The Fastest Thing Since High-Speed Rail?

We often look at countries with giant high-speed rail networks in awe, but there's yet another fast-growing, fast-moving transit trend taking over the world's newest large cities by storm — high-speed metros.

Map Data © OpenStreetMap contributors

[hooman]

Hello guys, neeraj here! (The guy who shot rrts)

I am open to questions which are not extremely deep in the transportation-field.

Also, I suggest people living in delhi-ncr to give RRTS a visit. I am pretty sure you would be surprised how great everything is.

[TheReactorLore]

High Speed Metros can act like suburban rail and urban express rail at the same time, where the metro can go very very fast but connect various destinations. GO Transit and the TTC need to build more high-speed metros and regional rail instead of peak-hour commuter rail and slow legacy metros. This is because Toronto's geography and urban sprawl call for a fast system with a flexible route.

[akshatdeshmukh]

Note regarding the RRTS in Delhi - It also becomes a conventional metro corridor when it enters the state of Uttar Pradesh, where it will become parellel to the Meerut Metro, i.e. both the RRTS and the Meerut Metro will run on the same tracks. While the RRTS will only use 4-5 stations after entering Uttar Pradesh, the Meerut metro will consist of other stations not included as RRTS stations. The rolling stock for the Meerut Metro is like a conventional metro rolling stock with operational speeds of 80 km per hour, manufactured by Alstom in India. Basically it means that while acting as a high speed metro overall, it becomes an express metro after entering Uttar Pradesh.

[expojam]

In a sense, the Shinkansen is like a high-speed metro because of how frequent the service is.

[thebestevertherewas]

RRTS has changed Meerut-Ghaziabad commute.
Once its complete, it will become very popular

[DanChan-qbec]

I think Guangzhou Metro Line 18 and Line 22 are the best examples of high-speed metro. They are planned and constructed as both a suburban rail and a metro. They use suburban trains with metro interiors. Stations spaced slightly close together in Guangzhou and far apart outside of it. They are planned to reach other cities (as far as Zhuhai and Shenzhen). They run almost fully automatically (GoA3). And they run with Local and Express service (no express on line 22 at the moment as it's too short but have provision for that)

[Kaali_khetra]

Thanks for using delhi 🇮🇳 rrts for thumbnail ❤❤❤ i hope to see more rrts in 🇮🇳

[RishabhKumar]

RRTS trains are designed for 180kmph but capped at 160kmph, the exclusive coach has vending machines inside them which is quite continent considering that Delhi to Meerut or vice a versa takes an hour and Meerut metro will run on the same tracks of RRTS when Meerut section is completed.

[artano]

It's surreal to ride the outer sections of the DC metro. Especially the Orange and Silver lines. I took the Silver out to Dulles and it was so nice to see the metro going faster than the cars on the highway

[nuffaildaniaelle]

Seoul - GTX
Delhi - RRTS
Guangzhou - M18, M22
Istanbul - Hizray, M20

[whophd]

Excellent video idea. I was just mulling over this yesterday when stumbling over an old document calling Sydney Metro "Sydney Rapid Transit".

Probably important to nominate the 3 things that create speed:
1. Top speed
2. Average acceleration
3. Dwell times

It's the 3rd one that makes Sydney Metro's new timetable quicker than the old Sydney Trains timetable on the SAME line, EVEN for the express service that skips stops — which Sydney Metro never does. That's thanks to more doors and fewer seats (and no stairs).

But don't undersell the 2nd one — have you seen the travel time improvements on British Rail with the new locomotives that accelerate harder? They've been able to stop using tilt trains in some cases because the top speed wasn't as relevant in a winding-road situation; the engines pull harder and they're still making less time than the old tilt trains despite having a lower top speed (or top speed in the curves: TBC). This slow-fast-slow-fast experience is sort of analogous to stop-start-stop-start, and we used to have single-deck trains in Sydney too, before 1994. But they were FAR slower at departing, and even the trains that we received in the 2010s (A sets and B sets) you can FEEL the kick of the acceleration more than everything that was made before 2010.

[purplebrick]

Yet again supporting my theory of "everything new in transit is an S-Bahn"

[stuttgartspotting]

don‘t forget highspeed Regional Trains. Here in Germany we have a few of them like the IRE200 from Wendlingen to Ulm with a top speed of 200km/h on the highspeedline where ICE are only 50km/h faster. Other Routes are from Munich to Nürnberg or Nürnberg to Erfurt, all the use parts of ICE highspeed lines :)

[shakeelali]

At this point us Aussies and Canadians are probably better off doing our long distance train journeys with Kangaroos and Moose respectively!

We'll probably see teleportation implemented before we see HSR in either country.

[rodrigoalvesdepaula]

São Paulo made it in early 2000's. CPTM L11 line is a former suburban railway converted to semi "high-speed" metro where trains can reach top speed up to 100 km/h

[Yuiop]

If you are late to work or school it is a great idea, to arrive on time. Using a high speed metro allows you to arrive on time instead of being late.

[gevans]

Back in the 1930s/40s, NYC realized close metro stops made the IRT lines (1/2/3/4/5/6 trains) too slow. That's why the IND lines (ex. A, C, E lines) were spaced farther apart, and it's why, if the Second Avenue Line is full built down the east side of Manhattan, it will act as an high-speed metro version of the Lexington Avenue Line.

[Indian_Rajput]

Yeah Rrts is fastest metro system in India currently with 160 as top speed. India is expanding it's metros in quite good speed. We are also confident on our Bullet train system which is currently under construction 🚧🚧🚧

[ShivanshuTyagi]

Thank you for using our RRTS in thumbnail. I'm glad we are in that league now.

[mdhazeldine]

I feel like your definition of suburban rail is just that "it already exists, and it's mostly old". What is the technical difference between a brand new suburban rail network, built from scratch, and a brand new high-speed metro system, built from scratch? Is it just the metro style seating layout? Or is it that it goes through the city centre in a tunnel? If the Elizabeth Line was built from scratch and didn't use existing lines in the East and West of the city, would you then call it High Speed Metro? It just feels like you're inventing a category for the sake of it. What am I missing?