High speed trains

Fast, reliable, safe and comfortable high speed trains are beginning to rival air travel as an efficient means of transportation for long distances. As a result, political decisions are being taken and infrastructure investments being made to boost train travel over longer distances.

Well established high speed rail systems in use today are widely recognized to be more environmentally friendly than air or road travel. This is due to:

• displaced usage from more environmentally damaging modes of transport.
• lower energy consumption per passenger kilometer
• reduced land usage for a given capacity compared to motorways

Bombardier has been a key player in the delivery of almost all very high-speed trains operating today in Europe, including the ICE family of trains in Germany, the ETR500 in Italy, the AVE S-102 in Spain and four different series of TGV in France. This experience has been harnessed in the development of Bombardier’s ZEFIRO high-speed technology, which incorporates service-proven systems and best-in-class components from some of the most successful high-speed trains in Europe and China. ZEFIRO technology was recently incorporated within a contract in China for the delivery of 20 EMU sleeper trainsets, awarded in October 2007. Bombardier is being invited to showcase their High Speed Train technologies at UltraFuture Expo this December.

The fastest currently operating high-speed rail system runs from Pudong Airport to downtown Shanghai at a top speed of 431 km/h.