while alstom used to monopolize european high speed train manufacture, siemens has now come into the game with their velaro EMU. Strangely though, although alstom are continuing to use shared bogies in their AGV, siemens, as they always have done, are sticking with a more standard 4 axles per car. their trains are reaching the same speeds as the alstom TGVs (which also have shared bogies) but are presumably causing more friction. The new velaro 320 trains ordered by eurostar also have this more standard configuration and it seems to be a down-grade in technology from the 373 eurostars. does anyone know why more axles seems to be equally preferable (or in some cases the preference) to the shared bogie design? and of course, post your thoughts on which you personally think is better.
