The alternative would be having the train tilt into the curve, so the passengers don't notice it. This is actually commonly used in sub-high-speed tilting trains like the Italian Pendolino (used in Italy, Finland and Slovenia just to name a few), and the German ICE-T -- I'm not sure whether this is a really bad pun, or just shows that Germans are completely humorless -- can do tilting even at high speeds. There's even a TGV Pendulaire in the works but I don't think it's in commercial use anywhere...



[This message has been edited by jpatokal (edited Feb 22, 2004).]