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Rail Articles

ASTOC continues to help shape Sweden’s future transport policy

17 September 2010 | By Gunnar Alexandersson, Senior Policy Adviser, The Association of Swedish Train Operating Companies (ASTOC)

The Association of Swedish Train Operating Companies (ASTOC) acts on behalf of Sweden’s train operators. It seeks to represent the interests of commercial rail traffic in its dealing with the Government and Parliament, authorities, business principals, the media and other bodies. ASTOC also assists in increasing the rail industry’s know-how…

Measuring and modelling safety risk on GB’s mainline railways

17 September 2010 | By Ben Gilmartin, Senior Safety Risk Analyst, Safety Knowledge and Planning, Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB)

The mainline railway in Great Britain has a responsibility to understand and measure safety risk to be able to manage safety of its operations properly. However, the task of quantifying levels of safety meaningfully can be difficult, especially for those rare accidents with potential for serious consequences. RSSB’s Safety Risk…

SMART – the future for Northern California rail

17 September 2010 | By Lillian Hames, General Manager, SMART (Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit) and Chris Coursey, Public Information Officer, SMART (Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit)

Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) is a commuter rail and parallel bicycle-pedestrian pathway project located in San Francisco’s North Bay area. SMART will provide a rail service along 70 miles of the historic Northwestern Pacific Railroad alignment. Utilising the publicly owned railroad right of way, the project will serve 14…

Risk-based method to determine inspections and inspection frequency

17 September 2010 | By Johan van der Werf, Senior Consultant, Lloyd’s Register Rail Europe BV

Extending inspection periods can result in a lower level of safety, but based on insight from using a mathematical model it is possible to use improvements to the rolling stock to create more efficient inspection schedules while maintaining the same level of safety.

Tunnelling for and into the future of European railways

17 September 2010 | By Prof. Dr.-Ing. Alfred Haack, Past President of ITA – International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association and former Executive Board Member of STUVA – Research Association for Underground Transportation Facilities

The remarkable volume of tunnelling on a worldwide basis during the last two or three decades (see Figure 1) is not defined by the demands to improve the railway networks in many countries. Stimulation in this direction is especially given by the generally highly ranked socio-political requirement of improved mobility…

Progress on the Madrid–Levante high-speed line

17 September 2010 | By ADIF

The Madrid–Castilla La Mancha–Comunidad Valenciana-Región de Murcia high-speed line is one of the greatest works in Spanish and the world’s civil engineering history, both for its length – 955km – and for the new technologies applied in its construction. This line, in which €12.4 million have been invested, is one…

Portuguese high-speed rail business model: a new way forward on PPP

17 September 2010 | By Isabel Falcão de Campos, Legal Director, RAVE and Pedro Leite Alves, Legal Advisor, Jardim, Sampaio, Magalhães e Silva

1 June 2009 marks the day, exactly 12 months after the international Public-Private Partnership (PPP) tender for the Poceirão–Caia high-speed rail line (HSRL) was launched, when best and final offers were in and the procedure which would lead to a successful financial close on 8 May 2010 was initiated.

Predicting the future for switches and crossings

17 September 2010 | By Ian Coleman & Andrew Cornish, Network Rail PhD Students (Switches and Crossings) at the Future Railway Research Centre, Imperial College London

Maintaining and renewing the thousands of switches and crossings (or ‘S&C’ and also known as railway points and/or turnouts) across Britain’s rail network is an expensive business, costing hundreds of millions of pounds every year. Gaining a better understanding of the dynamic forces that occur when a train passes over…

FLEXXSpeed Bogies for ZEFIRO 380 – the new very high-speed train for China

17 September 2010 | By Heiko Mannsbarth, Chief Engineer & Product Manager for Mainline & Metro Bogies, Bombardier Transportation and Heiko Mannsbarth, Chief Engineer & Product Manager for Mainline & Metro Bogies, Bombardier Transportation.

In the 1950s and 1960s, specific programmes were initiated to increase service speeds on rail. In Europe and Japan especially, these efforts lead to a considerable increase in the attractiveness for long-distance travellers to choose rail instead of air or road transportation through shortening journey times.

The desire to shift from road to rail

4 August 2010 | By Doris Bures, Federal Minister of Transport, Innovation and Technology, Austria

The railways in Europe continue to face disadvantages in competition with roads. The only way to achieve fair competition in the transport sector is to reflect the true costs of each mode of transport, including factors such as climate protection, social issues, health aspects and safety. Unfortunately, some approaches at…

The festival city of Salzburg gets a unique entrée

4 August 2010 | By Johannes Gfrerer, Spokesman for the Salzburg Region, ÖBB-Holding AG and Thomas Wörndl, Project Manager for the reconstruction of the Salzburg Hauptbahnhof

€270 million will be invested in the creation of a unique transport station in the festival city of Salzburg that is to be completed by 2014. The new through station will do full justice to the requirements of a modern railway age as a regional and international transport hub. High…

Gotthard and Ceneri take major steps forward

4 August 2010 | By Renzo Simoni, CEO, AlpTransit Gotthard Ltd

Construction of the new Gotthard line with the Gotthard and Ceneri Base Tunnels is on course. In October 2010, a further milestone will be the final breakthrough of the Gotthard: the miners will excavate the last stretch of rock between the portals at Erstfeld and Bodio/Pollegio. On the Ceneri, in…

Construction of cross-city link helps relieve capacity limits

4 August 2010 | By Marco Ceriani, Line Section Manager for the Weinberg Tunnel, SBB Infrastructure

Zurich Hauptbahnhof (Zurich main station, or Zurich HB) is the central hub for rail traffic in Switzerland. Trains pull in and out of the station virtually every minute, and over 300,000 passengers depart, arrive or change trains here daily. Commuter traffic is forecast to grow in the coming years, and…

Taking the ‘action not reaction’ future approach

4 August 2010 | By Philippe Gauderon, Head of SBB Infrastructure and Member of the SBB Management Board

Most of the SBB rail network is in good condition. That was the conclusion of an external survey commissioned by SBB and published in February 2010. Future maintenance and renewal of the rail infrastructure will cost significantly more than was previously assumed. SBB Infrastructure has embarked on a comprehensive action…