140 mph! It's too fast.

[glencairn]

http://www.hertfordshiremercury.co.uk/1 ... story.html



Glencairn

[trainlover23]

Balderdash the Class 91s have been passed for 140MPH for years. They were originally IC225

[Dad-1]

Quite honestly if some idiot throws rocks over a bridge 125 MPH can be just as fatal.
Driving at 140 I was not comfortable, but then I had to cope with 3 lanes of traffic on
the A2 out of Berlin.
The increment of just 15 MPH is negligible regarding train speeds. I wonder how many
sections will carry a lower limit anyway ?

Geoff T.

[D605Eagle]

Well she'd know wouldn't she........NOT

[luckymucklebackit]

The comment by the coach driver is a typical self interest remark - moron.

JIm

[End2end]

Lucky she doesn't live next to a Mag-Lev track. A passing train would probably give her a heart attack!
Thanks
End2end

[GWR_fan]

Fatal rear end or front on collisions can occur at much lower speeds. As regards (quote) ".....family are no strangers to tragedy's involving trains, she said: "My great grandfather was one of the first people to be killed working on the railway." (end quote). Given the volume of deaths and tragedies that marked Britain's early railway history, any family connected with the railways will have a tale of a distant relative killed while in employment.

A driver is not going to survive a rear end collision at 125mph, so a few extra miles per hour is irrelevant. Sounds like she still wants her little boy to keep hold of her apron strings and not leave home. It is do-gooders like this that are trying to reduce road speeds in suburban areas to a walking pace. Next thing they will legislate for a walker holding a red flag to travel ahead of a vehicle. Look to the early history of the motorcar in the U.S. It was an obligation of a driver to remove his car from the path of an approaching horse. I am not kidding but the law also continues that should the driver not be able to move his car from the road then he was obligated to dismantle the automobile and hide the parts beside the road so as not to frighten the horse.

[Bufferstop]

I would say the train driver at 140 mph faces less danger than the coach driver at 70. Rocks dropped from bridges are an equal hazard on railways and motorways, if the protective cages around footbridges are an indicator of risk. The risk from rear end collisions is far higher in coach and lorry driving practise where heavy vehicles tailgating seems to be the norm. One driver once proclaiming that he wasn't worried by speed cameras as he always drove close enough to the one in front that the camera couldn't get his front number plate, and the fella behind covered his rear one as well.

[b308]

The statistics bear up that a train is far safer than a coach or car... Protected track, no other vehicles on that piece of track, signal protection... Now what has a motorway got? Err, none of them...

I've been in a Voyager when a brick was dropped and hit the front screen at 110mph, a loud bang but the inside of the screen was still intact... The screens on the high speed stuff are very very thick, several layers thick in fact.

As for 140mph, as well as those new ones, Pendos and Voyagers are both geared for 140mph though are not allowed to do it, I've been in a Voyager in its early days at 137mph...

I wonder if she is a mother of one of the new drivers VTEC have hired as she shows little knowledge of the railways and safety? As for the comments, typical lack of knowledge, Hatfield was certainly a wake-up call but that was the best part of 15 years ago, time move on...

[glencairn]

My model railway runs at 138mph. Am I a modern image modeller?

Glencairn