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Issue 3 2007
Issue 3 2007 / 6 June 2007 /
Stavanger, on the west coast of Norway, is the country’s oil capital. The city and the surrounding Jæren region have consistently enjoyed the fastest population growth in Norway since the oil boom started in the early 1970s. The Jæren line from Egersund to Stavanger is a continuation of the Sørland line linking Oslo with the south of the country. Extensive modernisation of the rail system in Jæren is now under way, with well over NOK 2bn due to be invested over the next few years.
After many years of stagnation in local services, a new timetable offering many more departures was introduced in 1992. This was well received by the market, and traffic has increased fourfold from 1992 to date. The current single-track line is now operating at full capacity, making further increases in traffic impossible. Construction of a double-track line between Sandnes and Stavanger is therefore under way and scheduled for completion in 2010. In future, the line will be the region’s main public transport artery. Double-tracking will facilitate a doubling of the number of trains between Bryne and Stavanger. (more…)
Tagged with: Environment, Jernbaneverket, Jon Frøisland, Norway, Rail freight, Rail infrastructure, Urban rail
Issue 3 2007 / 6 June 2007 /
At the beginning of April 2007, one of the first DSB IC3 train sets reached a historic landmark.
It has been recorded that train set MF 5010 has clocked up five million train kilometres since 1990 – a distance which is the equivalent to 125 journeys around the Earth or 15,193 journeys between Copenhagen and Århus. Even though DSB is well renowned for exploiting its rolling stock in an efficient way, never before has the company’s rolling stock clocked up so many kilometres in such a short time. (more…)
Tagged with: Denmark, DSB, Peder Nørregaard Jespersen, Rolling stock
Issue 3 2007 / 6 June 2007 /
The planning of Finland’s first airport line is well under way and construction is scheduled to begin in 2008 on the outskirts of Helsinki. A working group has recommended that the line will be constructed with normal state budget funds. The project is expected to cost approximately €420 million (at the May 2006 cost level).
The 18km line in Vantaa will offer a rail link to the Helsinki-Vantaa airport, plus making it possible to build new residential areas and workplaces along good traffic connections.
The airport line, which in the master plan stage was called the Marja Line, has been renamed the Ring Rail Line, since it will run between the main line to the north and the Martinlaakso commuter line via the airport. The Ring Rail Line will form an urban rail loop that will make it possible to use commuter trains more efficiently. Plans call for services to operate at 10-minute intervals in both directions on the new line. The fastest journey time from the centre of Helsinki to the airport will be approximately half an hour. (more…)
Tagged with: Bridges, Environment, Finland, Harri Yli-Villamo, Rail infrastructure, RHK, Stations, Tunnelling
Issue 3 2007 / 6 June 2007 /
Banedanmark face great challenges in the coming years. New funds from the Danish government will make it possible for Banedanmark to renew large parts of the Danish State rail network over the next seven years. Another huge challenge is a total renewal of the entire signalling system introducing an ERTMS based system in Denmark.
The Danish Railway has been facing great challenges over the past five years. A major part of the rail network dates back to the 60s and 70s and despite great efforts to maintain the network, the poor condition of tracks, signals and other infrastructure elements have caused major problems for train traffic across the country.
The problems come at a time when the need for transport in Denmark is constantly and rapidly increasing. Statistics show that the population’s need to move over longer distances is growing. Though the number of train passengers being transported on the Danish rail network has increased over the last 10 years, the increase in road traffic has been even larger. It is therefore urgent that something has to be done about the rail network in order to make train transport more attractive, not least for environmental reasons. (more…)
Tagged with: Banedanmark, Denmark, Eigil Sabroe, ERTMS, Rail infrastructure, Signalling
Issue 3 2007 / 6 June 2007 /
PKP Intercity is a commercial partnership which was established in 2001 as a result of the Polish National Railways restructuring programme. PKP Intercity owns the fastest, most comfortable and modern railways in Poland and our trains connect big city centres and popular holiday resorts. (more…)
Tagged with: Czeslaw Warsewicz, PKP Intercity, Poland, Polish National Railways, Ticketing
Issue 3 2007 / 6 June 2007 /
Deutsche Bahn AG’s €30 billion core business consists of mobility services around railway transportation as well as a worldwide network of logistics in freight including rail business in Europe. In addition, DB operates a network of approximately 35,000 track-kms and offers further services such as station management, heavy maintenance and energy-supply.
The railway operators of the DB Group – Railion for freight, DB Fernverkehr for long distance and DB Regio for regional transportation – run almost 35,000 trains per day and own almost 18,0000 vehicles (Figure 1). Most of them are freight wagons, the rest are coaches, railcars, locomotives and, last but not least, 250 ICE trainsets for high speed services which operate up to 320km/h.
More than 300 other railway companies run another 6,000 trains a day on DB’s network. Competition in Germany’s railway business is intensive, but rail traffic in general and at DB is increasing well with also an increase shown in recent years of more rail traffic than on the road. (more…)
Tagged with: Deutsche Bahn, Germany, Joachim Mayer, Rolling stock
Issue 3 2007 / 6 June 2007 /
OpenTrack is a user-friendly railroad network simulation program. It is a microscopic model that simulates rail system operations based on user defined train, infrastructure and timetable databases. OpenTrack can be used to evaluate and test infrastructure plans and operating schedules in order to optimise network and timetable design. It can be run on several different computer platforms and incorporates the benefits of object oriented programming language with a common data interface structure. The program has been used successfully on projects in Europe, Asia, Australia and America.
Railways are highly inter-related systems combining fixed infrastructure networks with specific rolling stock and a precisely choreographed timetable. Careful planning is critical for railway success since network capacity cannot be easily calculated, infrastructure is very expensive, changes are very disruptive to operations and poorly planned infrastructure can significantly increase operating costs. Furthermore, planning highly inter-related systems is particularly challenging because many different combinations of infrastructure improvements, rolling stock and timetable changes can be used to achieve any given objective. (more…)
Tagged with: Andrew Nash, Dr. Daniel Huerlimann, ETH IVT, Infraspeed, OpenTrack, Passenger information systems, Rail systems, Switzerland, Timetables
Issue 3 2007 / 6 June 2007 /
One of the greatest achievements of railway engineers at the end of the 1960′s was the invention of long welded track. Up to that time the rails were laid in lengths and linked together by joints. The gap at the rail joint became smaller or larger depending upon the temperature. Vehicles travelling over the joint exerted a strong interactive force, producing high stress on the vehicle itself and a plastic deformation of the track in the area of the joint. A jointed track is subjected to heavy strain and therefore requires a great deal of maintenance. (more…)
Tagged with: Dr. Bernhard Lichtberger, Plasser & Theurer, Track maintenance & engineering
Issue 3 2007 / 6 June 2007 /
Since March 18 2007, the European Train Control System (ETCS) has been in full operation on Switzerland’s backbone of the railway network. The newly built Mattstetten – Rothrist line between Bern and Zurich is the core of the Rail 2000 concept. The new 42km section is used by 242 passenger trains and more than 30 freight trains a day travelling at speeds of up to 200km/h at operational headways of less than two minutes. The Swiss Federal Railway (SBB) is the first railway in the world to successfully introduce a highest density mixed traffic operation applying ETCS Level 2 and GSM-R voice.
Switzerland is an export oriented country. A high percentage of the Swiss industrial production is exported to the surrounding countries, mainly to Germany and Italy. Most of the heavy goods are transported by train. In addition, Switzerland is one of the geographical pivot points of Europe, as the shortest way from northern Germany to Italy passes through Switzerland. Therefore, a large proportion of the Trans European freight is transported over the Swiss railway infrastructure. (more…)
Tagged with: Arnold Trümpi, ETCS, GSM-R, Interoperability, Rail infrastructure, SBB, Signalling, Switzerland, Train protection systems
Issue 3 2007 / 6 June 2007 /
Consultancy firms are currently working on a diverse range of projects in the railway industry.
This November, the final section of High Speed One will open. This is the UK’s first high-speed rail line, formerly known as the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. With the completion of the route, Eurostar trains will be able to gallop at speeds of 300km/h from Paris Nord and Brussels Midi across the plains of northern France and Belgium, through the Channel Tunnel and over Kent, the so-called ‘Garden of England’. After burrowing into tunnels under East London, the sleek international trains will emerge into daylight to terminate in London’s magnificently refurbished St Pancras International station. A triumph of modern-day engineering, High Speed One is also a tribute to the skills of consultancy firms – not least their political skills.
For in the 1980s when the Channel Tunnel was being constructed, the UK’s nationalised train operator, British Rail, drew up a route for a new high-speed line to link the Tunnel to London that would approach the British capital in the south-eastern quadrant, diving underground in Peckham. The tunnel would go under central London, with Eurostar trains running to a new underground station at King’s Cross. (more…)
Tagged with: Consultancy, Eurostar, High-speed rail, James Abbott, United Kingdom, Urban rail
Issue 3 2007 / 6 June 2007 /
The fact that the slab track is more than just a product becomes apparent if the subject matter is approached from the perspective of the internationally active track construction company Heitkamp Rail, a subsidiary of the Dutch Heijmans group of companies.
Over a period of years, a very complex task field has developed around the slab track ranging from consulting and planning services to the execution of construction work and to internal developments. This task field is characterized by several track systems that – representing engineering projects by themselves – are often embedded in complex construction projects. (more…)
Tagged with: Andreas Michnik, Deutsche Bahn, Germany, Heitkamp Rail, Track systems, Urban rail
Issue 3 2007 / 6 June 2007 /
On 15 April 2007, the RPM-RS-900 from the SPTIZKE Group celebrated its construction première in Germany. For the first time, the machine works to improve the formation, cleaning and recycling of ballast – all in a single machine complex. Renewing the substructure of tracks is now performed by 200 metres of state-of-the-art high performance technology. (more…)
Tagged with: Dipl.-Ing. Ingo Wiermann, Germany, SPITZKE AG, Track systems
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