The 2025 Spring Festival has come to an end, and the mobile China is still full of vitality. Not long ago, the CR450 EMU completed the prototype design and successfully rolled off the assembly line, its test speed of 450 kilometers per hour, operating speed can reach 400 kilometers per hour, is the world's fastest high-speed rail train. The prototype has been manufactured, but the work of the R&D team is not over, and a series of line tests and assessments will be carried out intensively to create conditions for the "fastest high-speed railway" to be put into commercial operation as soon as possible.
At the National Railway Test Center, engineers are doing "weight management" for the CR450 EMU prototype. Sensors are installed on the rails, and the weight of the eight wheels on both sides of each carriage is transmitted to the computer in real time. In order to increase the speed of 50 kilometers per hour, but also to run on the existing line, the CR450 EMU must be "slimmed" as much as possible, and the "physique" must be stronger.
Chen Can, associate researcher at the Locomotive Research Institute of the China Academy of Railway Sciences: The weight has been reduced, and the strength must be ensured not to decrease, or even to be increased, because it has a higher speed. Just like people, you have to be thin and strong enough. One is a structural change and the other is a material change.
Drilling under the test bench, the camera looks at the new car from the bottom of the car for the first time. In addition to the application of topology optimization technology, the car body also uses new materials such as carbon fiber composite materials and magnesium alloys, and this fully encapsulated structural design also covers the entire bogie area for the first time.
Also for the first time, the CR450 EMU replaced the asynchronous traction motor with a permanent magnet traction motor. For various extreme working conditions, the R&D team has designed more than 40 complex scenarios and done hundreds of simulation tests around just one motor.
Ha Dalei, senior chief designer of CRRC Changqing National Rail Passenger Car Engineering Research Center: Jumping out of our comfort zone is to make adaptive modifications or overthrow some things that have been conventionally relatively mature in the past, and re-innovate them in combination with the current technological trend, and continue to move forward.
Nie Ying, the overall senior chief designer of the high-speed EMU of CRRC Sifang Technology Center: While our Fuxing is improving, other competitors are also improving. We are catching up all the way, and we know how many difficulties are on this road, so if we want to maintain the world's leading position, we must continue to explore and update technology, and lead the development of the industry with innovation.
The whole vehicle test not only has to monitor the data on the vehicle, but also does a lot of ground testing. The CR450 EMU prototype traveling on the ring line has also become the brightest "star" in the eyes of train fans.
At the side of the ring line, Tian Pengyi and his team were monitoring the noise outside the train when it started, and the speed improvement and lightweight design had brought great challenges to noise control.
Tian Pengyi, associate researcher of the Locomotive Institute of the China Academy of Railway Sciences: The results of today's test, the indicators are still very good, far below the limit, how much I can't disclose now, but it is really good, I am especially looking forward to sitting on this car in the future.
During the interview, the reporter also met Xie Yuanli and Zhou Jinghui, who came to Beijing on a business trip, one of them is a welder and the other is a riveter, and the "bones" of the CR450 EMU prototype are built by themselves.
Xie Yuanli, the leader of the manipulator squad of the welding production line group of the CRRC Changbus Bogie Division: I am very proud that the engineer will draw the dream for you, and then we will chase the dream to chase the dream, so that our skilled talents have a higher climbing goal.
Zhou Jinghui, riveter of the aluminum car body production line of the manufacturing center of CRRC Changke National Railway Division: In the later stage, we will continue to tackle key problems for mass production.
After 7 years of technical research and independent innovation, in 2025, the CR450 EMU will usher in vehicle test verification and trial assessment, and it is believed that in the near future, this "world's fastest" high-speed rail train will be on the picture scroll of the era of high-quality development, and better meet everyone's yearning for a better trip.