One of the main reasons why the Japanese high speed trains as well as the Velaro-types are not articulated is because they have distributed drives. In fact, there are not many types of vehicles coming to my mind where a driving truck is located under an articulation (and the ones coming to my mind are light rail vehicles as of today’s understanding). The AGV is therefore a very new development.

Another reason why articulation is not the first choice is the axle load, which in France is limited to 17 t. This is also a reason why the elements in a TGV are rather short. At the time of the ICE 1, all the “add-on stuff” requested by the DB got the cars to be too heavy. The next reason for individual cars is the possibility to change the consist in a train set. The ICE 1 can be found between 10 and 14 cars long, depending on the service they are used (and the availability of cars). The ICEs are, however, not conventionally coupled, and can be separated only in the workshops.

The axleload issue may probably be the reason to kill articulated high-speed trains in the US, unless there will be a considerable rethinking of the regulations; the train may simply get too obese.

What made Eschede to the real disaster was that the car which derailed hit the pillar of a bridge which made the bridge collapse, and fall onto the moving train. The cars ahead of the one which derailed remained completely unharmed. Also note that this did NOT happen on a high speed line, but a conventional line.

I don’t have access to the reports about the disaster right now, but if I remember correctly, the wheel broke about 2 km before the truck got deviated on a switch of an interchange between the tracks and derailed the car. And then, that pillar of the bridge was about 200 m or so later. The lead power unit got torn off the trainset after the impact with the pillar.

That means that the train has been stable on regular track, and it was an irregularity which caused the disaster.

The cause of the derailment could as well happen with an articulated trainset, and it could not be excluded that an articulation could have gotten far enough outside of the loading gauge to hit the pillar of the bridge.

About US standards for high speed trains, I really hope that they do follow existing standards (be it Japanese, be it French, be it German), instead of inventing their own ones; this can save a considerable amount of money, and would give some assurance that the system works (although surprises are always possible, see the breakdowns of the Eurostar TGVs this winter).

> BTW: I’ve always thought that the N700 was a
> ridiculous looking contraption. the small
> passenger windows are not very inviting
> (airliner-like), and let’s not even talk
> about that nose.

Actually, that nose is among the best you can get when it comes to aerodynamics and aerodynamic noise. As the Japanese high speed lines cross quite a few high-density (for US standards anyway) residential areas, the noise emission regulations are quite strict. And at speeds above 200 km/h, aerodynamic noise is the biggest component of the total noise.

The windows look small, but they look to me having a similar height as the Amfleet cars (I will stand corrected if I happen to be wrong on this).

@Alon Levi: the N700 does not tilt. It may have an active suspension which can compensate the leaning outwards in curves, keeping the vehicle within the loading gauge.

A full-length single-deck TGV train has 750 seats, but that comes from the locomotive-trailer configuration; newer trains, including the AGV, use multiple units and have seating in all cars.