Re: VFT letter

[dbromage@omni.com.au (David Bromage)]

One thing which amazes me are there are two notable ansences from any of
the original six bidders - ICE and Shinkansen.

The ICE has run at over 400km/h, way faster than the Australian proposal. 
The ICE2 has a maximum operational speed of 280km/h and the ICE 3
(starting in 1999) of 330km/h. GEC-Alsthom (makers of the TGV) and Siemens
(makers of the ICE) have even joined forces for the Taiwan high speed line
bid in the face of stiff competition from Japan.

Which brings me to the other one. Why no bids using Shinkansen technology?
The Shinkansen 500 series are running at 300km/h on the Sanyo line. I
wonder why they are pushing very hard for the Taiwanese line, but not a
peep out of them in Australia. After all, Japan had the first operational
high speed train.

Cheers
David