links for 2007-06-16
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(German language) website about high speed rail all over the world.
Betuweroute freight rail line to be inaugurated
It’s an exiting time for railroading in Central Europe - after the TGV Est and the Lötschberg Base Tunnel, the Dutch Betuweroute (official site) freight rail line between Rotterdam and Germany will be the third infrastructure project to open for service this month. This 160 km long, double track freight corridor is set to improve capacity between the Dutch harbor cities and mainland Europe.
However, startup of freight services over the new route might be slower than expected, due to the fact that locomotives that will operate on the new route will need to be equipped with both Dutch and ETCS 2 train control systems, plus also be able to run under 1.5 kV DC and 25 kV AC catenary (plus, if they want to continue onwards in Germany, they also need 15 kV AC capability and German train control systems).
Still to come later this year: Highspeed 1 (2nd phase of Channel Tunnel Rail Link to St Pancras), HSL-Zuid (High speed line between Amsterdam and Antwerp) and completion of the Madrid-Barcelona high speed rail line …
TGV Est open for commercial service
In case you’ve missed it - the new TGV Est high speed line from Paris (Vaires-sur-Marne) to the East of France (Baudrecourt) opened for commercial service last Sunday, June 10. Since this week, TGV POS/Reseau and ICE 3 trainsets share the rails and provide new high speed service between Paris and Strasbourg, Frankfurt, Luxembourg, Basel, Zurich, Karlsruhe, Stuttgart and other cities. Travel times have been shortened considerably - e.g. 2 hours 20 minutes instead of 4 hours from Paris to Strasbourg.
Trains reach a top speed of 320 km/h on the high speed line and run at speeds of up to 220 km/h on the conventional lines. Service frequencies are set to increase with future timetable changes - more direct services to Zurich and also to Munich should be available starting December 2007.
Links:
- SNCF News Release (PDF, 32 pages!)
Lötschberg Base Tunnel inaugurated
Second big rail line inauguration in Central Europe within a week - after the TGV Est high speed line in France last weekend, we now have a new tunnel through the Alps:
Today, the new Lötschberg Base Tunnel - first part of the NRLA (New Railway Link through the Alps) has been officially inaugurated. At 34.5 kilometers of length, it is currently the third longest tunnel in the world (and the longest non-underwater tunnel).
Freight trains will start using the tunnel within the next days, but passenger operations will only start in August (the schedule will even only be adjusted with the December timetable change).
Links:
- BLS AlpTransit Press Release
- Speech by Swiss Transport Minister Moritz Leuenberger: “We have moved a mountain.”
links for 2007-06-12
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Here’s a fabulous idea, create a pilot, high speed rail route from London to Cardiff…
links for 2007-06-09
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Two-thirds of California’s congressional delegation has signed a letter to Gov. Schwarzenegger supporting much more funding for the state’s proposed high-speed rail system than the governor’s budget proposed.
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The State Legislature is poised to rebuke Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for his obstructionism in the creation of a much-needed high-speed rail system for California (see “The Silver Bullet Train,” 4/18/07).
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With the arrival of a high-speed train Sunday, the plane trip will no longer be necessary: The new “TGV” service will cut the train journey between Paris and this Alsatian city (Strasbourg) in eastern France by nearly half - to two hours and 20 minutes.
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Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger should do more than just get on board the state’s proposed high-speed rail plan. He should become the bullet train’s engineer. Instead, he’s paying it lip service and playing political games with its funding.
Manitou and Pikes Peak Cog Railway
I spend last weekend in Colorado Springs, Colorado at a company event of my employer and since I had some spare time on Saturday afternoon, I drove over to Manitou Springs to take a quick peek at the Manitou and Pikes Peak Cog Railway, one of the two only cog railways in the United States (the other one of course is the Mount Washington Cog Railway - interesting choice of internet domain names by the way …). The United States does not have a whole lot of cog railways, so this was something rather unique and I had to go see it. I knew that they were using Swiss built diesel powered cog railcars - but I was still surprised to see how, well, “Swiss” everything looks. This could almost be the Mount Rigi railway or something like that … Switzerland does have the largest number of cog or rack railways in the world (see also here), so it does not come as too much of a surprise that they would use Swiss technology. In fact, other cog railways around the world do the same.
I didn’t have enough time to actually ride it, but maybe one more notable fact is that this train goes up higher in elevation by far than all the Swiss railways - the highest mountain station in Switzerland (actually, in all of Europe) is the Jungfraujoch station at 3454 meters above sea level - but the Pikes Peak station is located at an elevation of 4300 meters above sea level (14,110 feet), so it is a good 850 meters higher up in elevation!
Anyway, here are a couple of pictures, all taken at the base station in Ruxton/Manitou Springs, itself already 2002 meters above sea level …
Old steam engine, no longer in service.
Last ascending train of the day leaving the station.
Factory plate of the railcar, clearly showing its Swiss origin.
No, this really is not in Switzerland …
ACE is holding a photo contest
Photos can be entered in one of several categories, but must obviously feature an ACE train in some way. Grand Prize is a $300 gift card for Best Buy … For more details, see the ACE website …
Enter the Altamont Commuter Express photo contest for a chance at stardom and valuable prizes! Your winning photo may be ACEs new signature image and people all over the world may see it on our brochures, website, and presentations.
links for 2007-06-01
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The Legislature is poised to rebuke Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s obstructionism on creating a much-needed high-speed rail system for California.
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We’ve reported that public opinion on climate change moved with surprising speed in the U.K., but surprising (if not equal) speed is also showing up here.
