Evansville Rail: Europe To Open First Solar-Powered Railway Tunnel

Monday, June 6, 2011

Europe To Open First Solar-Powered Railway Tunnel

Europe to open first solar-powered railway tunnel

05 Jun 2011

By David Millward

The Telegraph

Read More: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/tr...ay-tunnel.html

The 2.1 mile-long tunnel will form part of the Paris-Amsterdam high speed rail link. Electricity generated from the 50,000 solar panels will provide the electricity used to power the 186 mph trains as they pass underneath. The panels, which are being built by a Belgian solar power company, Enfinity, will £12.6 million. They will cover an area equivalent to eight football pitches and apart from the trains, will also power for Antwerp. The panels will generate an estimate 3,300 MWh of electricity per year, equivalent to the average annual electricity consumption of approximately 950 families.

- In the United States ac campaign has been launched for a "sun-powered bullet train" travelling at 200mph between Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona. Meanwhile in Italy, the EU has been funding a train with solar panels on the roof, which are used to provide electricity for the carriages' air conditioning system. The French have also been looking at the technology using solar panels to power the lighting and air conditioning on a train in Poitou Charentes.

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Did You Know?

-An intercity high-speed passenger train is three times as energy efficient as commercial air, and six times as efficient as a car traveling with one occupant.

-Switching 5% of US highway travel to high-speed passenger rail would save more that one-sixth the amount of oil imported annually from the Middle East.

-High-Speed Rail service requires less land acquisition that other modes of travel. According to the Worldwatch Institute, two railroad tracks can carry as many people per hour as sixteen lanes of highway. Farmlands and environmentally-sensitive geography are preserved.

-One railway track mile uses 0.42 football field(s) worth of land compared to one highway mile that equals 1.10.

-One Virginia Railway Express commuter train can equal as many as 800 cars taken off the highway.

-One intermodal freight train can equal up to 300 tractor-trailers.

-For every $1 invested in public transportation such as intercity passenger rail, $4 is returned in economic development.

-One regional passenger train equals 4 regional planes

-For the cost of building a third airport in the Chicago area, a network of high-speed trains could be built in nine states and serve far more travelers.

-In addition, the cost of building quality interstate highways in urban areas cost between $15 and $20 Million per mile, while infrastructure for high-speed passenger trains traveling at 125 mph costs between $3 and $6 Million per mile.

-In over 35 years of operation, the high-speed passenger rail system, carrying over 6 million passengers a day, worldwide, has only had a few minor incidents and one fatal accident.

-In the United States, Amtrak's Metroliner, a passenger train traveling at 125 Mph between New York and Washington, has had no passenger fatalities since it was established in 1986. Compare that to 500,000 motor vehicle fatalities in the United States since 1986.

-High-speed trains speed travelers from city center to city center. For most passengers, the rest of the trip is a simple walk or short taxi ride from the train station to their final destination.