Current Breaking Test of the Superconducting Feeder on Tram-Train Running

To introduce the superconducting feeder cable for commercial operation of a railway system, it is required to establish technologies for safety and reliability. The behavior of the superconducting cable must be determined for the case in which the superconducting cable fails in the feeder system for railways. The superconducting cable can be introduced so that it is installed along with the existing feeder cable or so that only the superconducting cable is installed to be used as the feeder line. For this time, at first only, the superconducting cable was used to establish a circuit for feeder to the electric railcar without using the existing feeder circuit to conduct the power-transmission test and current breaking test. Then, the superconducting cable was installed along the existing feeder line to establish a circuit that is capable of feeder via both feeder lines to conduct the same tests. In both tests, it is confirmed that no problem occurs in the train and the superconducting cable system when it encounters the current breaking. For the parallel feeder system, it is found that the current path is transferred to the existing feeder line and the system is continuously capable of operating the train stably when the current is broken in the superconducting cable.