travelling at 500 km/h on land
bullet train, collision estimation, ERL, insurance, speed, super train, trainThe fastest train I ever ride is the KLIA Express or Express Rail Link (ERL) from Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) to KL Central Station. It travels up to 160 km/h, but since the 28 minutes journey is quite smooth, you won’t feel the speed, except when it go through under bridge which is something like tunnel… that’s the time you will feel the ‘vacuum’ and when it pass with another train from opposite direction, it will shake for a while… air turbulence.
And the fastest machine I ever ride is the Boeing777… which can travel up to 900 km/h. But when you are inside the plane, you won’t feel anything except when the plane drop altitude suddenly or when it tried to avoid air pocket or air turbulence or probably thick clouds.
Back to train, in October there was big news in Sabah where a train hit an oil tanker… it caused a massive traffic jam in front of the Kota Kinabalu International Airport (KKIA). The train could be travelling around 60 or 70 km/h and luckily there was no casualties… only some injuries like broken legs… some passengers jump out from the train.
And in China, on 23rd December 2011, a new bullet train was showcased to the world… the super-rapid test train is capable of travelling at 500 km/h… yes that is five zero zero km per hour… it’s fast… China made their big ambition to build the largest super train network a decade ago into reality. But with this super speed machine where there will be hundreds of it in the near future, it’s hard to imagine how China will do their simulation or collision estimation and avoidance so that train collision like the recent collision in July can be avoided. In the July collision, two of its high-speed train collided… 😛