Bombardier to build 80 new HSR trainsets for China

[bikkuri bahn]

http://www.montrealgazette.com/Bombardier+wins+Chinese+train+contract/2042522/story.html

 

It's called the Zefiro, a new type to me:

 

http://www.zefiro.bombardier.com/en/home/index.html

 

*Interestingly, one seat configuration has five abreast, a la shinkansen.  Also, Bombardier claims a design with the highest passenger capacity for an HSR design, though JR East would beg to differ with their E4 design:

 

http://www.zefiro.bombardier.com/en/efficiency/value_for_money.html

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E4_Series_Shinkansen

[Bernard]

I love the design. It's like a cross of the Komome & the 500 Shinkansen (or 800)

Just out of curiosity since the Japanese had a prototype of the Fastech which they recently demolished, would it have been possible to have sold that train it to the Chinese or wouldn't that have met their needs?

[disturbman]

It look likes the new ETR 610 to me

 

 

To sold one train, and even more a prototype, to the Chinese will have make no good. It's an uninteresting deal. It will have been high to maintain. Chinese needs thousands of new rolling stock and they are starting to build them themselves. They might have been interested in the technology but I'm not sure the Japanese will have be happy to hand it over to them.

 

The current order of Zephiro (build by a joint venture of Bombardier and a chinese manufacturer) si for 80 trains and certainly much more to come. Still it's strange to see Bombardier roll out a real high speed train.

 

Railway Gazette news

[railzilla]

Its definately not an ETR610. As the ETR is made by Alstom in Italy former FIAT plant. And the FIAT trains are even worse than FIAT cars. The ETR610 has many troubles and still cannot run it's intended service. The predecesors ETR470 were even worse and are famous for many breakdowns. Between Zürich and Lugano a ICN and an ETR 470 will operate only a few minutes appart, so passengers traveling within Switzerland wont be affected by delays made in Italy. For my own experience the ETR470 only once run like it should the other times they had to disactivate the tilting mechanism or replace the train by a loco hauled smelly train. Finally swiss federal railways decided to end the cooperation with the Italian railways and disband Cisalpino which is running the 470 and 610, because the was zero interst from th eItalian side to improve the service. Hopefully one train each will go to the Swiss transportation museum and the restwill meet the cutting torch soon.

The trains even got a "fan" page

http://cessoalpino.com/de/home/

[disturbman]

Strangely enough the other versions of those trains seems to run without major flaws. The real problem for the Cisalpino service (RIP), as I understood it, was the lack of proper maintenance on the part of Trenitalia for the ETR 470. As for the new, very late, ETR 610, I also heard that things were geting better and that the last time they were taken out of service was because the problem prevention system was functioning a bit too good. Which is not a bad thing in it self.

 

But man, you really are worked up about those trains. I just said "it looks like an ETR 610 to me". I was speaking about design. That's all. I know very well that ETRs and Pendolinos are old FIAT Ferroviara products that now belongs to Alstom. If you prefer, I should have said that the new Chinese Zephiros looks a lot like the CHR5 to me. I never implied it was actually an ETR.

[to2leo]

Very exciting news for China and Bombardier!  Too bad the Canadian govn't is still sitting on their hands to start a HSR system.

[bikkuri bahn]

For those interested, more technical information on the Zefiro trainset(including underfloor equipment arrangement on p. 5) :

 

http://www.superscooper.com/en/1_0/pdf/Bombardier_Zefiro_Technical_Description_en.pdf