At the Berlin Rail Transit Exhibition (Innotrans 2018), which opened on September 18, China Railway Corporation Limited (hereinafter referred to as "China Railway", 601766.SH) put the variable marshalling EMU on the booth. This is the first time the model has been exhibited overseas.
Huang Junhui, the project leader of China's variable marshalling EMUs and deputy chief engineer of CRRC, revealed to a reporter from China Business News that the variable marshalling EMUs are based on the industrial platform series EMUs, with a maximum speed of 500 kilometers per hour. At present, the prototype of variable marshalling EMU has been offline in CRRC Tangshan Locomotive and Rolling Stock Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Tangshan Company"). CRRC said that the car is currently undergoing in-plant operation tests at Tangshan Company and has applied for type tests at the China Railway Research Institute. It is uncertain when the vehicle will be ready for commercial operation.
At present, the EMU in use in China, whether it is "Harmony" or "Fuxing", is fixed by 8 or 16 carriages. The variable marshalling EMU can match the carriages at will in the range of 2 to 16 sections like ordinary passenger cars, and the carriages have various functions, including longitudinal sleeper cars, seat-to-seat sleeper cars, VIP cars, business seat cars, double-deck cars, meal and passenger and cargo cars.
Huang Junhui told the reporter of "China Business News" that the marshalling method of variable marshalling EMUs is like building blocks, and the minimum marshalling unit is two sections, that is, two power heads are connected. If the marshalling is to be expanded, the most efficient matching is calculated according to the speed and power. A motor car and a trailer are added between the two heads. The motor car is always located at both ends of the train and the trailer is located in the middle. In this form, it is possible to form any number of EMUs with a speed of 160 to 500 kilometers per hour and a marshalling number of 2 to 16 vehicles.
Huang Junhui told the reporter of "China Business News" that railway transportation is divided into low and peak passenger flow, and there is a huge difference between the Spring Festival and daily life. Fixed marshalling EMUs cannot be disassembled, cannot increase carriages to cope with peak passenger flow, nor can they reduce carriages to reduce expenditure or avoid waste of capacity, and capacity and passenger flow often conflict. The variable marshalling EMU enables the EMU to be marshalling according to the actual situation such as the characteristics of the line passenger flow, and flexibly respond to the fluctuation of passenger flow and passenger demand.
Variable marshalling EMU will also bring changes to the maintenance of EMU. An EMU consists of tens of thousands of parts, hundreds of units, and dozens of systems. In the past, the maintenance of an EMU had to be completed. Because it could not be disassembled, the entire train had to be carried out. One failure would cause the entire train to enter the warehouse for maintenance. In order to replace a module, it took several days, which reduced the efficiency of vehicle use. Variable marshalling EMUs can be disassembled and repaired according to specific faults, and other carriages can continue to be used, which can reduce the maintenance reserve rate by 50%.
Take replacing a window as an example. Huang Junhui said that maintenance generally takes 2 to 3 days, and if it is the front windshield, it takes more than 10 days, during which the entire EMU cannot operate. If it is replaced by a variable marshalling EMU, only the section that needs to be repaired needs to be disassembled. He predicted that after the variable marshalling EMU is put into operation, it can help the operating enterprises to reduce the spare vehicles by more than 50% and ease the profit pressure of high-speed rail. Huang Junhui emphasized that the variable marshalling EMU is designed and produced in full accordance with Chinese EMU standards and is a member of the "big family" of Chinese standard EMUs.
On the expected economic benefits, China's medium-sized cars explained to the reporter of China Business News that the manufacturing cost of variable marshalling EMUs is equivalent to that of CRH series EMUs of the same type, but in terms of hard sleeper, business seat and double-deck seat capacity, the capacity is increased by 50%, 70% and 56% respectively compared with CRH models of the same series. This means a significant reduction in manufacturing costs and per capita energy consumption, and a significant increase in operating income over the same period.
Shen Zhiyun, an academician of the "two academies" and a professor at Southwest Jiaotong University, said that the variable marshalling EMU can achieve a capacity of more than 1500 people, which is conducive to coping with the huge passenger flow on the Spring Festival, summer transportation, or Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail lines; it is also possible to use only two The front group, the VIP train.
Shen Zhiyun believes that the variable marshalling EMU can also take out the faulty car separately for repair, or repair the head car, bullet car and trailer in different workshops at the same time after decomposition, thus greatly reducing the standby rate. This is one of the important technological breakthroughs in the railway industry.
Yang Yudong, director of the State Railway Administration, commented when inspecting Tangshan Company in March 2017 that the design of variable marshalling EMUs has broad ideas, made major innovations, and has a strong promotion.
Similar to the variable marshalling unit launched by China's medium-sized car, Siemens flexible marshalling high-speed train ICE4 models are developed, manufactured and even applied more rapidly than China's medium-sized car. The ICE4 has a maximum speed of 230 kilometers per hour. All cars can be used as independent units or can be assembled into trains with a number of cars ranging from 5 to 14 to meet the needs of different transportation tasks. The ICE4 is a new generation of high-speed trains built by Siemens for Deutsche Bahn (DeutscheBahn). According to a reporter from China Business News, ICE4 was put into trial operation between Munich and Hamburg in Germany in October 2016.