Operation sardine
The French state railway SNCF called the operation Sardine the record run of a TGV on May 26, 2001. On that day, the TGV Réseau unit no. 531 covered the 1067.2 kilometer distance between the stations of Calais and Marseille in 3 hours and 29 minutes and 36 seconds with an average speed of 305.50 km / h. The journey started at 4:30 p.m. at Calais-Fréthun station and ended at 7:59:36 p.m. at Marseille-Saint-Charles station . The 1,000 km between the viaduct over the River Aa in northern France and the village of Cheval-Blanc in the south of France put the train back in three hours and nine minutes, which corresponds to h an average speed of 317.46 km /. At 7:23 p.m. south of Valence, the top speed of 366.6 km / h was reached.
Importance of the record run
Shortly before the LGV Méditerranée went into operation on June 10, 2001, a travel time record was to be set between Calais and Marseille as well as for a distance of 1000 km (between the Aa valley and the Ventabren viaduct ). Unlike before the opening of the LGV Atlantique and the LGV Est européenne , the SNCF did not want to set a speed record, but rather drive a long distance at the highest possible speed.
route
The record run led over the following routes :
- LGV Nord from Calais-Fréthun to Vémars (296.7 km)
- LGV Interconnexion Est between Vémars and Solers (55.9 km)
- LGV Sud-Est from Solers to Montanay (377.4 km)
- LGV Rhône-Alpes , between Montanay and Saint-Marcel-lès-Valence (113.8 km)
- LGV Méditerranée , between Saint-Marcel-lès-Valence and the northern edge of Marseille (215.7 km)
- PLM route from Marseille to Marseille Saint-Charles (7.7 km)
The first four high-speed routes were shared by the record train with high-speed trains that ran regularly on that day. On these the train reached up to 335 km / h in sections. The lowest speed in the high-speed area was the passage through Lille-Europe station at 200 km / h.
Rolling stock
The TGV Réseau unit No. 531 was used. The multiple unit , which went into service in mid-1993 , had covered more than 2.5 million kilometers to date. The train had already been modified for the previous test and acceptance runs on the LGV Méditerranée. Among other things, the drive power was increased from 8.8 MW to 11.2 MW in order to be able to travel longer sections at speeds of 350 km / h and more.
SNCF boss Louis Gallois and numerous media representatives were on board the train . The images from eleven external cameras were transmitted to 25 LCD screens inside. The TVM 430 train protection system was switched off for the journey. The three alternating drivers were instead monitored by a chief de traction .
The TGV unit 531 was converted back into a regular TGV on June 8, 2001.
Preparations
The SNCF had announced the record run a few weeks earlier. The route between Marseille and Calais should be covered in less than four hours.
The record run was preceded by three test drives between April 13 and May 19, 2001. On May 19, it had reached 367 km / h.
background
The fastest scheduled high-speed trains at the time ( Nozomi - Shinkansen ) ran between Tokyo and Hakata (1069.1 km) in 4 hours 55 minutes, corresponding to a cruising speed of 217.4 km / h.
Trivia
The name of the action refers to the fish of the same name . After it was caught in the English Channel off the coast of northern France, it was supposed to be released again in the Mediterranean a good three and a half hours later .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Without a source
- ↑ a b c d e f g h From the North Sea to the Mediterranean: 1067.2 km in three and a half hours . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International , Issue 7/2001, ISSN 1421-2811 , pp. 310-312.
- ↑ News update shortly . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International , issue 5/2001, ISSN 1421-2811 , p. 224.
- ↑ CALAIS-MARSEILLE