How much does a Canadian weigh?

[bellinghman]

Well, if it's the train, it appears to be

19 cars, at 50 tonnes per car (I assume the 'customary' weight.)
2 engines, at 118 tonnes per engine (EMD F40PH)

Total 1186 tonnes

OK, that's one heavy train.

Comments

[autopope.livejournal.com]

That's not particularly heavy except insofar as there are lots of cars. An InterCity 225 multiple unit seems to come with 9 cars labelled as being 50 tons each, and two engines/transformers on wheels which are labelled as 90 tons (which makes sense if you realize they don't haul 5Mw diesel generators around -- just overhead contacts and switchgear). Scale up the number of cars to match the Canadian and the weight would be within 5%.

AIUI real high speed rail (not the poxy slow 130mph version we've got) makes design changes -- one bogie per car (shared with the next in line), aluminium monocoque construction, and so on -- that save an enormous amount of weight. But they then splurge their energy budget on going faster. In terms of tons of mass set in motion per passenger, though, rail is generally no better than a big fat SUV.