Interesting technical highlights on rail
Interesting technical highlights from rail transport: records, history and news
«
TT ++ TT
Technika a trh 5/2024
The Czech Republic's first electric railway: Tábor-Bechyně d
As early as the late 19th century, the people of Bechyně sought to have their town connected by rail to Tábor and pos-
sibly further to Týn nad Vltavou and Vodňany. The "Bechyně Rail Cooperative" was headed by MUDr. Hynek Daniel,
the town's mayor. The cooperative soon won over both the government and the provincial assembly and, in 1896, the
Assembly of the Kingdom of Bohemia decided to take over the guarantee for the construction of the railway betwe-
en Tábor and Bechyně. Around the same time, František Křižík, the "Czech Edison" and a fervent and tenacious ad-
vocate of modern electricity-powered transport, was conducting his experiments with electric propulsion on rails.
Following the joint efforts of the cooperative and of the Křižík company, the permission to prepare a pro-
ject for an electric drive was granted on 29 December 1900. After complicated talks, the Bechyně Rail Co-
operative was granted a licence to build an electrically powered railway between Tábor and Bechyně on
19 April 1902. The licence that was granted stipulated that the construction was to be completed by the
end of 1904, but the provincial committee moved the date forward to 1 June 1903. The project was com-
pleted exactly on time and the first test run took place on 1 June 1903! This was followed by official in-
spections of all the facilities and, upon their completion, the opening ceremony was held and regular ser-
vice commenced on 21 June 1903. The first electrified railway in what was then Austria-Hungary was born.
The inaugural ride was attended by many public figures: the Governor of the Kingdom of Bohemia, Count
Coudenhove, the Chair of the Provincial Committee, Count Schönborn, the Marshal of the Kingdom, Prin-
ce Jiří Lobkovic, the inventor František Křižík, and others. The idea of extending this line to Týn nad Vltavou
and Vodňany was never implemented. Until 1928, the line terminated on the left bank of the River Lužni-
ce, where the "old station" is today. As the new bridge across the Lužnice was opened in 1928, the line was
extended to the site of today's town railway station.
At that time, it was the only railway in the whole of Austria-Hungary that did not even alternatively envisage steam
operation, whose potential introduction would have caused significant operational difficulties. The alternative, which
had preceded the final version of the line, foresaw steam operation and therefore shallower gradients (2.5 percent).
The credit for the railway having been built as a purely electrified line goes not only to the construction cooperative
but also the Křižík company, which had made considerable efforts to convince the cooperative members of the be-
nefits of this modern transport modality. The main arguments were the significant reduction in the cost of the project,
the use of lighter and therefore cheaper driving vehicles and trailers, an increased number of stops, and almost no
earthworks. Compared to steam operation, however, it was necessary to build fixed traction equipment including a
power station (by the River Lužnice). As the power supply for the line, the designers Křižík, List, and Rosa opted for a
2x700 V DC three-wire system, in which the neutral conductor was the rail. With this solution, Křižík avoided public
arguments that the high voltage might cause serious injury, but he actually did use a high voltage as the traction mo-
tors were powered with 1400 V. The overhead wires were suspended from wooden gantries and the entire line was
powered unidirectionally from the power station in Tábor. The power was generated by three dynamos driven by ste-
am engines. In the event of a failure of a steam engine or dynamo, a set of batteries was installed in the power stati-
on to support the train service from Tábor to Bechyně. The line measured a total of 23 kilometres long, with the stee-
pest gradient being 4.1 percent. The smallest horizontal curve was 125 metres. The transport on the line was initially
provided by two electric railcars, later designated M 400.001 and 002 (the carriage part was manufactured by Ring-
hofer in Smíchov, Prague, and the electric part was supplied by Křižík from Karlín, Prague). Other cars designated as
003 and 004 were supplied in 1905 and 1908, respectively. The maximum speed was set at 25 km/h, with 15 km/h
in the curves. The journey time was 1.08 or 1.15 hours, depending on the type of train. In 1940, the car M 400.004
was destroyed by fire and was replaced by the M 410, made jointly by Škoda and Královopolská Brno. The recon-
struction of the above-mentioned carriages by Škoda Plzeň commenced in 1931. The objective was to upgrade the
carriages, increase their power, and prepare them for service on the reconstructed line (with the reconstruction pro-
ject completed in 1938), the parameters of which complied with the European standard of the time. The overhead li-
ne was suspended on steel poles, with the line being single-potential.
www.mestobechyne.cz
The World's Fastest Train – Maglev d
Maglev - short for magnetic levitation - is the most advanced and fastest but also the most expensive form of rail tran-
sport. China has showed off its "best of the best", showing a prototype of the new high-speed Maglev train. It is able
to reach a top speed of 620 kilometres per hour. Maglev runs on high-temperature superconducting (HTS) energy.
The train moves on a magnetic field cushion generated by a system of superconducting magnets built into the track
and the train. Therefore, rather than being fitted with wheels, this train features a special set of magnets, including li-
near motors, and moves along only a few centimetres above the rail. The generation of a field by sufficiently power-
ful electromagnets with negligible energy consumption is made possible by the superconductivity of some materials
when cooled with liquid nitrogen. Interestingly, there is still no reliable scientific theory to explain this phenomenon.
According to engineers, the trend towards magnetic rails could herald cheaper and, more importantly, faster next-ge-
neration transport, with trains even rivalling some aircraft in terms of speed. Maglev lines are rather expensive and
must be built on bridges or in tunnels for safety reasons, which further stretches the cost of this technology. The pro-
totype of the sleek, modern 21-metre-long train was unveiled by China in Chengdu, Sichuan province. To get a better
idea of how the train operates, scientists built a track 165 metres in length. According to the state news agency Xin-
hua, this gives a better idea of how passengers will feel while travelling on the train. The train could be put into regu-
lar service within three to ten years.
Interesting Technical Highlights on Rail
04_vyroci_c_2024_EN.qxd 12.9.2024 17:14 Page 4