. And I'm not the only one to be saying so: https://www.economist.com/international/2019/03/09/first-class-air-travel-is-in-decline

That's not what I'm seeing on flights: for long-haul there's less and less first-class, some airlines have scrapped it completely (some of the US airlines for example) and others are reducing the number of routes where it's offered (Lufthansa and British Airways come to mind). But in terms of the seats offered, business class is getting closer to the first class of days gone by - flat beds in business haven't been around so long after all.

All the studies I've seen show the opposite, funny that - here's some data in fact: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/publications/does-working-home-work-evidence-chinese-experiment What is true is that many of the higher ups are against it because of loss of "control" but I think that reveals more about them than the realities of remote work. (That doesn't negate the fact that some work requires physical presence, but most work nowadays is digital or clerical in nature.) Back to the original topic: what's stopping international trains going further? Partly loading gauge - UK compatible trains are more expensive, partly safety systems - got to add AWS and TPWS, partly just plain old politics around border controls - checks on arrival or rolling checks or checks on departure are good enough for many countries including even the US, but trains to the UK seem to require multiple levels of checks which is likely to be unique? Rolling checks are the only thing that would enable a service that has multiple stops on the continent followed by multiple stops on the island, and I suspect that the economics for such regional services won't work out if you need a static check at either end (because you can probably fill the train for the tunnel if you take a mix of passengers from all of Brussels, Amsterdam, Lille to say all of Birmingham and Manchester, but not if you take them only from Brussels or only to Birmingham).

Both Italy and France do seem to have a knack for ugly driving trailers, but the German IC driving trailers aren't bad (the current livery is probably the worst they've seen - the MET livery was probably best), and the SBB single-deck carriages similarly (the double-deck carriages used to look like lumbering elephants, but the new livery makes them look reasonable). To be fair the SBB carriages were custom-built (but based on an existing carriage design), but the German one is a conversion. But I think the difference here is: the DBSO dates from 1979, and equivalent driving carriages from Germany in Switzerland in that timeframe are also very utilitarian - the following is a great example although it's also by far the worst I could find: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Bn-Wendezug.jpg

From various older threads I also got the impression that these were entirely in Eileen's hands. If it's a sprung underframe you're after, the scalefour society has some GWR underframes in their shop (but not w-irons by themselves) - but I'm not familiar with this specific etch so I don't know if they'll have anything suitable for you. For some reason I thought there were at least a few other suppliers of sprung W-irons by themselves but apparently all I can find is Exactoscale who also don't sell them anymore, and Masokits with a limited selection and an archaic ordering system (don't worry they don't want my business anyway - there's a big notice about refusing overseas orders...): https://traders.scalefour.org/downloads/masokits/masokitsinterimcatalogue19a.pdf This certainly does throw a spanner in the works of those needing sprung w-irons.

In some countries, EP brakes on loco-hauled and push-pulls are rather common. DB and SBB are the two I know of (the latter utilising the UIC standard EP cable). Depends on timetabling needs I suppose.

Parts of East-West rail or even HS2 are modellable but somewhat boring (sorry!). I suspect that there are countless branches all over the place that can be accurately modelled, although they might not be particularly interesting - as in, anywhere where all services are something like a 156 or 158 or 170.

Some more in here - sounds like the stock wasn't actually built yet, although I'm not sure how much to trust the article given that they appear to be confusing loading gauge and track gauge (from what I can tell this is an actual narrow gauge network in addition to the loading gauge issues): https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2023/02/spain-spends-258m-in-trains-that-dont-fit-through-its-tunnels/

Hold on a minute - "fastest hydrogen train to date"? No, Siemens already rolled out a 160km/h Hydrogen train last year: https://www.railway-technology.com/news/siemens-mobility-db-hydrogen-train/ (Neither appears to be in passenger service yet though.) Nevertheless, it's good to see investment in such technology worldwide.