Research on Optimal Speed for High Speed Lines - Volume II

Since the invention of the steam locomotive and up to the recently broken rail-speed record at the hands of the V150 test-train on the Paris to Strasbourg line, the railways have undergone, just as other means of transport have, a series of technological innovations which have allowed them to achieve progressively greater speeds and provide more and more power for their engines. As we shall see in this text, the railways have been based throughout their history on three different types of traction: steam, the oldest of them and perhaps the form which has experienced the most technological improvement during its period of utilisation; diesel technology, more powerful than steam traction in general and equally improved on over its operational life, and, finally, electrical traction, which has allowed us to reach unthinkable speed and which is currently the most common form of traction for modern trains.