BY TTT NEWS NETWORK
KOLKATA, 27 NOVEMBER 2022
Indian Railways, like some other European countries, are now planning to introduce tilt trains within the next three years. About 100 Vande Bharat Express Trains will feature this technology, railway ministry sources said.
The tilting trains are specially designed so that they can bend on track curves at high speeds like two wheelers.
The Indian Railways are discussing this transfer of technology with a Spanish manufacturer Talgo and also the Switzerland government.
The technology of tilting trains uses a mechanism which enables a higher speed on regular broad gauge railway tracks. As a train (or other vehicle) rounds a curve at speed, objects inside the train experience centrifugal force. This can cause packages to slide about or seated passengers to feel squashed by the outboard armrest, and standing passengers to lose their balance. Tilting trains are designed to counteract this by tilting the carriages towards the inside of the curve, thus compensating for the g-force. The train may be constructed such that inertial forces cause the tilting (passive tilt), or it may have a computer-controlled powered mechanism (active tilt).
Besides China, Japan and USA, the European countries which use this tilt technology are – Germany, Russia, UK, Switzerland, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia, Finland, Romania, Czech Republic etc.
The first passive tilting car design was built in the US in 1937, and an improved version was built in 1939. The beginning of World War II ended development. Talgo introduced a version based on their articulated bogie design in the 1950s, and this concept was used on a number of commercial services. Among these was the UAC TurboTrain, which was the first (albeit short-lived) tilting train to enter commercial service in 1968 in the US and Canada.
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