The writers of the present paper attempt to answer the question ‘what is the financial benefit of reducing a high-speed train's mass by 1 kg?’ They adopt a systems-engineering approach to lowering the mass of railway vehicles while retaining the required performance in other areas. The analysis is based on notionally reducing the mass of a Class 373 Eurostar train by 25% and results in an estimate of the financial benefits in terms of reduced energy consumption and infrastructure maintenance cost as well as lower life-cycle costs. A comparison is made with the financial benefits of mass reduction reported for the civil aviation and automotive industries. Noise and vibration issues and their dependence on rolling stock mass are also considered.
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