|
|
| Re: CALTRAIN Prepares for Electrification (918285) | |||
 |
|||
| Home > SubChat | |||
|
[ Read Responses | Post a New Response | Return to the Index ] |
|
||
|
Re: CALTRAIN Prepares for Electrification |
|
|
Posted by WillD on Mon Mar 29 15:54:23 2010, in response to Re: CALTRAIN Prepares for Electrification, posted by Jersey Mike on Mon Mar 29 15:22:00 2010. European style EMU's lack both any reasonable form of crash worthiness and any form of railfan windows.Not true on both counts. In my experience most current German cab cars, either intercity single level or regional bilevel cars, have a railfan view through a large, clear divider between the cab and passenger cabin such as can be seen below.  With the actual EMUs it may be more difficult to provide passenger capacity along the length of the EMU. The Siemens Desiro DD places the power electronics in the area immediately behind the cab and thus segregates the passenger cabin from the cab. The same is true of the Stadler DOSTO bilevel EMU. However, the Alstom Coradia places the power system at the rear of the one cab car, so passenger access to the rear of the cab is unfettered. Certainly a layout like the Bombardier double deckers is far and away superior in terms of a railfan view than the Bombardier Bilevels Caltrain has most recently ordered. As for the crashworthiness the study which accompanies the FRA waiver confirms that the European EN15227 standard is equal or superior to the FRA's 49CFR238 under most realistic circumstances. At anything above 10 to 20mph the FRA's crashworthiness standards becomes pure fantasy and we end up hauling around enormous amounts of weight for absolutely no benefit in a collision. |
|
(There are no responses to this message.)
|
|