Re: Would an NR be faster than an XPT???

[dbromage@metz.une.edu.au (David Bromage)]

David Johnson (trainman@ozemail.com.au) wrote:
>Michael Walker wrote:
>
>> Just out of interest, especially given all the talk of late about High
>> Speed Trains, would an NR with a suitably modified or built carriage set
>> be able to better XPT times between Melbourne and Sydney if allowed the
>> speed or indeed on any track, especially that with adverse gradients?
>
>No.  The limiting factor of speed is curves.  It wouldn't matter how many
>horses were on the front, the train would still have to go slowly around
>curves.

The other thing to remember is that the GSPE was only doing 100km/h, so
the NR would have probably been working in its lowest power mode.

ALso, I can't see a locomotive weighing over 130t being allowed anything
over 115km/h on those tracks.

Cheers
David