Click here if the embedded gallery above does not work.

It turns out, trains in Vienna are often late recently, but the display of expected arrival times greatly increases comfort for those who have an appointment.

(a serious design mistake here is that the next stop itself is not always visible, as it rotates with the speed display. Another important information, the current time, is also relatively hard to find.)

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Apologies for the misleading title, all I found is that if you bike to work at least 3 times a week for 14 months, you can keep that 700 euros worth bike, in the Dutch Harderwijk, during the local road works.

Free Bike for Commuters

Cycling might be considered a hippie thing, but not in Holland: the rationale behind the campaign is that a shuttle bus service would have been a lot more expensive.

The Haags Openbaar Vervoer Museum (founded in 1989) opened for visits on 21st May 2009. In the last couple of months, not only the old tram depot building was renovated, but a conference room was set up for groups and events, and the exhibition got a fresh graphical look under the name “Remise”.

A few people were already gathering around the museum building well before the 1 pm opening, as a good part of the collection van be clearly seen from the outside too (above left). Two axle and PCC tram cars, two Hague buses and a London Routemaster red double-decker bus (above right) are parking in the outside, the latter has only recently been removed from service according to the passenger information displays.

After the last tram reverse movements (as most of Hague trams are unidirectional) (above left) and bus Y-turns (above right), the museum opened its doors and four smaller rooms of models, destination panels and uniforms could be seen accompanied by a few photographs and short Dutch descriptions. The highlight of this exhibition is the tram boogie and the matching frontal section of the tram body turned over to show the joining mechanics (bottom right).

In the covered area of the depot, further trams and buses can be seen (below left), and the careful observer can even notice some model railroads on the tram seats waiting for a better time (below right). You can even keep an eye on the trams now via the webcam service.

Around half of the trams display the Kurhaus in Scheveningen on line 8 as their destination, which is not coincidental. A good series of revolutionary tram systems were introduced in this section before Amsterdam or Rotterdam: the horse tram (1864), the steam tram (1879) and finally the electric tram (1891). In 1927, the first “sneltam”, fast tram was introduced, having its track separated from other traffic. After WWII, the city saw the first PCC trams, grassed tracks in the seventies, later viaducts were built in the city center, even inside the Den Haag Centraal railway station building (below left).

In 2004, the tram tunnel of two stops was inagurated in the centre (above right), which allowed to convert the street level to a pedestrian area (bottom left). In 2007, two tram lines were converted to higher comfort, speed and punctuality under the brand name RandstadRail (bottom right), and these tram-trains travel as far as the neighbor city of Zoetermeer reusing a former heavy rail line. The ambitious plan of the near future is in fact the upgrade of following lines to the RandstadRail model.

The historic trams used to travel on more diversified routes, but problems of excessive wear arose from the different geometric profiles of the rails and the tram wheels. Some route restrictions had to be applied not only to museum stock but also for part of HTM’s own fleet. Hence last year, no tram rides were possible, and more replacement works are necessary to raise the restrictions.

The museum is open from May to October every Sunday 13am-5pm, he entrance fee is 3.50 euros, valid for a tram or bus journey too. The site is accessible with a short walk from Den Haag HS railway station, and if the museum leaves you curious, you can take a train to nearby Utrecht (below right) for the Dutch Railway Museum (below left).

More of my the Hague pics in Flickr.

Caprine Szilvásvárad maraton, 2009-05-31

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Magyarul a pendolino.blog.hu-n.

On-board WiFi has been a big hype among premium/high-speed rail providers, as they expect more business travellers from introducing the new service. The Belgian-French-Dutch-German Thalys has been testing its system since 2005, the British Virgin Trains and the US Acela Express also have plans. This wouldn’t make much sence on a traditional railway in the era of mobile (as in GSM/UMTS) internet, but the high speed trains travelling through 2+ countries and in tunnels can actually use an on-board system.

The technology is the following: the trains connect to a ground relay through a satellite connection, and repeaters are placed inside tunnels to make the connection continuous, as you can see on the picture from Thalys below.

The Thalys business model: 60 minutes for 6,5 euros or unlimited for 13 euros; free access in 1st class.

If I manage to publish this post, that would mean that the connection is pretty stable, as I am currently writing on a Paris-Amsterdam service. I measured 24/8 Mbps down/upstream, and while it’s true that there is connection even at 300 km/h and in tunnels, but it often disconnects in normal-speed tunnels like Antwerp station and Schiphol Airport. There is an electric socket on all 1st class seats (and on all classes on the refurbished trains coming this year for HSL Zuid), but it is a bit unreliable.

The extra feature is geolocation, as known from flights and the railjet. The screenshot below shows our train approaching Antwerp central station at 153 kph.

The map shows perfectly that the main mission of the Thalys brand is to exploit the HSL between Paris and Brussels. From this line, trains branch to nearby cities on partly traditional lines for journeys of 1-4 hours alltogether.

We are arriving at Amsterdam Centraal, check out my Flickr account for more images of Thalys or Paris.

Magyarul a pendolino.blog.hu-n.

Netherlands has been building an intercity light rail network for the past years, reusing previous sections of tram lines, metros and heavy rail and extending them with new sections of elevated rail and tunnels. The RandstadRail currently operates on the southern region of the “round city”, namely connecting the Hague to its suburbs and Rotterdam.

The tram lines 3 and 4 bring commuters from Zoetermeer and from the west to the Hague, using low-floor tram-trains operated by the transit company of the Hague. Although elevated tram lines were not at all unknown in the city centre before RandstadRail (and hence there is no need for heavy metro), an eye-catching, new viaduct has been built just two stops from the central station, while the trams run underground on the other side of the city. In the suburbs, the Alstom RegioCitadis tram-trains run on street level, but still protected from individual traffic.

In the near future, further the Hague tram lines are planned to be converted to a RandstadRail line, and in 2010, 100 of the current 147 trams will be replaced by this low-floor, somewhat wider design.

Citadis tram-train in the new the Hague viaduct

In contrast, the Erasmus line from the Hague to Rotterdam has a high-floor standard, because – although the current Rotterdam terminus location is not optimal – as soon as the short tunnel section under the central station is finished, this service will be merged with the Rotterdam heavy metro line of the same name. The rolling stock is already operated by the Rotterdam transit authority, recently the RSG3 trains manufactured at the Dutch factory of Bombardier.

RSG3 rolling stock of the Erasmus line on Rotterdam terminus

RSG3 interior

Due to unified branding and livery, the differences in the two systems above might only be apperent to us train buffs, but the five shared stations had to be designed for mixed floor-level use. As stairs are not acceptable anymore in local transport, these stops simply have platforms of both heights connected with ramps.

Low-floor RegioCitadis arrives, the departing RSG3 metro car has stopped at the high-floor section in the foreground.

The three lines once again meet at Den Haag Centraal, where the Erasmuslijn arrives on the heavy rail platforms, while the 3-4 light rail line stops are elevated inside the rail station.

RSG3 at the Hague central station

Hague-operated RandstadRail over mainline trains

The photos are from my trip on April 12th, more pics here!

(go to flickr if you can’t see the embedded flash)

This year, unfortunately, the royal celebration in Apeldoorn ended in a tragedy when someone killed 5 people with a car trying to attack the Queen, so the official events had been cancelled there.

Now all four heavy metro lines stop at Gare de l’Ouest, which is becoming the terminus for the new RER suburban rail system later this year.

Both old and new maps appear inside the trains. The latter is a Spanish CAF-produced Boa train, one of the 15 ordered in 2004. Further 6 are arriving until 2011.

Gare de l’Ouest

CAF Boa leaves Gare de l’Ouest, the new RER platforms in the background.

the station features ticket gates, a novelty in Brussels.

All four heavy metro lines call at the new station. Lines 3 and 4 are “Premetro” light rails, trams running underground in the centre.

Surface transit is also transforming, the tram 82 replacing bus 85 at Gare de l’Ouest is on the first picture, followed by reorganization works on tram line 25.

“The new metro makes Brussels move”, says the citywide advert campaign, on the platform of Gare Centrale, on the Delacroix matrix display and at Rogier.

Even more of my pics on flickr.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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The Italian Pininfarina is one of the World’s most famous designers; among several Ferrari cars, they have also styled the newest Ford Focus, Volvo C70 and Peugeot 1007 models. They don’t over-advertise it on their websites, however, that in the past two decades they worked on the aerodynamic modelling and shaping of plenty of rail vehicles, for factories like AnsaldoBreda and Bombardier. Some of them have already appeared in this blog, so it is high time for an overview.

In 1988, the first prototype of the Italian ETR 500 (Elettro Treno Rapido, rapid electric train as you might have guessed) was born, tested on the Florence-Rome line. The multi-current version was introduced in 2000, which also got a face-lift. And last year, the trains travelling above 300 km/h in scheduled service received a new red livery, and named Frecciarossa, red arrow.

The red Re 460 locomotives were introduced as part of the Swiss programme Bahn 2000, hence their nickname Lok 2000. The engines wearing a huge logo of the federal railways entered service in 1991, and as of today they are not only a usual sight in Switzerland but also in Hong Kong.

Six years later, double-decker passenger cars were made to match these engines, dubbed IC 2000. They serve the non-tilting InterCity traffic at a regular top speed of 200 kph. A characteristic element of the trains is the control cab copying the locomotive design (see the similar Railjet), and the signature cow-like livery.

For the Swiss Expo in 2000, the ICN tilting trains entered operation. Today, these trains cross the Alps  substituting yet-to-arrive New Pendolino trains for Cisalpino, besides regular service on the Geneva-Zürich line through Olten and its variants.

Leaving Switzerland finally; the arrival of the new Dutch high speed trains for NS Hispeed is still unclear, but the exterior design has been completed on time. The AnsaldoBreda V250 “Albatros” electric multiple unit (EMU) has been introduced at the InnoTrans rail fair (bottom right). Denmark is also waiting for Italian trains, the IC4 four-car diesel multiple units should have arrived some 6 years ago (bottom left). The “bullet train” design is a significant change compared to the look of previous rubber-faced IC3 trains.

The design studio also works on trams and suburban trains, the pictures below show the Norwegian BM72 EMU in Oslo, the TAF Italian double-decker commuter train and the Sirio tram in Athens, respectively. The latter two share a similar round-faced look, while the side lines of the Norsk train reminds me of the new generation ETR 500s.

On a slide show of their wind tunnel, the ETR 500, a Lok 2000 and a Channel Tunnel TransManche road vehicle transporter train is modelled.

Photos: Ambrosiana Pictures, Ciccio Pizzettarro, Blumensaadt, jprdgz and pretty much of my own.

In addition to wind and rain, the new glass roof shelters at Astoria are defenseless against summer sun heat, too. On the bright side, it can handle two billboards.
 
 
—- ?Sent using a Sony Ericsson mobile phone

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The second MeetBike conference was held last week in Dresden on the integration of green transport modes, i.e. public transport and cycling. Although I haven’t been able to attend, the following is my interpretation of the slides available online.

In the past decades, the share of utility cycling in Germany dramatically increased, e.g. doubled in Berlin and tripled on Leipzig. Surveying commuters, it turned out that 1) public transport and cycling is used for very similar journey types (5-10 km long everyday commuting and week-end leisure trips), 2) in general, around half of passengers are “multimodal”, i.e. they use several transport methods on a daily basis.

City authorities aim to publicize both cycling and transit, therefore it is beneficial to handle these alternatives to the private car in an integrated way, to benefit from network effects.

Transporting bikes on transit vehicles

According to a research by the Dresden University of Technology, two thirds of German transit operators have no objections against transporting bicycles. The biggest problem is the capacity issue, only relevant in some of the cities. This can be cured by limiting bikes in rush hours, tariff adjustments and, finally, by increasing capacity.

e.g. in Stuttgart in rush hour, bikes are not allowed on the light rail (Stadtbahn) and a ticket is required on the commuter trains (S-Bahn), but they are free on both in other times. (The bike racks on the Stuttgart rack railway are on the photo.)

The cyclists’ club explains, that on some lines frequently used by cyclists, the so called “multi-functional areas” are not sufficient for daily bike transport, because the folding seats generate conflicts, and the positioning of the bikes needs to be defined by the installment.

Bike+Ride parking at the stations

It is a relief to vehicle capacity when cyclists choose to leave their bikes at the stations. For everyday commuting, though, riders expect covered parking areas; and on the successful S-Bahn lines, such as in Berlin, the current tens of thousands of parking spaces still need expansion. (Bike parking at Amsterdam Centraal station is pictured.)

Accessibility

The operator of the Oberelbe region notes that the ramps, lifts and low-floor vehicles required for wheelchair access are also beneficial for cyclists, the elderly and passengers with prams or heavy luggage; so by and large for the majority.

Bike sharing

The bike sharing systems very popular these days (publicized especially by the biggest and most successful Vélib system of Paris) are a big help for capacity planning, too, since passengers arriving on public bicycles need neither parking nor vehicle bike storage. Obviously, rental points need to be installed at the stations, and tariff planning needs to be integrated with public transport.
For example, in Paris, the electronic (RFID) transit pass is also used to take out a Vélib, and the Swiss train pass offers discounted Rent-a-bike prices. Simply we give a discount for a frequent buyer of green transport.

Designing bike lanes at sidewalk tram stops

The city of Leipzig was presenting the issue of conflicts between cyclists and riders in tram stops. In recent years, they explain, tram stops are built right next to the sidewalks (sometimes by widening the pavement), because this means a safer design and shorter journey times compared to tram stops in the middle of the road. On these configurations, bikers shouldn’t be guided on the tracks, as crossing rails in a low angle is dangerous; so they are directed either between the tracks and the pavement or, if possible, behind the stop, and they use the road category “pedestrian street with bike access” to ensure priority for pedestrians.

Marketing

Finally every presenter highlighted the importance a unified, strong messages for using cycling and transit together. We are currently working on such a campaign called Bike to Work [by train].

Pictures: Akbar Simonse, Andrew Ciscel and me.

Let’s forget for a moment that Americans not just love to drive, but Amtrak trains are infrequent, slow (sometimes yielding to freight trains) and often late, and let’s imagine a brighter, maybe not-so-distant future:

via The Overhead Wire.

Reports on other recent crashes are simultaneously coming out, many stating not only a technical failure but, unfortunately, the  inadequate reaction of the crew.

Speaking of the Kalitta plane, the Dutch and French language reports on the Report coming out state that

• One of the four engines was hit by a bird (which happens all too frequently, despite “bird control” systems installed at airports), decreasing its performance to 40%. According to the report (the writers of which had significantly more time to decide than the crew), this wouldn’t have prevented a safe take-off, using the three engines left.
• Despite seconds over V1 (the speed of no return at a take off, according to procedures), the pilot decided to abort. Possible cause is the Captain’s recent negative experience with these engines of “bad reputation”.
• Somehow, the crew didn’t use reverse thrust, which can be even seen on regular airline landings.

Despite these two mistakes, the plane luckily managed to stop meters from high-voltage lines and a railroad, but the aircraft has totally been destroyed and the runway severely damaged.

Another report published last week investigated the more recent crash involved a Turkish 737 “landing” on a crop field next to Amsterdam Schiphol airport, killing several people including the crew. The sequence of events this time were the following:

• The weather was cloudy (no visibility of the runway during the events below) and and a pilot in training was at the contols in the right (co-pilot) seat. In addition to the captain, a supervisor pilot was also in the cockpit watching the trainee. (Although both of these conditions should be standard, they certainly didn’t help.)
• Of the two altimeters on board, the left one was faulty. Unfortunately, this captain-side gauge was the one controlling the autopilot. Consequently, the engine power was automatically decreased to idle and the plane nose lowered.
• The 3-person crew failed to realize the situation for 100 long seconds, either the false (even negative) sign on the left altimeter, or the “landing gear not down” warning buzzer. The report also speculates that they had visiblity on the runway well before taking action.
• Finally, a stall warning alarm went off, which prompted the pilots to apply full thrust, but it was too late, at 150 m altitude.

Finally, a happy ending story of a similar bird crash like the Kalitta is the Hudson river landing of the US Airways Airbus.

All these stories only remind me to the extraordinary “job profile” of an airliner pilot: while both casual and professional drivers of road vehicles exceed technical limitations and highway rules on an everyday basis; plane crew are not only expected to obey strict rules and procedures, but to be prepared for and cope with technical failure as part of they job.

Photos: Cimm, virtualpilot88 and jkrums.

A Stadionokon lattam el?ször ezeket a láthatóan vadiúj elektronikus jeladókat a vágányban. Tudja valaki, mik ezek? Az uj Alstom kocsik automata vonatbefolyásoló rendszere? Update: igen.

In spring 2006, I managed to take a close photo on the construction works of the first full-size Metro in Switzerland (see pic). The Lausanne metro line m2 was opened last October, so let’s have a look at the results via Flickr.

I am not implying here that a full-size metro is a clear sign of development and wealth, or that it would necessarily increase the quality of public transport. The real goal is to provide fast and comfortable transport options for the commuters, be it an efficient tram network (Basel, Zürich) excellent bike infrastructure (Gröningen, Copenhagen), or any combination. Metro-fetish per se is not a good thing. But this line seems to be a smart project.

In fact, the city never had a “regular” metro, but they do have a suburban line with a city centre terminus built in 1872, a light rail/supertram branded as Metro 1 connecting university campuses with the centre ville and another main line train station, and they used to have a cog-wheel railway (below on the left), which has now been lengthened and converted to rubber-tire metro.

Rubber tire railway was first pioneered in Paris after WWII. The idea (which sounds a bit odd at first, as it is combining the inefficiency of road transport with the constraints of a fixed track, similar to the trolley bus) proved to be efficient on the congested Paris lines, because the higher friction of tires allow higher acceleration, shorter breaking distance and therefore higher train frequencies. – In Lausanne, the challenge was the hilly terrain: the extreme elevationof as high as 12% were previously made possible only using cog wheels or cable cars.

For those who like useless world records: this is the steepest metro line in the World, Lausanne has just become the World’s smallest city with a full size metro system (next being Rennes), furthermore it is claimed to be the most modern metro system.

The new subway uses the technology of Paris Métro lines 1 and especially 14, there is no driving seat and stations are all having platform doors. The mostly underground line is 6 km long with 14 stations, end-to-end duration of 20 minutes and a frequency of 3 minutes in peak hours.

More pics on Lausanne rail transit (click here if you can’t see below):

Photos by Nelson Minar, fr.zil, hublera and me.

This is a model from the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart to illustrate city life before the  “glorious” invention of the automobile 100+ years ago.

Please note the striking similarity of this picture with current plans and finished projects of reclaiming city centres from motor traffic, for example Graz:

As an engineer, I seriously believe in technical development, but when once in a while we do mistakes (i.e. donating 90+% of urban space to individual motorized transportation), there is a necessity to be bold and reclaim the streets and squares we once had, for example one PARK(ing) space at a time.

We strongly prefer bike lanes on the road to pavement bike paths shared with pedestrians for safety and ideological reasons. ’nuff said, but what happens if such a badly designed facility has already been built?

The answer is obvious and still pretty rare: it needs to be closed down. This is exactly what happened in Stuttgart.

At the beginning of the abandoned section, cyclists are diverted to the road, with proper signage for motorists to expect traffic from the right.

The closed path can be recognized from the different surface. There are bike racks now on some of the liberated space.

So now that cyclists are back on the road, we are finished. Or are we?

Well, as it turns out, no left turn is allowed in this intersection. This being an unnecessary limitation for bikes, two new areas are painted for bike left turns.

It is important to note that in order to actively encourage cycling, a city needs to provide more (extra left turn) and not less (no entry for bikes) possibilities for cyclists.

Finally a legal solution for those who are still afraid of cycling in motor traffic: this is a pedestrian area with bikes allowed. But it remains obvious that 1) pedestrians have priority, 2) cyclists have the full right to the road.

“The time is right now for us to start thinking about high-speed rail as an alternative to air transportation connecting all these cities,” Obama said. “And think about what a great project that would be in terms of rebuilding America.”

Obama has just taken the opportunity to prove his commitment to green transportation: the US government bailout of almost $800 billion announced yesterday includes $8 billion for high speed train systems. Furthermore, $1 billion more each year is dedicated to HSLs in the next 5 years, which is alltogether eight times more than what the Bush administration planned.

Although the proposition was passed relatively easy, Republicans were not completely enthusiastic; many misinterpreted it accidentally or intentionally, expecting the money to fund a Las Vegas-California line, dubbed the “Sin City-Disneyland” high speed. In fact, CA does have a reasonable high speed plan for the Sacramento-Los Angeles-San Diego corridor (campaigning with a logo all too similar to Obama’s), but these fundings will be distributed among 11 competing regions (see map for planned HSR corridors).

Photo by airport, showing a 240 km/h max Acela Express on the Northeast Corridor between Washington and Boston, currently the only HSL in the American continent.