World High Speed Trains

[serotta1972]

High Speed Trains from Japan, Taiwan, Germany, France and England - all courtesy of Kato.  Who here have been lucky enough to ride more than one of these trains.  I've only ridden the W7 and it's nice and spacious especially the Green Car.  The only other HST I've ridden is the Amtrak Acela which is not represented here but hoping that Bachmann re-releases an N Scale version.  To ride an HST in Germany, France and England is definitely on my bucket list.

 

 

[chadbag]

I've ridden the W7 (or an E7 -- I don't remember which one).  I hope to get on an ICE of some sort in next year (for a ride).  I saw the original ICE-V prototypes in 1986, before they were in service, when they were on tour in Germany, but have never ridden any ICE, nor any other HST in Germany or Europe as a whole.  When I was in Taiwan I stayed in Taipei area so did not get to ride the 700T.  Would love to do that as well.

 

Nice collection there!

 

Edited June 9, 2019 by chadbag

[railsquid]

3 out of the 5 (various ICEs, W7 and the Eurostar, though back when I did the Eurostar it was the era when it popped up out of the tunnel on the British side straight onto the 3rd rail DC commuter network).

[Kiran]

On 6/8/2019 at 10:14 PM, serotta1972 said:

High Speed Trains from Japan, Taiwan, Germany, France and England - all courtesy of Kato.  Who here have been lucky enough to ride more than one of these trains.  I've only ridden the W7 and it's nice and spacious especially the Green Car.  The only other HST I've ridden is the Amtrak Acela which is not represented here but hoping that Bachmann re-releases an N Scale version.  To ride an HST in Germany, France and England is definitely on my bucket list.

 

 

Not sure what the images are but here are the trains I was on. I lived in England and traveled in Europe quite a bit.

 

England: Pendolino, class 43 HST, HS1, Eurostar (old and new)

France: TGV

Germany: ICE (not sure which version)

Japan: Shinkansen 700 series

US: Amtrak Acela (is it really high speed?)

[serotta1972]

@railsquid @Kiran - can you please share your impressions of the other HST’s relative to the Japanese Shinkansens. I rode the Acela prior to my first trip to Japan and it doesn’t even compare to the first train I rode in Japan which was the Narita Express. But the Acela is almost 20 years old so maybe it’s not a fair comparison. Good question, is the Acela even a HST? Well it does go 150 mph on a couple of sections. 

[serotta1972]

Oh I forgot, also @chadbag  - your impressions as well please. 

[chadbag]

I've not yet ridden on any European HST though 25 years ago I did board an ICE (1) for a moment to look around.  All of my HST experience is on Shinkansens.  That will hopefully change in a year (actually exactly a year from now -- early June 2020).

 

I think Shinkansens are the ones to beat but have no personal experience with anything but.

[railsquid]

Overall the Shinkansens are way better than anything else I've been on, simply because it's an efficient, highly-integrated network which Just Works (TM) (well most of the time).

 

- frequent service (except maybe at the northern fringes of the network)

- helpful platform markings to show you where to board]

- simple fare structure

- reserved seating is truly reserved

- you are guaranteed to be able to sit facing the direction of travel

- cars are relatively spacious

- polite and helpful staff

- excellent customer information (though you may need to be able to understand Japanese to get the most of it)

 

From memory, and it's been a while, I'd say the ICE and Eurostar interiors are actually nicer than the standard Shinkansen interiors, at least on JR East/JR Tokai, but slightly more cramped as the trains are built to run on the standard network, and as the seats are fixed in place (at least I never came across anything like they have in Japan with rotatable seats) you might end up travelling backwards (which I personally dislike) or stuck at a table seat facing people you don't really want to look at. Then you get things like the train turning up the wrong way round, or half of it's missing, or someone has nicked your reserved seat, or it gets stuck behind a late running non-high-speed train, or the service gets terminated early, or you have to deal with an employee who is having a bad day and gives the impression they wish you, the pesky customer, were dead, etcetera etcetera...

Edited June 11, 2019 by railsquid

[Kiran]

2 hours ago, serotta1972 said:

@railsquid @Kiran - can you please share your impressions of the other HST’s relative to the Japanese Shinkansens. I rode the Acela prior to my first trip to Japan and it doesn’t even compare to the first train I rode in Japan which was the Narita Express. But the Acela is almost 20 years old so maybe it’s not a fair comparison. Good question, is the Acela even a HST? Well it does go 150 mph on a couple of sections. 

Nothing can beat the Shinkansen for ride comfort. I guess ICE comes close. One thing I liked about ICE is the fact that some of them still have an on-board lounge/bar/cafe. I spent a really nice journey drinking beer on a ride from Bonn to Frankfurt airport with my uncle in the bar. That's the other thing. You could fly in to Frankfurt airport and take an ICE train to a lot of cities from the the station under the airport. I don't know why Japan doesn't connect their main airports with the Shinkansen network.

 

I also like the convenience of the Eurostar. I made a ton of day trips from London to Brussels. The newer trains don't have comfortable seats though. They have airport style security checks which is also a bit inconvenient.

 

Both the Class 43 HST and the Virgin Pendolino are capped at 125mph. They are OK. The diesel locos on the class 43 have a pretty interesting sound. I used to commute on them from Reading to London every day and they were always overcrowded.

[railsquid]

20 minutes ago, Kiran said:

Nothing can beat the Shinkansen for ride comfort. I guess ICE comes close. One thing I liked about ICE is the fact that some of them still have an on-board lounge/bar/cafe. I spent a really nice journey drinking beer on a ride from Bonn to Frankfurt airport with my uncle in the bar. That's the other thing. You could fly in to Frankfurt airport and take an ICE train to a lot of cities from the the station under the airport. I don't know why Japan doesn't connect their main airports with the Shinkansen network.

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narita_Shinkansen

[JR 500系]

Lovely roster Junior! 

 

While I haven't gotten any experience riding other high speed rails apart from Japan, I did took a trip on China's HSR... and while they are supposed to be almost identical to the comfort of the Japanese Shinkansen, I really cant say I enjoyed the ride as much as I did on the Japanese one, even though I rode on the China's First class HSR... the sound of the engine made me feel I was riding a subway train instead, and yes there were much more vibrations to my tea over the Japanese Shinkansens… 

[serotta1972]

Speaking of China’s HST, Model Train Plus has the Kunter CRH380AL on Pre-Order. I’ve seen Kunter’s other products owned by Railtunes and are of good quality. Looks like I’ll be adding a Chinese HST to my fleet.

[serotta1972]

Thank you guys for your sharing your experiences on the HST's from the other countries.  

 

[serotta1972]

Bachmann Spectrum re-released the Amtrak Acela and not wanting to wait for the N Scale version so I got one in HO.  It just so happens that one of end cars is the same road number as the one I rode from DC to Philadelphia back in 2017.  How cool is that.  Now I have an HST United States representative.

 

[chadbag]

HST might be pushing it 🙂

 

[Claude_Dreyfus]

In the UK, if you refer to an HST, you refer to this...

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_43_(HST)

 

There are, of course, plenty of others... Eurostar, West Coast Pendolino, Class 91, Azuma, IEP, but the class 43 locos and mark 3 stock (class 253 and 254 in old money) are still the masters...43 years after the production sets were introduced. And yes, my experience of them is that they are very smooth and comfortable.

 

Not as good as the series 700, which is still the best high speed train I have travelled on (which includes both Eurostar types, ICE 3, Thalys, series E2 bullet and West Coast Pendolino (class 390)).

Edited June 26, 2019 by Claude_Dreyfus

[Martijn Meerts]

39 minutes ago, chadbag said:

HST might be pushing it 🙂

 

 

At least it's running, ours fell apart while driving 😉

 

[serotta1972]

And it does look the part, it looks fast parked. 😀

[serotta1972]

1 hour ago, Claude_Dreyfus said:

In the UK, if you refer to an HST, you refer to this...

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_43_(HST)

 

This is on my list of HST’s to collect. 2x I tried to order the Dapol set and twice there was an issue with the order process. Could it be Devine intervention as I’ve read not so good things about them but I still want one. 

[Need for High Speed]

On 6/25/2019 at 11:26 PM, serotta1972 said:

Bachmann Spectrum re-released the Amtrak Acela and not wanting to wait for the N Scale version so I got one in HO.  It just so happens that one of end cars is the same road number as the one I rode from DC to Philadelphia back in 2017.  How cool is that.  Now I have an HST United States representative.

 

Wait a minute...  Serotta1972 are you on Amtrak modelers group on FB? I recognize that weird green stuff under your Acela and the Marklin track. LOL

 

 

Yes! HST time

I have ridden the Acela several times. In 2013 I got to ride the CRH380A in China from Beijing to Shanghai. Since then I've been obsessed with speed on steel wheels. In 2018 I rode an ICE from Berlin to Hamburg. My first HO model was a dirt cheap Mehano Thalys from a train show. since then I've put in much research into models and have gotten almost 10 HST in HO scale and a tone of track while keeping a budget (well sort of).

 

I am a HUGE fan of High speed trains. I love them, they are like the sports cars of the train world, mainly in terms of speed and comfort.

I collect all HO! No N scale in this picture. Although I only personally own about half of what's in this picture the rest belong to a friend of mine.

Edited August 13, 2019 by Need for High Speed

[Need for High Speed]

 

My crew is getting two new members this year the CR400AF and ETR610 Frecciargento from Italy.

and then their's my acela the lone north American representative of a lost future.😥 but we're getting their... slowly.😉

 

Edited August 13, 2019 by Need for High Speed

[Need for High Speed]

On 6/12/2019 at 11:18 AM, serotta1972 said:

Speaking of China’s HST, Model Train Plus has the Kunter CRH380AL on Pre-Order. I’ve seen Kunter’s other products owned by Railtunes and are of good quality. Looks like I’ll be adding a Chinese HST to my fleet.

I will do the same once MTC and Moon Rail get their act together and finish initial production of their HO models. Because I want to keep my collect in 1:87. Hopefully I only have to wait 2 more months.

 

That means I can not buy any more 1/16 RC tanks or trucks for now. (errr… I still missing the M1A2)

[serotta1972]

@Need for High Speed yes, I am.

[Namba5]

On 6/9/2019 at 1:14 AM, serotta1972 said:

High Speed Trains from Japan, Taiwan, Germany, France and England - all courtesy of Kato.  Who here have been lucky enough to ride more than one of these trains.  I've only ridden the W7 and it's nice and spacious especially the Green Car.  The only other HST I've ridden is the Amtrak Acela which is not represented here but hoping that Bachmann re-releases an N Scale version.  To ride an HST in Germany, France and England is definitely on my bucket list.

 

 

I've been on the THSR a couple times while visiting family in Taiwan.

I had the opportunity to take the TGVmax from Paris to La Rochelle this summer but we took a car instead.

Seen the ICE trains when I was in Germany for just 2 days but didn't get to ride them.

In Japan when I first went in 2005, I took the original 700 series.

Second and third trip to Japan was the N700A nozomi and hikari respectively.