NOTA |
(★)(Japan´s railway network now totals about 27,500km, including both the JR Group and private railways. Over the last 10 years, passenger trains handled 400 billion passenger-km annually, accounting for about 30% of the transport market... / ... The opening of the shinkansen not only encouraged economnic growth in Japan but also triggered a worldwide boom in high-speed rail to reinvigorate the so-called ´declining railways.´ In 1964, the shinkansen´s top speed was 210km/h but subsequent engineering improvements to rolling stock and track, as well as advances in noise and vibration reduction have raised the maximum speed to 300 km/h on the San´yo Shinkansen. Today, the shinkansen network totals about 2000km and carries 280 million passengers each year without a fatal accident --a record that it has maintained since 1964./ These achievements have been made possible by developments in various supporting technologies, such as rolling stock design, track maintenance, operation management systems, signalling and communications, etc. As a result of these successes, Japan is transferring its advanced railway technologies worldwide through various international projects to develop the world´s railways. [from Dr Yoshiji Matsumoto´s foreword]/ ... this book is a compact and easy-to-understand guide to railway technologies now used widely in Japan. It is a good primer on Railway engineering for general readers without technical knowledge and it can serve as a handbook for experts too. [from Editor´s preface] ▼CONTENTS/ CHAPTER 1 : What Drives Electric Multiple Units?/ CHAPTER 2 : How Bogies Work / CHAPTER 3 : Shinkansen Bogies/ CHAPTER 4 : Braking System/ CHAPTER 5 : Railway Electric Power Feeding Systems/ CHAPTER 6 : The Mechanism of Railway Tracks/ CHAPTER 7 : Signalling and Telecommunications Systems for Safe Railway Transport/ CHAPTER 8 : Railway Construction in Japan/ CHAPTER 9 : Protecting the Trackside Environment/ CHAPTER 10 : Minimizing the Effect of Natural Disasters/ CHAPTER 11 : Passenger Service Technologies/ CHAPTER 12 : Magnetic Levitation (Maglev) Technologies/ CHAPTER 13 : New Types of Guided Transport/ CHAPTER 14 : Information Technology in Railways/ CHAPTER 15 : When Train Stations Become CyberRail Stations/) |