Utopia Talk / Politics / lol europe and trains

Sam Adams Member	Mon Apr 28 11:47:03 Take the train. Public transportation! No one needs their own car! Lol now what. How many people are stranded?
williamthebastard Member	Mon Apr 28 11:52:58 Rofl! Banks! Factories! This is as idiotic as saying banks, factories, offices, everything that depends on electricity which is about 95% of society is all stupid because of the first national electricity collapse in the history of trains. What a fucking moron lol
Sam Adams Member	Mon Apr 28 12:44:59 Spanish trains still have people stuck on them after 6 hours without power. Lol.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Mon Apr 28 13:02:22 End of the world scenes in super markets. Always funny to see people panic buy when things like this happen. If you are not prepared when it hits, you are fucked. And we all know the big one will come in our life time.
Pillz Member	Mon Apr 28 13:11:24 Tbh the supply chain was only fucked by dumb ass government shut downs and people buying everything at once for weeks. And even then just barely. It would take an actual regional catastrophe so large in scale it depopulates the planet as a result to actually fuck the supply chain. Or some actually lethal and highly contagious manufactured bioweapon. But dinky little natural disasters, power outages, and fake pandemics are never going to affect shit in a real way. (I'm not ruling out those as causes for artificial 'restriction' but they themselves amount to nothing)
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Mon Apr 28 13:36:53 We will need a a series of misfortunate events, yes. I think there is a non-negligible risk that happens in my lifetime.
murder Member	Mon Apr 28 19:57:16 How was Russia responsible for this?
Sam Adams Member	Mon Apr 28 23:34:31 Imagine being a euro... too poor to own cars... so you take a train with the other plebs. Then your train breaks down because there is no electricity. Its a high speed train so there are no windows that can be rolled down. Its hot as fuck and stuffy and crowded. City folk are babbling and crying all over and you are stuck next to some skinny micro faggot. Theres no more food or even water. The toilets start overflowing. Rofl. Youd need to travel business class just to stay away from the crowds of scum, but you cant afford that either. And your still stuck on a shitty train.
Dukhat Member	Tue Apr 29 00:04:12 All right-wingers do is obsess about irrelevant anecdotes about people they don't care about thousand of miles away ... All the reinforce their priors like the lazy little bitches they are.
williamthebastard Member	Tue Apr 29 00:05:44 Yeah, but a lot of them are mentally ill. Pillz is a suicidal amphetamin addict, Sam Oddams was found unfit for service due to mental illness etc etc etc.
Dukhat Member	Tue Apr 29 00:47:33 The secret to Republicans doing so well versus other far-right politics is because of how poorly moderated social media is in the United States. Trump targets voters with surgical efficiency thanks to big data and big tech social media complicity particularly from facebook and twitter. It both activates and turns off voters that they want and they eke their candidate over the finish line. If America had real laws against mistruth like overseas, we wouldn't get such trash posts and terrible depression-causing policies.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Tue Apr 29 01:12:55 The scale of outage is huge. Like how?
williamthebastard Member	Tue Apr 29 04:31:26 "The secret to Republicans doing so well versus other far-right politics is because of how poorly moderated social media is in the United States." This is exactly true, and its why the far right has spread abrood too. Social media around the western world is largely US owned and abides by their shitty pro- far right moderation. Without that, the far right would not be anywhere near as big a threat to the world. All leading universities in any western country have mounds of research on how the far right occupied the internet and according to Oxford Uni spreads more lies than all other political groups together. Internet trolls have literally seized power, particularly over the US. Bigfoot morons, fake moon-landing conspiracists and KKK cranks that we used to just shake our heads at became unionized and organized just by lying on their couch with empty beer cans lying on the floor, clicking on buttons on their screen without even having to get up.
williamthebastard Member	Tue Apr 29 04:35:39 Its why countries like France, who have always been leary of too much US influence over their proud French culture and have seen Nazist expansion up close, are talking more and more about Facebook, X et al either abiding by European standards or getting heavily fined. Because their lack of moderation of alt-right/neofascism is harming their society.
williamthebastard Member	Tue Apr 29 05:04:09 The rise of the far right is an internet phenomenon
Rugian Member	Tue Apr 29 07:39:43 lol at this entire thread. Sam makes a perfectly reasonable (if somewhat provocative) post about how western Europe's electricity system suffered a serious failure. A worthy topic of discussion by any reasonable definition. How do the European and American leftists on this board respond? By talking about how conservatives need to be censored off of the internet. rofl
Sam Adams Member	Tue Apr 29 08:38:51 Lol indeed. Cuckhat your own desperate cry for tyranny is why you lose, or at least one of the many reasons. Especially ironic in a thread showing the failure of centralized organization.
murder Member	Tue Apr 29 09:56:48 I can only assume that the roadways in Spain and Portugal aren't doing much better. -
Sam Adams Member	Tue Apr 29 10:18:49 Uhhh, roads dont turn off when the power goes out. Lights at intersections do but then they just revert to stop signs. It is very obvious that it is better to be in your own car when things go tits up than any form of public transport.
murder Member	Tue Apr 29 11:38:34 There will be traffic jams and you can't gas up.
Pillz Member	Tue Apr 29 11:56:00 Cuckhat, read a book instead of watching your wife get blacked.
Sam Adams Member	Tue Apr 29 12:06:55 "There will be traffic jams" In cities, ya. In rural areas and interstates, no. "and you can't gas up." Sometimes. Many gas stations have generators. Even in the worst case scenario you are much less fucked than you are on a train.
Seb Member	Tue Apr 29 12:08:56 Sam fails to understand that diesel electric trains exist.
Seb Member	Tue Apr 29 12:09:13 And that electric cars exist
Sam Adams Member	Tue Apr 29 12:14:47 Lol seb. The majority of your trains are electric, and that is increasing too. Electric cars store their own electricity and are not immediately fucked the way your trains are.
Pillz Member	Tue Apr 29 12:15:27 The future of European commuter travel rests with disesl -seb
Seb Member	Tue Apr 29 14:03:48 Sam: Most trains have some degree of backup (battery or onboard diesel generator) and diesel electric locos exist also. The main issue here is a total grid collapse means you lose the signals network and it's not safe to move; and very few things have enough backup to operate for a very long time. Electric cars don't store 7 hours of driving time. Pillz: Backup moron.
Pillz Member	Tue Apr 29 14:19:04 "Most trains have some degree of backup (battery or onboard diesel generator) and diesel electric locos exist also. The main issue here is a total grid collapse means you lose the signals network and it's not safe to move; and very few things have enough backup to operate for a very long time. " - The future of European commuter travel rests with disesl (Seb) "Pillz: Backup moron." Yes ty for supporting my quote with your own words.
Sam Adams Member	Tue Apr 29 15:12:37 "Most trains have some degree of backup" Not the ones in spain obviously. Lol. "Electric cars don't store 7 hours of driving time." But most have enough to get you to a much much better place than you would be if you were instead stuck in a shitty train. Most of the time you just go home. If you are on a longer trip you go to a hotel. The grid fucks up and all your trains die instantly. Lol. Trains.
Seb Member	Tue Apr 29 15:31:06 Sam: They do actually. You think stretches of overhead wires never go down? When they do does the whole line stop? Nope. But if the signals are down, then speeds are limited for safety, and if you are in the middle of a long intercity line, then it may be too far for backups. High speed trains are crazy efficient in power terms once they get moving so you don't need much backup capacity to keep the train going for a long distance *if* you can move at speed. But limping along at a few tens of miles an hour is a different kettle of fish entirely. Essentially you are doing the equivalent of getting mad that the planes can't fly when all the airports and air traffic control is down and suggesting it's an intrinsic problem with jet engines as a concept. Just shows you don't know how stuff works. Like your confusion around the substation incident at Heathrow.
Sam Adams Member	Tue Apr 29 18:41:14 "When they do does the whole line stop?" Yes. Trains suck. I would say especially british trains but somehow german trains suck the worst. "High speed trains are crazy efficient in power terms once they get moving so you don't need much backup capacity to keep the train going for a long distance *if* you can move at speed. But limping along at a few tens of miles an hour is a different kettle of fish entirely." Did you just try to say that high speed is more efficient than low speed? Violating every known law of physics and engineering ever? Lol you are losing it seb. That is an impressive mental decline. And you were not starting all that high.
Seb Member	Wed Apr 30 05:38:53 Sam: That was a rhetorical question to which the correct answer was "no, high speed trains do not stop when overhead wires go down because they have backup power". "Did you just try to say that high speed is more efficient than low speed?" That is correct - once up to speed it takes very little to keep operating and in terms of energy per mile traveled (the metric of merit here in getting to the next stop/electrical circuit in the event of outage of distribution ). It's acceleration that's the issue and low speed stop-start operation imposed by signals outage means you can't get very far before draining reserves. Congratulations on once again demonstrating you don't understand what you are talking about Sam.
Seb Member	Wed Apr 30 05:41:45 N.b. I explicitly stated we are talking power to travel distance. You need to actually understand operational conditions, not do spherical cow in vacuum thinking.
williamthebastard Member	Wed Apr 30 05:48:40 nonsense troll thread
Sam Adams Member	Wed Apr 30 08:31:48 "Congratulations on once again demonstrating you don't understand what you are talking about" Says the guy saying speed is efficient. Amazing. Your detatchement from reality grows greater each year.
Sam Adams Member	Wed Apr 30 08:34:02 "It's acceleration that's the issue" At sea level? In our thick atmosphere? Aha no.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed Apr 30 15:46:54 So… apparently Red Electrica, the company operating the Spanish grid, had warned about imbalances and significant risk for outages, citing increased solar wind energy. Oops.
Sam Adams Member	Wed Apr 30 15:52:16 Yup. Its starting to become apparent that the spanish grid failed due to the instability associated with too much erratic renewables and not enough base load. Things got a little hectic, a couple main lines got frequency divergences and they tripped... lol boom. Seb strikes again! Not just forcing people into shitty trains, but making them less reliable.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Thu May 01 04:52:40 And the Spanish politicians are already lying and saying it is not because of solar and wind, while at the same time maintaining they don’t know the reason. This is what they will do. They will build infrastructure based on wishful thinking and when those wishes turn out to be fool’s gold, they will lie in your face. Lie all the way down to the gutter and collapse.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Thu May 01 05:09:13 We’re told renewables will save us, but no one talks about the hard physics: low EROI, high material intensity, and a grid built for large turbines with inertia, not weather dependent inverters. Spain is a prime example: building wind and solar to brag among fools, despite repeated warnings from grid experts. Slapping up solar panels is the cheap part, building a grid that can handle their imbalances is the real challenge technically and financially. And if such a grid is even possible, no one has actually built one. True decarbonization demands a nuclear renaissance, honest resource accounting, and leadership grounded in thermodynamics, not political slogans. Every delay makes the transition harder.
Sam Adams Member	Thu May 01 06:41:53 "and leadership grounded in thermodynamics" Thats never going to happen with politicians. The number of voters that understand thermo is 0.1%. Hell look at seb... he was trained in physics and still doesnt understand thermo. "Speed is efficient" lmfao. So the best course of action is to remove politics completely. Once politicians start getting involved things are going to get fucked. Let the engineers run the grid and decide what plants to build.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Thu May 01 08:27:21 Sam ”remove politics completely” Indeed. I have long maintained that ideology is poison for a good chunk of the problems we are trying solve.
Seb Member	Thu May 01 09:59:49 More spherical cow in vacuum shit. When theres low signal, trains do not move continuously at a low speed, they have to go stop start, as you are obviously assuming. It takes significant energy to move a 700tonne train to a few tens of kph and then back again, and you lose most of the energy in breaking, so you don't get very far. Plus the motors themselves aren't really designed to move slowly and are less efficient themselves. If you just have a power outage, it takes relatively little energy to keep moving forwards at high speed and you can cover a great distance on backup power. If the signals are out and the power is out and you are a long way from a station then you have a problem.
Sam Adams Member	Thu May 01 10:38:45 Lol. This is some real flat earth antivax shit seb. "Plus the motors themselves aren't really designed to move slowly" Aha. Amazing.
Seb Member	Thu May 01 14:46:45 Sam, you've clearly never travelled on a high speed train. You can feel the jerks when they try to move under 20mph from the motors designed to spin way faster. You'll be telling me hydrofoils are thermodynamically impossible next.
Seb Member	Thu May 01 14:47:56 The fact there are issues that are more complex than "spherical cow in vacuum" doesn't mean denial of physics. It means you are fucking up by not modelling the correct scenario.
Sam Adams Member	Thu May 01 17:31:31 Saying something like "200mph train is more efficient than 20mph" is retarded. Attempting to defend this point is even more retarded. Keep digging. "You can feel the jerks when they try to move under 20mph from the motors designed to spin way faster." Ya that doesnt happen. Not on the french or italian trains ive ridden. Maybe on some fucking retarded british train. Not only does this not happen but even making this claim means you know nothing of electric motors.
williamthebastard Member	Thu May 01 18:51:33 Dumbass 'Murca! Oddams is too ignorant of the world beyond his local McDonalds to realize that unlike the USA, where you have to drive 10 miles just to get to the closest supermarket, the way Europe is built, it takes me longer to get to the 3 closest supermarkets within 5 minutes walking distance by car than by walking there
williamthebastard Member	Thu May 01 18:53:10 Its s weird to see how many people stop growing mentally in their teens and just remain a mental 15 year old troll until they die
williamthebastard Member	Thu May 01 19:02:23 The US is built so that whatever you want to do, you have to drive on a 5 lane interstate highway for 20 minutes to get there. Europe is not.
Seb Member	Fri May 02 02:37:17 Sam: "200mph train is more efficient than 20mph" Yeah but I'm not am I? I'm saying 200mph continuous train has higher efficiency per mile than train that oscillates between 0 and 20 mph repeatedly, dumping most of its energy into breaking. The latter being how trains *actually* operate when theres no signalling.
Seb Member	Fri May 02 02:37:49 In Sam's world, apparently breaking doesn't involve any energy dissipation.
Seb Member	Fri May 02 02:39:03 I mean it's pretty obvious breaks dissipate more energy faster than wind resistance or track friction otherwise trains wouldn't have them. Dur.
Seb Member	Fri May 02 03:03:11 Sam: "Not on the french or italian trains ive ridden" Have you ridden on one of those trains during a period where its limping between stations due to signals outage? I have. "even making this claim means you know nothing of electric motors." Awe bless. The fact you make this statement just tells me you don't know how the traction unit as a whole works.
jergul large member	Fri May 02 03:43:06 I think sammy may be correct. High speed optimization means less increased energy loss per given distance, but there still is an increase. A slow speed train is still more energy efficient than the same train going faster. At least above some arbitrary point like say 20km/hr. Seb is correct on the other points that I noted (I am not reading carefully).
Seb Member	Fri May 02 06:03:41 Jergul: In the simplistic sense, if you are running at 20mph continuously that would be the case. But low speed operation isn't like that. You are going slow because everything has defaulted to manual; so rather than cruising between stations at 20mph, the train is moving between sections of track known to be clear, pausing and waiting to be cleared to move. It's the *breaking* that's making it inefficient. However; an additional second order effect if you look at how train engines work. As the train speeds up, you get a back voltage that reduces the torque, and you use a series of resistors switched in and out to alter the effective voltage applied to the coil. The jerks you can feel are the change in torque. In modern trains they are much less noticeable of course but naturally they don't do a lot of effort to get things set up to operate at low speed. If you are trying to maintain a constant speed of a few tens of mph or lower for safety reasons, you are basically constantly turning the engines on or off because they don't have fine discrimination to apply the torque needed to maintain low speeds. So even trying to "cruise" at low speeds is quite wasteful on diesl generator backup power because by you can't keep turning the generator on and off every few minutes: a lot of power wasted because it can't be used while keeping the train below whatever the safety speed is. So like I said, Sam is making trivial 0th order points that would be true in principle but isn't true practically when you understand the full mechanical and engineering system. Two trains optimises for travelling at 20 and 200 mph respectively travelling continuously at those speeds, the 20mph is more efficient. A train without external power that's able to travel at 200mph will get further on it's reserves than one compelled to speed up to a few tens of mph and then break and wait for clearance to proceed, repeatedly.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Fri May 02 06:12:39 Seb "I'm saying 200mph continuous train has higher efficiency per mile than train that oscillates between 0 and 20 mph repeatedly" The speed here is completely irrelevant to what you are saying. Something that breaks and accelerates repeatedly is less efficient than something that does not or does less of that. This is frankly a facile thing to say among somewhat mechanically literate people. High speed trains consume more energy per unit of traveled, this is pretty well established: energy consumption goes up with increased speed: "with the Class 345 consuming only 14 kWh per train-km" British "normal" train http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_345 Chinese HST "Based on this, the average electricity consumption per kilometre for these four high-speed train models is 21.6 kWh, 23.5 kWh, 19.5 kWh, and 21.1 kWh, respectively, averaging 21.4 kWh." http://www.ourchinastory.com/en/14267 However, high speed trains are often built along lines that carry a lot of passengers, your typical commuter rail and inter city is not. Meaning often HST are much more efficient in terms of seat per/km.
Seb Member	Fri May 02 06:27:09 Nim: The speed is very relevant because the original discussion is why trains in the power cut were left between stations. Sam thinks it's an inherent problem with electric trains, rather than the consequences of an incredibly severe power cut that took out the signaling network. If it was just disruption to power on the overhead lines, the train *could* travel at 200mph on reserves and get to
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Fri May 02 06:27:38 Oh I missed this at the Chinese HST link: "It turns out that trains running at 250 km/h consume almost half as much electricity as those running at 350 km/h, a significant difference."
Seb Member	Fri May 02 06:29:13 The next station. If it was just the signals, the rain could "limp" at safe speeds to the next station using overhead lines. The combination of losing both power and signals on a whole intensity line is rare. And you are an idiot.
Seb Member	Fri May 02 06:30:47 Also you are providing facts for normal operation, not contrasting two different modes of operation.
Seb Member	Fri May 02 06:30:47 Also you are providing facts for normal operation, not contrasting two different modes of operation. Congratulations, you've managed to understand even less than Sam did.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Fri May 02 06:31:42 Seb Be that is it may, you started saying things that are objectively wrong to make a point, which has nothing to do with efficiency or how many times trains break and accelerate. It has only to do with momentum. p=mv Yes the higher the speed, the higher the momentum an and the "harder" it is for drag and friction to halt the train.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Fri May 02 06:38:50 "And you are an idiot." Translation: "I just got schooled in basic physics by an undergrad in biotechnology." lol :) There are studies on this seb. "not contrasting two different modes of operation." I already addressed this. You scenario is facile in terms of energy efficiency. But, you started overthinking this to pat sam on the head and started babbling about efficiency and you experience traveling on trains. You could have made your argument with SPEED and MOMENTUM. It has nothing to do with energy efficiency.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Fri May 02 07:43:52 To summarize: What Seb is trying to say is that high-speed trains, due to their greater momentum, can coast or "limp" into a station more effectively than traditional trains in a power loss scenario. That is essentially true, and it boils down to basic physics: momentum = mass × velocity. Period. That’s all that was needed to make the point. But instead of doing that, Seb goes off the deep end. He asserts (without explanation) that high speed trains are more efficient than traditional trains. That’s simply false. All else equal, higher speeds consume more energy per distance travelled. Then, to illustrate this mistaken claim, he gives us a bizarre comparison: “A 200mph continuous train is more efficient per mile than a train that constantly accelerates and brakes between 0–20mph.” This is a physical truism completely unrelated to his original point. ANY vehicle operating at constant speed is more efficient than one that is constantly in a stop and go loop. That’s not an argument for the efficiency of high speed rail, it’s just a general principle of motion! It is just confusing the point, which was… To put it in technical terms “Thing that go very fast is very difficult to stop”.
Seb Member	Fri May 02 08:21:47 Nim: Nope, I was very clear what I said, it is correct. What started happening is Sam assumed "limping along at 20mph" was equivalent to a hypothetical train with a traction unit capable of sustaining a low continuous torque to maintain 20mph and not having operational need to break. It's not my fault if Sam doesn't understand how railways actually work and inserts a naive simplified model based on physical limits that doesn't correspond to reality. Further I expensively and repeatedly corrected him on this point. "You could have made your argument with SPEED and MOMENTUM." Neither would have been correct. The basic fact again: A high-speed train operating at 200mph gets more miles per gallon of diesel backup than one limping at 20mph. That's fuel efficiency. End of.
Seb Member	Fri May 02 08:33:30 "What Seb is trying to say is that high-speed trains, due to their greater momentum, can coast or "limp" into a station more effectively than traditional trains in a power loss scenario" No. No that is absolutely not what I am saying. "Limping" is the term for how trains operate without signals. Accelerate to a low speed, coast, then break. The reason they do that is because trains have long stopping distances, so without good signals they don't know if it's safe to move to the next section of track. So you have this stop - start mode of operation. You have two scenarios: 1. A high speed train with all the signalling down and overhead lines down, but diesel generator backup. 2. A high speed train with with the overhead lines down, but with diesel generator backup. In the first case, the train must go slowly. It's running its diesel generator continuously, draining fuel, but only powering the electric traction units sporadically because it can't torque match to the very low friction and drag at low speed. It's limping, so constantly breaking. It quickly runs through its fuel supply. In the second case, the train can accelerate to a very high speed, and then coast. It needs to use a fair bit of electrical power for is traction unit to overcome the very significant drag forces encountered at high speed, but all of the diesel is going into electricity (less thermodynamic loss) and most of the electricity (less thermodynamic and mechanical losses) are going into maintaining speed. So they can normally get to the next station without exhausting the backup fuel. It's really not at all about fast trains having more momentum, or a comparison between high speed trains and commuter rail. It's literally all about the two modes of operating the train depending on whether or not is safe to get up to speed, or whether you have to waste your diesel turning a generator not being used; and having to repeatedly waste the kinetic energy you've built up by breaking.
Seb Member	Fri May 02 08:36:27 Nim: "This is a physical truism completely unrelated to his original point." It's actually the original point. Sam was under the impression that the trains stranded in rural Spain were stranded because they don't have electrical power and didn't have backup; and this is a limitation of trains. This is not case. They are staggered stranded because the signals are out. The same reason flights were restricted also.
williamthebastard Member	Fri May 02 08:38:34 Bali just had a major electricy shortage. The irony considering this thread is the main scene of chaos being reported right now is the ensuing chaos on the roads
williamthebastard Member	Fri May 02 08:40:25 Traffic became chaotic in several areas, including Pecatu, where the lack of working traffic lights caused gridlock. Residents and visitors alike expressed frustration, as the blackout made routine activities nearly impossible. “Internet was down, card machines weren’t working, and the roads were jammed,” said Reza, a local resident.
williamthebastard Member	Fri May 02 08:47:00 Oh, and Oddams beloved airplanes lol "Images shared on social media showed road traffic chaos as a result of the outage, streets plunged into darkness, and long lines at the airport check-in counters."
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Fri May 02 09:24:48 Seb this is a quote of you: "I'm saying 200mph continuous train has higher efficiency per mile than train that oscillates between 0 and 20 mph repeatedly, dumping most of its energy into breaking." This is trivial. Nobody disputed this. It has nothing to do with energy efficiency of high speed trains. "A high-speed train operating at 200mph gets more miles per gallon of diesel backup than one limping at 20mph. That's fuel efficiency." Has absolutely nothing to do with one being high speed and the other diesel. You keep putting that in there not understanding that you are confusing your own point. ANY vehicle that is constantly decelerating and accelerating with be energy inefficient. High speed trains are crazy efficient in power terms once they get moving so you don't need much backup capacity to keep the train going for a long distance. ""Limping" is the term for how trains operate without signals." This is yet another bizarre way to confuse the point. This is a *degraded mode of operation you are talking about, key word being DEGRADED. Whatever it is that you wanted to say (after your response I am now convinced you don't even know what the it was you wanted to say) it has nothing to do with energy efficiency. "1. A high speed train with all the signalling down and overhead lines down, but diesel generator backup. 2. A high speed train with with the overhead lines down, but with diesel generator backup." Ok, so now, to make your point you have invented high speed trains that have diesel generator back ups? This is just getting worse and worse.
Seb Member	Fri May 02 09:57:44 Nim: Here is the exchange: Sam> Lol seb. The majority of your trains are electric, and that is increasing too. Electric cars store their own electricity and are not immediately fucked the way your trains are. Seb> They do actually. You think stretches of overhead wires never go down? When they do does the whole line stop? Nope. But if the signals are down, then speeds are limited for safety, and if you are in the middle of a long intercity line, then it may be too far for backups. High speed trains are crazy efficient in power terms once they get moving so you don't need much backup capacity to keep the train going for a long distance *if* you can move at speed. But limping along at a few tens of miles an hour is a different kettle of fish entirely. Essentially you are doing the equivalent of getting mad that the planes can't fly when all the airports and air traffic control is down and suggesting it's an intrinsic problem with jet engines as a concept. Just shows you don't know how stuff works. Like your confusion around the substation incident at Heathrow. --- From the beginning the discussion was about explaining to Sam why trains in rural Spain were stranded is not because loss of electrical power renders them "Immediately fucked". You are however correct, it is immediately obvious that a train going 0-20mph and breaking repeatedly will get very few mpg of diesel backup compared to one speeding up to 200mph and coasting. So I can understand why you can't quite bring yourself to believe it needed discussion. The problem is Sam doesn't understand how trains on a railway operate. So instead he assumed that a train "limping" at safe speeds meant running continuously at 20mph and able to convert all of its diesel to kinetic energy with the same efficiency as one running at 200mph, and thus fuel efficiency would be largely determined by dynamic friction and air resistance which increase with speed. It's pretty clear your high school physics wasn't enough to understand the conversation. Nor your English comprehension given you managed to infer this was about a comparison between a high speed train and a "traditional" one.
Seb Member	Fri May 02 09:59:21 "Has absolutely nothing to do with one being high speed and the other diesel" As explained several times, we are talking about the *same* train. We always have been. High speed trains have onboard diesel electric generators to supply backup power.
Seb Member	Fri May 02 10:00:50 Literally the only person who thinks we are talking about two different types of train is you.
Seb Member	Fri May 02 10:17:16 Whoops, glitch and the middle disappeared: Sam> Lol seb. The majority of your trains are electric, and that is increasing too. Electric cars store their own electricity and are not immediately fucked the way your trains are. Seb> Most trains have some degree of backup (battery or onboard diesel generator) and diesel electric locos exist also. The main issue here is a total grid collapse means you lose the signals network and it's not safe to move; and very few things have enough backup to operate for a very long time. Electric cars don't store 7 hours of driving time. Sam> Not the ones in spain obviously. Lol. "Electric cars don't store 7 hours of driving time." But most have enough to get you to a much much better place than you would be if you were instead stuck in a shitty train. Most of the time you just go home. If you are on a longer trip you go to a hotel. The grid fucks up and all your trains die instantly. Lol. Trains Seb> They do actually. You think stretches of overhead wires never go down? When they do does the whole line stop? Nope. But if the signals are down, then speeds are limited for safety, and if you are in the middle of a long intercity line, then it may be too far for backups. High speed trains are crazy efficient in power terms once they get moving so you don't need much backup capacity to keep the train going for a long distance *if* you can move at speed. But limping along at a few tens of miles an hour is a different kettle of fish entirely. Essentially you are doing the equivalent of getting mad that the planes can't fly when all the airports and air traffic control is down and suggesting it's an intrinsic problem with jet engines as a concept. Just shows you don't know how stuff works. Like your confusion around the substation incident at Heathrow.
Seb Member	Fri May 02 10:18:26 All along we have been talking about whether high speed trains die the moment the electricity cuts out, whether they have batteries, and why some got stranded in rural Spain in this latest incident.
Seb Member	Fri May 02 10:28:02 *backup
Sam Adams Member	Fri May 02 11:41:27 The hoops you jump through to try to justify your previous physics mistakes is amazing. If you dedicated that same effort to a little bit of engineering knowledge you wouldnt make these mistakes in the first place. Given the same energy, a train limping at 20mph is obviously going much further than one trying to go 200mph. Which is of course utterly irrelevant to the main point: When things go wrong, its obviously better to be in private transportation than public. And with sebs in charge, things go wrong a lot.
Seb Member	Fri May 02 12:01:52 Sam: Heck of a thing to claim spinning a generator that's not putting power into your motors 30% of the time and applying breaks regularly has no impact on fuel efficiency. But you do you.
Sam Adams Member	Fri May 02 12:34:26 you could dump a ton of energy into your brakes and still outdistance the fast train. Theres no way around it seb. Speed is increadibly inefficient and the fact you dont realize this simply points to your own ignorance. You should know better.
Seb Member	Fri May 02 13:14:08 "breaks exert less force than air resistance"
Sam Adams Member	Fri May 02 14:01:24 Depends on speed. Duh. At 200mph most vehicles are subject to more force from air friction than there brakes can produce. A longer super skinny train might be able to brake harder at 200mph but rails also are pretty low friction so i honestly dont know how that compares. Obviously at low speed it switches, brakes easily win. Regardless you can never choose to turn off air friction. You can drive such that your braking is reduced. Everything coming out of you screams "i really dont understand air at high speed at all" 200mph air is fucking powerful.
Seb Member	Fri May 02 15:30:55 "At 200mph most vehicles are subject to more force from air friction than there brakes can produce" Recalling F=Ma, your contention then is that the deceleration experienced by simply turning of the motor at top speed is greater than that which can be exerted by the breaks. Given that a train slamming on the brakes causes a rapid enough deceleration to throw people off balance, are you sure you want to stick with that answer?
Sam Adams Member	Fri May 02 15:59:33 Duh. 200mph air is powerful enough to... ...rip apart a well built wood frame home. ...accelerate a human at 2-3g ...allow a fat monstrosity like an a380 to FLY(150 mph is enough) ...also alow a sleek mach 2 fighter like an f104 to fly despite the fact that it has almost no wings. ...now that i think on flight speeds the typical passenger sedan flies at about 200mph. Try this experiment. Get your car and take it up to its maximum speed. This is around 110(governed) for most vehicles. Now take your foot off the gas all at once. Youll lurch forward. Youll think you hit the brakes hard. 110 in most cars should closely approximate the behaviour of the much sleeker train at 200.
Sam Adams Member	Fri May 02 16:49:56 You wanna know what truly high speed air does? Its pretty horrifying: -Northwest airlines flight 705 was a Boeing 707 climbing out of miami. According to their flight data recorder and voice recorder they spent most of the climbout discussing thunderstorm avoidance, which they clearly failed at. But it was 1963 and tech sucked. Anyway they hit a thunderstorm and got bounced around. Pulling negative gs, they were bounced out of their seats in such a way... in combination with the control-force feedback curve which was poor on the old 707(ironically this contributed to the rule which mcas was trying to follow on the Max), that they continued pushing down, in combination with the turbulence pushing them down. The old 707 in this state(engines at climb power too) rapidly passed the speed(about 350 indicated) in which dive recovery became impossible. High negative gs and rapidly increasing airspeed continued. Somewhere around 600 knots the airplane began to come apart. Wingtips and tail departed. All 4 engines departed and this loss of power stopped the flight recorders. Data ends. -The F4 is a mach 2 fighter which of course can only be done at high altitude in thin air. nonetheless a certain pilot was attempting a sea level speed record that currently stood at about mach 1. This is well above the max certified dynamic pressure and flight controls at this speed are vastly overpowered and capable of significant coupling with pilot muscle speed(very bad). At around 750 knots the aircraft experienced a very slight perturbation. Perhaps turbulence. Maybe the pilot sneezed. Anyway the pilot overcountered, slightly, and the aircraft began to accelerate the other way. The pilot again responded and again slightly overcorrected, perhaps because of coupling with control column/stability. The max-g load of the aircraft was exceeded(somewhere north of 10g), the pilot's back was shattered and no further control column input was detected. The aircraft then diverged from stable flight and disintegrated in the 800mph airstream. -One of my old instructors had to eject from a 2 pilot harrier during his military days. They were going about 350. They found the other pilot dead on the ground nearly ripped in half. Apparently he had not kept his legs together on ejecting... well the wind got in there and took one leg one way and the other leg the other way and ripped his torso mostly apart up the middle. Obviously our train is in a friendlier speed regime but ya, high speed wind be STRONG.
Seb Member	Fri May 02 17:49:36 Sam: "apart a well built wood frame home" Tell me you don't understand pressure without telling me you don't understand pressure. Also a silly analogy. If you squashed the house with a big bit of solid material it'd also get smashed. That's how breaks work. What's your point? All totally irrelevant. The acceleration someone standing in the train experiences when it breaks is proportional to the breaking force on the train itself. It's much stronger from breaking than simply turning the engines off and letting air resistance do it's thing. From this we know very easily that the breaking force on the train allied by the breaks is greater than air resistance. End of.
Seb Member	Fri May 02 17:51:13 Would you rather put your hand into a 200mph wind jet, or between the wheel by and breaking mechanism of a train. Sam says the wind exerts greater force.
Seb Member	Fri May 02 17:57:43 Lovely anecdotes about the dynamic pressure of wind over large areas. The cross sectional area of high speed trains however is pretty small and designed specifically to minimise drag. Comparing this to the upward trust from the pressure differential in a aerofoil with a much greater area, or the total force exerted on a planar surface normal to the wind and of much larger area is lovely; but misses the point. Yes the dynamic pressure that wind can exert is significant. But the total force exerted on the train is still significantly less than the force exerted by the breaks on the train when it's breaking and this is both intuitively obvious and easily felt by anyone who had actually travelled on a train that's put its breaks on.
Sam Adams Member	Fri May 02 19:29:47 "It's much stronger from breaking than simply turning the engines off and letting air resistance do it's thing." Not at high speed. "travelled on a train that's put its breaks on" I have never been on a high speed train that has applied brakes at high speed. Neither have you. Doesnt need to. Letting off the gas, so to speak, is enough. More than enough. For passenger comfort theyll only drop throttle a little at a time. I dont think ive ever even been in a car for high speed braking and being a non-poor person i'm in a car much much more often. Aero braking is enough. Even landing a plane you dont use brakes much until you drop below 80 and aero braking goes away(plus the engine starts thinking about ingesting its own reverse thrust debris around that speed). Also its brakes seb. Brakes.
Sam Adams Member	Fri May 02 19:37:18 Why does a drag racer pop a parachute at the end of its run rather than using wheel brakes seb? Why do high speed trains have such silly long noses? Why do we send our jets above most of the atmosphere? Cause 200mph of wind at 1 earth atmosphere is a shitton.
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