Great Western Coffee Shop

Whilst I have been in New Zealand Kiwirail have withdrawn all 40  of their Chinese high powered 2700kW DL class diesel locos. Apparently some of the insulation has proved to contain asbestos. Dalian Locomotive Works are blaming a sub contractor!

As the class represents around 20% of the loco fleet and a much   higher percentage of the more powerful 2350 kW and above fleet it causing problems. Many of the other higher powered  locos are used on the Midland coal trains from the West Coast to Lyttleton so North Island is short of locos for its 1550 tonne container trains and 1200 tonne milk trains.

Something to aware of as the Chinese seem anxious to get into the European Market for trains and locos.

So where are the HS2s scheduled for Britains railways being built?  There was a short mention of them on Channel 4 News this evening, the short video clip showed a train looking like the Chinese model. 

Don't know yet ... but I note new trains being built by Siemens in Germany many be too fast for HS1:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1318751/How-new-200mph-Eurostar-MkII-fast-train-tracks-Britain.html

As well as China, then, you have Germany, perhaps Italy, maybe Newton Aycliffe ...

I hope this isn't a stupid question, from she who knows diddly-squat about modern trains (or even old ones, come to that!) but are the HS2s going to be electric?

Certainly not diesel, that's for sure. The Intercity 125s that still ply their trade on several of the UK's main lines are, I believe, the fastest diesel trains in the world. With a linespeed of 186mph, only electric trains can make full use of HS1 and HS2's linespeed is currently planned to be higher still (about 250mph if I recall correctly).

That said, while many other countries have moved to electric traction for their main lines, the UK department for transport don't seem to trust the electrification engineers and have specified that the next-gen electric Intercity trains will have a diesel-engine on board just-in-case the power fails ::). On that basis, HS2 trains might also have diesel reserve power.

I suppose we can rule out electric-steam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric-steam_locomotive) traction then?

No you can't rule it out the Swiss converted some steam shunters to electric firing  by fitting large immersion heaters to the boilers and a pantograph.

Indeedy; if you follow my link you can see a pixture of one.

The French, not to be outdone, produced steam-electric (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heilmann_locomotive) locos in the 1890s.

Amazingly, neither technology really took off until some bright spark had the idea of combining the concept with the key element of Brunel's 'atmospheric' system, viz: locating the generating plant outside the locomotive.