rail

It seems the test runs for the new Belgian HLE 17's are well underway in the Netherlands in the Hanzelijn, between Lelystad and Zwolle.

These are Alstom Traxx 3 MS locomotives capable of running in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany at speeds up to 200km/h. The locomotives will run the EuroCity service between Rotterdam and Brussels taking over from the TRAXX F140 MS2 (Serie 186).

Martin van Vulpen has shares these details along with some more pictures.

As an aside, some more information on the Hanzelijn:

De spoorlijn tussen Lelystad en Zwolle geldt al jaren als een geliefde testlocatie voor nieuw spoorwegmaterieel. Dankzij de moderne infrastructuur, de aanwezigheid van het beveiligingssysteem ERTMS en de mogelijkheid om met hoge snelheden te rijden, vormt de lijn een ideaal proefterrein voor uitgebreide dynamische testen. Hoewel de Hanzelijn ontworpen is voor snelheden tot 200 kilometer per uur, worden dergelijke snelheden in de praktijk vrijwel uitsluitend tijdens test- en toelatingsritten gereden.

Jon Worth on Trenitalia's plan on competing with the Eurostar:

Having expanded into France first, then to Spain, it now has London in its sights – and should in no way be underestimated.

Coming from Jon this means a lot.

I knew something was a little off yesterday morning while I traveled into Amsterdam but didn't realize it at the time . The train departure screens were set back by 15 minutes starting around 07:00, just in time for the morning peak. You'd think it an April Fool's joke but no, it was a failed system upgrade by NS. The issue was resolved around 11:30, later that morning.

This made matters a little worse around Amsterdam as rail works at Centraal Station, over the weekend, planned to be completed by 06:00 Monday morning took longer than expected. This resulted in a number of delayed trains and confused passengers. What's slightly funny to me is that ProRail decided to start work a day early, on Friday, to ensure there won't be a delay. To add to this, NS is currently running rail-replacement buses between Weesp and Amsterdam Muiderpoort this week, with an adjusted timetable until 23 April, to accommodate rail works in the area. It's going to be a fun month.

Quotes from Alan Levy on deciding between tram or metro for ring roads around cities, in this case specifically the Bundesstraße 4 R in Nuremberg.

In favor of light rail, there’s the issue of speed. Normally, the advantage of subways over tramways is that they’re faster. However, on a circumferential route, the importance of speed is reduced, since people are likely to only travel a relatively short arc, connecting between different radials or from a radial to an off-radial destination. What are more important than speed on such a route are easy transfers and high frequency.

In favor of metro, there is the cost issue. The same factors that make speed less important and frequency more important also make it easier to build a metro. If the road is wide enough, which I think the one in Nuremberg is, then cut-and-cover is more feasible, reducing costs.

As usual with the blog there's great comparisons drawn from other cities like Paris and Cologne and other points made on trading capacity for frequency.

NS train driver Stefan uploaded a new video of the 'Airport Sprinter' equipped with cameras and software that enable the driver to close the doors before the train departure. A task that is typically done by the train conductor during the departure procedure. Each carriage is equipped with external cameras allowing the driver to see passengers during the departure procedure visible at 8:20 in the video. This system, according to the video description, saves 10-15 seconds on average at each stop.

I've written about tests that were conducted back in 2022 on these sprinters, it seems the timed saved will be worked into the 2025 timetable to improve reliability.

An interesting side effect since the train conductor is no longer in charge of beginning the departure procedure if they move between trainsets at a stop they must notify the driver so as to not be left behind. This is seen at 16:18 in the video.

This article from the South China Morning Post covers the Iran-China railway link between Almaty in Kazakhstan through to Tehran in Iran. At the time this was published, I assume 2017, it had been a year since the first the first freight train connecting Iran and China ran through neighbouring countries Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan in February of 2016. Traveling along the Silk Road taking only 14 days it provided a quicker route than ships between the two countries.

The arrival of this train in less than 14 days is unprecedented,” said President of the Railways of the Islamic Republic of Iran (RAI), Dr Mohsen Pour Seyed Aghaei. “The time spent by this train” to reach Tehran “has been 30 days shorter compared with the maritime route, which starts from China’s Shanghai port and ends in Iran’s Bandar Abbas” port city, Dr Pour Seyed Aghaei noted. He added, "This is an important step for the revival of the Silk Road and the train has travelled 700 km per day, saving 30 days compared to normal time that takes to go this distance.”

Part of this route towards Europe became a "life channel" during the COVID-19 pandemic as it required fewer health checks than road transport since the train uses local crews in each country. Halting flights and increasing maritime freight prices put this rail alternative in a good spot.

Interestingly, the UIC in another article.

It's clear there's a lot of activity in this area I'm not familiar with but it is interesting to learn more.

India has accelerated its rate of electrifying railway lines in the last few years, this article covers some of the numbers and current progress.

“The pace of electrification has been the highest in the last 15 years: between 2011 and 2020, about 20,000rkm of railway lines were electrified, and another 20,000km of route kilometres have been electrified between 2020 and November 2023,” says Sharif Qamar, associate director at the Energy and Resources Institute, a Delhi-based research institution.

As of 1 September 2023 91.49% of the railways have been electrified according to the Indian Railways.

Having just shared the Eisenbahn-Planer, I have to post about the Treinposities rail agenda. This is a curated list of rail events in the Netherlands that gets updated regularly by the site administrators. The site has many more interesting pages, with details on rolling stock in the Netherlands and other countries, live map of trains in the Netherlands, details on train routes with expected rolling stock, and much more.

Eisenbahn-Planer tracks events with a focus on historical and/or heritage railways. There are quite a number of filters you can apply with multiple language options.

Switzerland is often referenced when discussing good public transit systems, Jokteur does a good job describing of the country uses clock-face scheduling to reliably connected different locations together. A good read with clear examples illustrating the concept along with follow-up reading in case you’re interested in the subject.