The X2000’s biggest asset is speed: it can move faster than conventional trains, and it doesn’t require expensive new tracks. In 1990 the Swedish State Railways began operating the train between Stockholm and Goteborg, a distance of 284 miles. Conventional trains make the journey in four hours at an average speed of 63 miles per hour; the X2000 can do it in under three hours at an average speed of 94 mph.
Compared with France’s TGV and Japan’s “bullet” train, the X2000 is a tortoise: it tops out at 155 mph. But the Swedish train has a singular capability: it can take curves at speeds of up to 40 percent faster than other trains. Unlike regular trains, whose wheels are locked in rigid, parallel axles, the X2000 has flexible, radial axles that enable its wheels to steer themselves around curves. Last week, during a test trip between Washington and New York, the X2000 whizzed at 112 mph around curves normally restricted to 75 mph. “This train loves curves,” boasts Joe Silien, of Asea Brown Boveri, the Swedish/Swiss company that makes the X2000.
To keep passengers from tumbling out of their seats as it whips around a bend, the X2000 employs a special tilting system to compensate for the centrifugal force. Sensors underneath the train anticipate approaching curves and their degree of banking. That information, along with the train’s speed, is fed to a microprocessor in each car. Special software then instructs a hydraulic system to tilt one side of the car at the correct angle as the train leans into the curve. Each car is tilted in sequence, by up to eight degrees. The tilting, which is imperceptible to most riders, compensates for 70 percent of the centrifugal force. All of the force could be eliminated, but ABB has learned that passengers tend to get sick when their inner ear does not sense movement perceived by the eye.
Amtrak officials like the tilting train as a practical alternative to ultraexpensive supertrains. After completing tests of both the X2000 and a superfast inter-city train from Germany, Amtrak will spend $1.3 billion to buy 26 new trains and to electrify the entire track between New York and Boston. The process should be completed by 1997. Amtrak aims to chop the travel time between New York and Boston to three hours from the current four to five hours. If it can do that, the rail company believes it can steal business travelers from the airline shuttles. When it arrives, the high-speed train will also replace Amtrak’s successful Metroliner, which now commands 45 percent of the combined air-rail passenger traffic between New York and Washington.
The X2000 works best on electrified rail routes. Unfortunately, there is none outside the Northeast. Down the road, Amtrak believes high-speed trains will attract new customers along corridors in the Midwest (Chicago to St. Louis and Detroit), West (San Diego to Los Angeles), Southeast (Tampa to Miami) and Northwest (Seattle to Portland and to Vancouver). “There is no question that the market is out there and that we can get it,” says Merrill Travis, chief of the bureau of railroads for the Illinois Department of Transportation. He likes the X2000 because “it’s the most efficient way to concentrate investment on the train and not the track.” Railroads, then, may have a bright future-provided they go at full tilt.
The X2000 is not exceptionally swift on straight track, but it can hug curves at speeds 40 percent faster than other trains.
The rigid axles keep wheels straight on curved tracks.
The axles of X2000 flex, aligning the wheels with the track on curves.
To keep passengers from tumbling, the X2000 tilts each car as it rounds a bend. Sensors anticipate curves and tell the system when to tilt.
