>>1984791Does the route reuse many old sections? Or is it a brand new route?
350 km/h require very straight paths, and keeping the turns at a minimum. In China they build special bridge for this type of thing, and instead of circling a mountain, they drill the bridge straight through the mountains.
An this is very expensive$$$ to the point where it is likely meaningless in Chilean context.
If they did use some old tracks, this would be the best explanation of why 160 km/h is the ideal mix&match with this project.
If they build the new route from scratch, then it could be many things.
Perhaps Chile requested the route to pick up many smaller stations along the way, and they picked up enough stops and calculated 160km/h is the most ideal in terms of fuel cost and and the amount of constant accel de-accel they need to be doing.
