by David Briginshaw
dbriginshaw@railjournal.com

THE 40th anniversary of the world's first high-speed railway, the Tokaido Shinkansen, was marked in Tokyo on November 9 by a conference staged by JR Central and JR West on the environmental benefits of high-speed rail. Mr. Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute in the United States, gave an impressive keynote speech on the environmental problems currently facing the planet and the measures that need to be taken now to resolve them.

Brown said that soil erosion, which has been a major threat to food production, has now been joined by two new environmental trends that will also jeopardise food production: falling water tables and an average annual rise in temperature of 0.7 degrees C. According to Brown, each 1 degree C increase leads to a 10% reduction in rice, grain, wheat and corn production. Brown believes that the situation will come to a head very soon. "World grain stocks are now down to their lowest level; just barely covering this year's consumption," he said. "Next year will be a challenge, especially if it is a poor harvest."

Brown said that it is vital to increase water productivity, stabilise the world population, and stabilise the climate. He said this is entirely achievable provided we use imagination and have strong leadership.

It will be disastrous if China, India, and other developing countries emulate the developed world with its disposable society and automobile-centred transport. "To change China to a car-dependent society, you would have to pave over an area equivalent to that used to grow rice," Brown pointed out. Rail, on the other hand, has a huge landtake advantage over road. Professor K Ueta of Kyoto University, added that if China reached the same level of car ownership as Japan the number of cars in China would be equivalent to the total number of cars in the world today.

Rail clearly has an important role to play in solving the world's environmental problems. Dr. Tsutomu Toichi, managing director of Japan's Institute of Energy Economics, said that rail consumes the least energy of all modes of transport. Trains consume 50kcal/passenger-km, compared with 300 for buses, 480 for aircraft, 550 for ferries, and 580 for cars.

Brown remarked that Japan had set the standard for rail transport. "It is hard to imagine Japan without a high-speed rail system. Without the Shinkansen, there would be more pollution and road congestion."

Mr. Masayuki Matsumoto, president of JR Central, said that the Tokaido Shinkansen had an 81% share of the air-rail market between Tokyo and Osaka. The project to reduce journey times and build a new station at Shinagawa had boosted traffic on both the Tokaido and Sanyo Shinkansen by 5%.

Matsumoto pointed out that improvements in train design had significant environmental benefits. "Our most recent series 700 trains run at 270km/h yet consume 16% less energy than the original series 0 rolling stock running at 220km/h." The new N700, which is due to enter revenue service in 2007, is expected to be 10% more energy efficient. A prototype N700 will start trials next year.

Mr. Louis Gallois, president of French National Railways (SNCF), pointed out that TGV uses 3.5 times less energy than a private car and six times less than a medium-range aircraft. He also said that a double-track high-speed railway uses only half the land needed for a four-lane highway but has a greater capacity.

Mr. Hartmut Mehdorn, CEO of German Rail (DB), pointed out the benefits of electric traction. He said 90% of trains in Germany are powered by electricity. "In 2003, 281GWh of power was fed back into the grid from braking energy, setting a new world record," Mehdorn told delegates. Energy-saving driving techniques enabled DB to reduce traction current costs by 10% last year, saving about $US 10 million. Mehdorn also pointed that almost 11% of DB's energy comes from renewable sources, namely hydroelectric, wind, and solar power. "Without the railway, an additional 16 million tonnes of CO2 would be emitted into the air over Germany."

COPYRIGHT 2004 Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
Reprinted with Permission

David Briginshaw
Editor-in-Chief
International Railway Journal (IRJ)
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