high speed railroad getting ready to open in Morocco in 2017, will halve the 4 hour 45 minute travel time, and only be twice the time it takes an airliner


The first of 12 Alstom Duplex high speed trainsets for national railway ONCF was unloaded at the Port of Tanger on June 29

It is a 320 km route from Tangier to Casablanca, which includes a 183 km high speed line between Tanger and Kénitra which is being built for operation at up to 320 km/h.

 From Kénitra to Casablanca the services will use a conventional line upgraded for speeds up to 220 km/h.

Opening of the new line was planned for December 2015 when construction was launched by King Mohammed VI and French President Nicolas Sarkozy in September 2011, but delays to the infrastructure works mean this has now been put back to 2017.

ONCF expects the new line to reduce Tanger – Casablanca journey times from 4 h 45 min to 2 h 10 min.

http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/high-speed/single-view/view/africas-first-high-speed-train-delivered.html

(never thought you'd see news about high speed rail on the African continent, did you?)

the Holman Locomotive Speeding Truck Company scam



It might have been supposed that the Fontaine experiment http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2014/08/unusual-locomotive-design.html  would have deterred others from trying such an expensive experiment again; but when an amateur gets seized with the malady for designing a locomotive of an entirely new pattern, he generally produces something startling.

"They are advertising in Philadelphia papers that a company has been formed to sell this kind of locomotive,they make the claim that this sort of engine is destined to be the locomotive of the future."

"When we first heard of the Holman locomotive we supposed that it was the invention of some harmless crank who did not understand the elementary principles of mechanics, but we now believe that it has been, since its inception, an ostentatious machine designed to allure unwary capitalists into an investment which will be of the same real value as throwing gold coin over Niagara Falls."

 The engine was run a few trips on a straight railroad in New Jersey, which was used merely as a stimulant to stock selling. Unfortunately many people with limited savings were lured into investing their hard earned money in this swindle,

History from Curiosities of Locomotive Design. Development of the Locomotive Engine, by Angus Sinclair. Railway and Locomotive Engineering—September-December, 1907


my post about the train on the Mexican 100 peso bill, got Steve on a roll...




















just found all over Google images