ALSTOM, RFF and SNCF set a new world rail speed record of 574,8 km/h

V150 nopeusjuna.jpg

The record was set by
the V150 trainset at kilometre point 191 on the East European LGV™ high-speed line, in the area of “Le Chemin”, France, at 1.13 pm.

Technical performance
that bears witness to a collective achievement 

Hubert
du Mesnil, President of Réseau Ferré de France, Philippe Mellier, President of
Alstom Transport and Anne-Marie Idrac, SNCF Chief Executive Officer,
representatives of the three partners in the French Excellence in Very
High-Speed Transport programme, celebrate the new world record achieved thanks
to the commitment of their staff.

“Beyond the technical
performance, I salute the human performance. This is the culmination of a
project that has drawn on the best of the expertise that ALSTOM, RFF and SNCF
can provide, over a 14-month period. Today’s achievement offers countries and
operators, wishing to make very high-speed rail transport one of their
strategic levers of growth, proof of its reliability,” addsPhilippe Mellier, President of Alstom Transport.


Serving to crown the collaboration between RFF, Alstom Transport and SNCF, the
record follows a major programme of tests that started on 15 January 2007 and
in which over 300 engineers and technicians were involved. 40 trial runs were
conducted at speeds exceeding 450km/h, making for a total of over 200 hours of
tests and 3,200 kilometres covered.


The V150 trainset is made up of 2 TGV^TM POS  power cars, 3 TGV^TM Duplex (double-decker) coaches and 2 latest-generation very high-speed
train motorized bogies developed by Alstom: the AGV^TM. In total, this system develops an output of 19.6MW (25,000
horsepower).

Thousands of items of data
recorded and analyzed 

Beyond
the technical achievement, the programme has served to shape the future of
high-speed rail transport. An on-board measurement laboratory has made it
possible to analyse data recorded by 600 sensors with a view to assessing the
behaviour of the infrastructure and the materials at previously unexplored
speeds. These measurements have enabled the validity of provisional models to
be verified and aerodynamic, acoustic, dynamic and vibratory validation to be
performed.


This historic record will serve to durably position RFF, Alstom Transport and
SNCF as world leaders in very high-speed rail transport.

The previous record
had been held since 18 May 1990 by SNCF with its no. 325 TGV^TM Atlantique trainset, which reached a speed of 515.3km/h at PK 166 on
the TGV^TM Atlantique line near to Vendôme