[chrisseaton]

> that aren't designed to survive collisions with freight trains

They are designed to survive collision with freight trains. In Europe we also have freight trains on our passenger tracks. They're just designed to survive them in a different way - by deforming to absorb impact rather than being rigid to resist it.

[gok]

They're designed to be survivable for the humans on the trains cars, as opposed to the cars themselves :)

[mcv]

Exactly. Nobody cares about the cars, it's about the contents. And a train that cannot deform, will come to a very sudden stop when it hits an unmovable object, which is not going to be good to the occupants. Crumple zones are generally better.

Downside is that that's probably where the train driver is. Preventing collisions is definitely the better approach.

[kpil]

The procedure is to slam the emergency brake, then run as hell, as far back as you can get.

[reaperducer]

In Europe we also have freight trains on our passenger tracks.

This is not unique to Europe. The vast majority of America's passenger rail infrastructure is on active fright rail trackage.

[chrisseaton]

Yes that’s a point in the article...that’s why I said ‘also’. We have it in Europe also as in the US.

[ComputerGuru]

It's a grammatical issue with the parsing of the word "also" to mean "even" instead of "too".

[virmundi]

I think the arrow points the other way in Europe. Their passenger rails are smooth for a nice ride. They run cargo over the smooth rails. In the US, once you leave the East Coast, you're on freight rails which are bumpy and annoying.

[reaperducer]

In the US, once you leave the East Coast, you're on freight rails which are bumpy and annoying.

Yeah. In a few spots, it's OK, but the majority of it is pretty bad. I take a lot of long-distance Amtrak trips, and sleeping can be hard if you haven't done it in a while and you're not used to it.

I was surprised to find that the Shinkansen in Japan is a pretty rough and unstable run, too.

Americans on the internet like to imagine Japan and its technology as perfect in every way, but the HSR between Tokyo and Kyoto can be almost sea-sickness worthy.

I don't think this is because of bad rails so much it is that the infrastructure is so heavily used, and aging, since Japan was a pioneer in this arena.

[lovemenot]

I have used that particular Shinkansen route at least thirty times in each direction. Admittedly not so much recently. I have also traveled by high speed rail in Northern Europe, for comparison.

Your experience on the Shinkansen is very different from mine. The only explanation I can imagine is that your train was travelling slowly, which can happen - rarely - in typhoon season.

Otherwise, which high speed lines have you used that did not induce seasickness in you?

[reaperducer]

It wasn’t the slow train. I had my wife with me so I splashed out for the fastest train available. It was around 7am, so I assume it was rush hours.

I’ve taken a few high speed routes around the world. KTX between Seoul and Busan. The entire Eurostar route. Others I can’t remember off the top of my head.

The best experience so far has been Trenitalia between Rome and Naples.

[lovemenot]

I did not mean to imply that slower trains such as Hikari or Kodama on that route might make one nauseous. Rather on very rare occasions, a too-slow train would let you feel the side-to-side as it banks.

Well anyway it seems to have been just a one-time experience, from which you've managed to deduce both generality and cause.

Again, from experience that's not common, so perhaps a more charitable explanation than system degradation might have been warranted. Certainly the rolling-stock is much newer than the system. The Nozomi you used would have been, at a guess 15 years or younger.

[jimjimjim]

i found the shinkansen to be smooth and blissful. (sorry can't remember which one. from tokyo to somewhere to ski)

[ak217]

> They are designed to survive collision with freight trains

Do you have a source?

[chrisseaton]

The article says it.

[ak217]

You're right. It does, unfortunately without citing any sources of its own.

In Europe, freight rail is less than a quarter that of the US, while passenger rail is much higher than in the US. Where tracks are shared, passenger rail generally takes priority in EU, and vice versa in the US. When reading about European railcar crash standards, I found no evidence that modern design standards include any requirements on crashing into freight trains. Just generic crumple zone requirements.