EuroRailwatch:Train in Spain sets out to beat plane

[jpatokal]

This is firmly in the "pie in the sky" category of infrastructure projects -- the current status is that Tony Blair has promised to "look into it" -- but it's still spiffy. Here's UK Ultraspeed:

http://www.expall.com/newmap.html

Basically a 310 mph maglev track linking up London- Birmingham- Manchester- Newcastle- Edinburgh- Glasgow. The interesting (and IMHO very smart) bit is that the track is planned to pass through all the major airports along the way, providing excellent connectivity and basically eliminating the need for flights between the cities.

So when's it going to be ready? Maybe in 15 years (http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/news/s/147/147388_delays_expected_on_super_link.html).

[gwmss15]

Have you ever herd of the issue of peak oil?

it seems to be a very serious issue with very deep wide ranging effects

here is a flash animation from a british website
http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/portal/images/stories/animoil.swf

http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/portal/images/stories/animoil.swf

also another good site for info on peak oil is www.peakoil.com a usa based site with members from all over the world

everyone should have a look at this and think what they can do to fix it and yes its very relivent for the railways and mass transit world

[ncr]

More on Brighton's Electric Railway in general (http://volkselectricrailway.co.uk/) and the quirky Seashore Railway (http://www.whitstablepier.com/volks/dll.htm) in particular.

A route map (http://www.whitstablepier.com/volks/Route.htm).

[ncr]

And yet more:

http://www.rottingdeanrailway.co.uk/

[ncr]

Still trying to figure out the alignment and length of the Daddy Longlegs Railway. There's almost no information to be found on this. Obviously it started from the Banjo Groyne (Paston Place Station on the route map linked above), as can clearly be seen in the pictures, and then apparently extended all around the 'Black Rock Cape' and some way further, where it was connected to a wooden or metal pier (also visible in one photo).

This sentence from the "My Brighton and Hove" article (see below) is of course nonsense:

This was a proposal by Magnus Volk for a railway that ran along on rails underneath the sea for about 50 to 100 yards offshore, from where his existing electric railway finished all the way to Rottingdean, where it was connected to a pier.

No, it was not just "50-100 yards" long. And it was not the "existing railway" (= Volk's Electric Railway) that went to Rottingdean (at that time it terminated at the groyne, and never extended beyond the Black Rock), but precisely the Daddy Longlegs railway (which can also be seen from the fact that it was called "The Brighton and Rottingdean Seashore Electric Railway"!) Apart from that, the sentence is illogical in itself, as it doesn't mention the two end points of the line, and implies that the existing railway connected with it offshore!?

Strange that the regular railway was extended parallel to the seashore venture up onto the Black Rock as early as 1901, thus creating competition for it. Well, but then, due to difficult terrain conditions, the landbound railway could never get past the rock, though it was at some point planned to extend it.

The article (http://www.mybrightonandhove.org.uk/daddy_longlegs_history.htm) originally posted on the 2B main page.

Short Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volk%27s_Electric_Railway) for Volk's Electric Railway.

[ncr]

As seen on Multimap (http://www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?client=public&X=532000&Y=103000&gride=&gridn=&scale=25000&coordsys=gb&db=freegaz&lang=&inmap=&table=&ovtype=&localinfosel=&local=&kw=&srec=0&mapsize=big&db=freegaz&rt=). (Rottingdean is here (http://www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?client=public&X=534000&Y=103000&width=700&height=400&gride=&gridn=&srec=0&coordsys=gb&db=freegaz&addr1=&addr2=&addr3=&pc=&advanced=&local=&localinfosel=&kw=&inmap=&table=&ovtype=&zm=0&scale=25000&right.x=7&right.y=147), further east.) Part of the old seashore railway route has been taken up by the Marina development.

So it appears the Daddy Longlegs railway was roughly 3 miles / 5 km long.

Note: it's possible to turn on an airphoto layer in this application, but I couldn't spot any trace of this engineering marvel.

[ncr]

2B once mentioned the $6.5 billion, 57-km Gotthard Base Tunnel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel) (note the beautiful panorama with the route), enabling travel 'through' the Alps, in the truest sense of the word. The inauguration is scheduled for 2015 - and we are talking about Switzerland here, so I am really expecting them to have it ready on time.... ;-)

Part of the tunnel - consisting of two separate tubes - are two multifunction (or "combined technical and rescue") stations (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Nrla_scheme.png)at Sedrun and Faido where trains can switch tracks if one of the tubes is under maintenance, or be parked on sidings and evacuated in case of emergency.

Now there is a very interesting proposal to convert the Sedrun emergency halt into a regular station for passenger traffic. This project has been dubbed "Porta Alpina" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porta_Alpina)

website (http://www.visiun-porta-alpina.ch/), German language only
brochure (http://www.visiun-porta-alpina.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/Home/Dokumente/broschure_porta_alpina.pdf) - 1.3 MB, German language only
dimensions (http://www.visiun-porta-alpina.ch/fileadmin/material/bildpraesentation/Bildprsentation/images/Picture-08.jpg)
location (http://www.visiun-porta-alpina.ch/fileadmin/material/bildpraesentation/Bildprsentation/images/Picture-13.jpg), also
here (http://zelos.zeit.de/bilder/2005/11/wissen/alpenbahnhof_karte_200.gif)

That might of course raise some questions:


How would it be possible to have a station there, as the tunnel is buried under more than 1 km of rock at this point?

-Well, using the longest elevators in the world, of course! Double decker cabins would bring 80 persons from the station (550 m above sea level) to the surface (1350 m above sea level) in just about 100 seconds. Actually not yet the surface: another 1 km horizontal tunnel with a shuttle bus is necessary to get out of the mountain. The 800m deep shafts are already there - now used for construction, later for maintenance access or rescue missions.


But wouldn't it interfere with the normal operations if some trains stopped in the middle of the tunnel?

-Apparently not, careful scheduling provided; the headway would allow up to 36 regional trains daily to stop, though it is suggested to have a train stop every hour. (Still, there are certain doubts (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porta_Alpina#Auswirkungen) whether this sort of operation would be reasonable.)


Why go to this expense to build a station in the middle of the Alps, far from any town?

-In this area, the North-South line crosses another important railway line, used by the Rhaetian Railway to the east and the Matterhorn-Gotthard Railway to the west (the route of the famous Glacier Express). Thus, creating a transfer point to Sedrun/Disentis stations would considerably facilitate, for example, travel between Zurich and the southeastern canton of Graubünden / Grisons (Chur, St. Moritz etc.), or Zermatt in the Valais. Apart from that, the area is also popular for skiing, so the station would allow visitors to reach their destination more easily. And of course it would be a tourist attraction in its own right - "The deepest railway station with the highest elevator in the world's longest tunnel"!

'Cost' is relative, anyway: at an estimated 50 million Swiss Francs, it would only require a tiny fraction (around 0.5%) of the total budget.

The proposal has passed a technical and economical feasibility study in 2003 and there seems to be strong backing from the local/regional population.

Now it largely depends on the federal government whether this vision will become a reality......

[ncr]

French train hits new world new speed record (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070403/wl_afp/francetransportrail_070403121835) - AFP, 03 April 2007

France's TGV train set a new world speed on rails Tuesday, hitting 574.8 kilometres (357.2 miles) per hour on a stretch of track in eastern France. The experimental version of the Traine a Grande Vitesse (TGV), equipped with two supercharged locomotives and extra-large wheels, easily beat the 515.3 kph set by a TGV in 1990. The TGV narrowly missed the overall world train speed record of 581kph (360.8 mph) reached in 2003 by a Japanese magnetic levitation, or Maglev, train.

Manufacturer Alstom arranged the exploit in order to test its latest engineering designs in extreme conditions, and also to display the TGV's technological prowess to clients in a growing world market. Facing stiff competition from German and Japanese rivals, Alstom is angling for deals in Argentina, China and Italy -- as well as from the US state of California which this week sent a delegation to France to study the fast train programme. "Not only are you French people lucky to have the high speed train system, but it also impacts the environment in a positive way," said Fabian Nunez, speaker of the California state assembly, which is looking into a possible link between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

France's electrically-powered fast trains have been operating since 1981, daily reaching speeds of 320 kph over some 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) of track. The latest line -- to open in July -- reduces travel time from Paris to the eastern city of Strasbourg from four hours to two hours and 20 minutes. It was on a section of the Paris-Strasbourg line -- prepared with extra ballast and boosted overhead electric cables -- that Tuesday's speed record was broken. The special train -- dubbed V150 -- was at one point travelling at more than 150 metres per second.

The train reached similar speeds in trials in recent months, but this was the first test to be officially monitored. "What is important for us today is to prove that the TGV technology which was invented in France 30 years ago is a technology for the future," said Guillaume Pepy, director-general of the state rail company SNCF, which is TGV's main customer. Outside France only South Korea has so far bought TGV trains.

Japan's Shinkansen "bullet train" and the Inter-City Express (ICE) of the German company Siemens are the other major players in a global fast train market that has been boosted recently by environmental concerns about the impact of air transport. Bombardier of Canada and Talgo of Spain are also manufacturers. The Shinkansen and the ICE currently average about 300kph (186 mph) but a new version of the Japanese train, the Fastech 360Z, is expected to operate at 360kph (223.5 mph) when it enters service. Alstom is preparing a new generation of TGVs -- also capable of 360 kph -- to come on line from 2012.

[jpatokal]

One for the World's Weirdest Metros file -- the Minimetro in Perugia, Italy opened yesterday. A 3 km long hybrid transportation system, the technology is funicular (rope-pulled) with a twist: the 25 vehicles, which can hold 50 passengers each, can detach and reattach themselves from the rope at stations. Running at intervals of less than a minute at a speed of 25 km/h, this gives a maximum capacity of around 3000 pph, and it's been questioned why they built a dead-end system like this instead of a "real" metro... but there's around 300m of elevation to climb in those 3 km, which would be a tough slog for most self-propelled systems.

UrbanRail: http://www.urbanrail.net/eu/per/perugia.htm
News report: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLGOgQGGjH0
Promo video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKXTZlMduiQ
Skyscrapercity (some nice pics): http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?p=18081822

[GWR]

French train hits new world new speed record (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070403/wl_afp/francetransportrail_070403121835) - AFP, 03 April 2007

France's TGV train set a new world speed on rails Tuesday, hitting 574.8 kilometres (357.2 miles) per hour on a stretch of track in eastern France. The experimental version of the Traine a Grande Vitesse (TGV), equipped with two supercharged locomotives and extra-large wheels, easily beat the 515.3 kph set by a TGV in 1990. The TGV narrowly missed the overall world train speed record of 581kph (360.8 mph) reached in 2003 by a Japanese magnetic levitation, or Maglev, train.

Manufacturer Alstom arranged the exploit in order to test its latest engineering designs in extreme conditions, and also to display the TGV's technological prowess to clients in a growing world market. Facing stiff competition from German and Japanese rivals, Alstom is angling for deals in Argentina, China and Italy -- as well as from the US state of California which this week sent a delegation to France to study the fast train programme. "Not only are you French people lucky to have the high speed train system, but it also impacts the environment in a positive way," said Fabian Nunez, speaker of the California state assembly, which is looking into a possible link between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

France's electrically-powered fast trains have been operating since 1981, daily reaching speeds of 320 kph over some 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) of track. The latest line -- to open in July -- reduces travel time from Paris to the eastern city of Strasbourg from four hours to two hours and 20 minutes. It was on a section of the Paris-Strasbourg line -- prepared with extra ballast and boosted overhead electric cables -- that Tuesday's speed record was broken. The special train -- dubbed V150 -- was at one point travelling at more than 150 metres per second.

The train reached similar speeds in trials in recent months, but this was the first test to be officially monitored. "What is important for us today is to prove that the TGV technology which was invented in France 30 years ago is a technology for the future," said Guillaume Pepy, director-general of the state rail company SNCF, which is TGV's main customer. Outside France only South Korea has so far bought TGV trains.

Japan's Shinkansen "bullet train" and the Inter-City Express (ICE) of the German company Siemens are the other major players in a global fast train market that has been boosted recently by environmental concerns about the impact of air transport. Bombardier of Canada and Talgo of Spain are also manufacturers. The Shinkansen and the ICE currently average about 300kph (186 mph) but a new version of the Japanese train, the Fastech 360Z, is expected to operate at 360kph (223.5 mph) when it enters service. Alstom is preparing a new generation of TGVs -- also capable of 360 kph -- to come on line from 2012.

Not exactly unveiled in KL, however!;)


February 05, 2008 20:53 PM
Alstom Transport Unveils The Prototype Of AGV1

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 5 (Bernama) -- Alstom Transport has unveiled the prototype of its latest generation of high speed train called automotrice grande vitesse (AGV)1.

In a statement today, it said the AGV has been designed to reach a cruising speed of 360 kilometre per hour and its first customer is NTV3, Italy's new railway operator.

Alstom president, Philippe Mellier said the trust by NTV3 by becoming the first launch customer will enable them to demonstrate rapidly the performance, comfort, convenience, environmental soundness and low cost of ownership of the company's train.

The train is the first in the world to feature an articulated architecture with the bogies located between the carriages, a solution which provides highest levels of safety.

The single deck articulated carriage is a technology that contributed to the success of France's TGV train. it said.

Over the past 25 years, Alstom has sold more than 650 TGV trains, and carried nearly one and a half billion passengers over two billion kilometres.

-- BERNAMA
Non-specific link:
http://www.bernama.com.my/

[jpatokal]

High-speed news from Europe -- the long-awaited Madrid-Barcelona link is about to open, and I picked this article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/02/spain.railtravel) because it had the best title :D

In its first term in office, the socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has spent €21bn (£15.7bn) as part of a 15-year €108bn project to transform the rail network. Around 70% of this will be spent on the Ave (short for Alta Velocidad Española, or Spanish high speed).

The aim is to have 10,000km (6,200 miles) of high-speed track in Spain by 2020, meaning that 90% of the population will be no more than 30 miles from a station through which the train passes.

The Barcelona line is to be extended to Perpignan in France, making the Catalan capital just four-and-a-half hours from Paris. Work to join Madrid and Lisbon is under way.

December saw the opening of lines connecting Madrid to Valladolid and to Málaga, which have slashed journey times and proved hugely popular. Carrillo describes the success of these two lines as "unprecedented and well ahead of what we expected. Traffic has doubled on the Málaga line, and grown by 75% on the Valladolid line." ...

It will be the Madrid-Barcelona connection, though, that will test the high-speed service. Business people in Spain's two largest cities, with a combined population of 10 million, have been crying out for the Ave for decades. But its development has not been without problems. The inauguration was delayed by landslides that brought chaos to Barcelona's commuter service, as contractors rushed to finish the line at the end of last year.

When it finally gets running, the S103 will cover the 410 miles to Barcelona in two hours and 35 minutes, taking two hours off the journey time. But it will face stiff competition from the highly successful air-shuttle, with a route that is one of the busiest in the world.

The "air bridge" operated by Iberia airlines allows passengers to turn up at the airport, buy a ticket, and board, within 20 minutes. Iberia alone has 60 flights a day, carrying 8,000 people.