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.

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.

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.

“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.

Portugal is committed to the planned  high speed lines (dotted on the right map) despite the current crisis, confirmed Ana Paula Vitorino, Portuguese state secretary for transport to Reuters. The socialist government is planning to launch all tenders this year for the Lisbon-Madrid line, including rolling stock (trains) and a 3rd bridge on river Tagus in Lisbon. It is just the right time considering that in Spain, the tender applications are already open for the same line.

The political opposition is criticizing the plan (along with the idea of a new airport for Lisbon) simply stating that the country does not have the resources. The government, however, argues that these enormous works would create tens of thousands of jobs, which is exactly what is needed.

The Lisbon-Madrid line currently planned will use dedicated high speed tracks with speeds of 300-350 km/h, TGV-like systems and trainsets, and decrease the travel time between the two capitals to 2h45. The rail link will be standard gauge like the existing Spanish AVE high speed network (Alstom AVE trains on the picture at Madrid-Atocha), but unlike most other railways in Spain and Portugal, using the broader, legacy Iberian gauge. The AVE – if all goes planned – is simply becoming the biggest European TGV service, easily competing with France and Germany.

A significant issue in Spain and Portugal is their non-standard gauge of 1,668 mm. In theory, broad gauge might be useful for oversized and/or high speed trains (the Japanese Shinkansen uses broad gauge), but in general Western and Central European practice, the 1,435 standard gauge has become, ahem, standard, including German and French high speed lines. But Spain and Portugal must have had some historical reason 150+ years ago (like preventing French military invasion or an easy compromise between the legacy measuring systems of the two countries), and therefore til today it has lead to the strange situation that regular Iberian rail lines are broad gauge, and newly built high speed lines (notably the Spanish AVE, as well as the planned Lisbon-Madrid) are standard. Spain also uses Talgo technology for trains compatible with both gauges with the help of switching stations.

The EUR 7.8 billion budget mentioned in the press should also include the Lisbon-Porto and Port-Vigo line according to RAVE – Rede ferroviaria de alta velocidade, the company founded to coordinate the projects. The travel time between Lisbon and Porto has already decreased to 2h35 since the introduction of the Alfa Pendular (pictured in the famous station of Lisboa-Oriente by Calatrava) tilting train services and partial track improvements, further reduction to 1h15 is expected once works are finished.

There are great high-resolution before/after pictures on improvements on the Lisbon-Évora section in this topic.

Further pictures of Portuguese trains and railways (including the Porto light metro and the historic Lisbon trams) (click here if you can’t see below):

Original map from Wikipedia, photos by Luis F Franco and me.

Eurostar announced extra trains for this weekend for their London-Paris service via the Channel Tunnel. Besides supporting romantic trips to Paris for the Valentine’s, the British-French-Belgian train company has also prepared for Scottish fans watching the Six Nations rugby match in Paris right now. Tickets cost from EUR67 and the journey time is just over 2 hours. According to bookings, some 100,000 passengers are expected.

The ‘Love Trains’ have been part of the marketing campaign to announce the restoration of Eurostar services to full speed (topping at 300 kph) and capacity beginning 23rd February. Train services through the Eurotunnel have been disturbed since 11 September 2008, when a fire broke out slightly injuring 14 people, caused by a heavy goods vehicle (i.e. truck) on a Eurotunnel Shuttle train. As restoration works completed this week, journey time between London St Pancras Int’l and Paris Gare du Nord has been restored to 2h15 (compared to almost 3 hours in the recent months, or 1h10-1h25 for flights, but don’t forget to add airport transfer times) and daily frequency to 19 trains (10 trains London-Brussels) in the following days.

More background on the Eurostar:

Eurostar is a joint venture of the three countries involved to operate high-speed passenger trains in the Eurotunnel since its opening in 1994. They share the link with freight trains and the Shuttle trains carrying cars and trucks between the entrance stations.

To enable the trains to operate on the electric and signalling systems of all three countries, Alstom delivered a heavily modified version of its TGV trainsets (classified as British Rail Class 373 and series 373000 TGV in the UK and France respectively) with several details (especially parts specific to UK standards and systems, such as 3rd rail feeding) delivered by British manufacturers (according to Oliver Keating). The trains support no fewer than 7 signalling systems, and both overhead line and third-rail electric feeding (as seen on the picture on the right), although the latter has been removed now after relocating the London terminus from Waterloo to the newly refurbished St Pancras Int’l (below) in November 2007 and the opening of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, the first and only high speed line in the UK.

Alstom also had to decrease the size of the trains (the loading gauge), but not because of the tunnel (as it is designed to carry shuttle trains of trucks and double-deck car transport), but as the TGVs do not fit into the UK clearance envelope. To compensate loading gauge limitations (i.e. it is not double-decker) and the bottle-neck nature of the tunnel, the Eurostar consists of 16-to-20-car sets, being one the longest trainsets in regular service.

Photos by slimmer_jimmer, Juliang, slideshow bob and kpmarek.

Canal Saint-Martin. I have heard about this canal first from some in-flight magazine, but it is now famous of Amélie throwing rocks into and the Médecins du Monde accommodating homeless people in tents here as part of their awareness campaign.

Go Away, really. We have already seen the controversial Do Not Enter signs in Budapest. Now the Parisiens tried to make the signage clearer, hope this works.

Très rapide. Designing high-speed moving walkways have been a struggle since 1970. In 2003, we saw such a system being installed at Montparnasse-Bienvenüe, but by the time I returned, it is again under maintenance. (Here is a picture from the meantime when it was operating.)

Bubbles attacking train stations. After the famous railway station mod in Strasbourg (which is just brilliant: the station looks super modern or really old depending on lighting conditions), the Saint-Lazar station in Paris has its own bubble. It is not large enough to fit the station itself inside, though. (This is the new terminus for both the newest RER and Métro lines, E and 14 respectively.)

Turn down the heat. The City of Paris advocates that if you decrease your temperature in your appartment by just 1 degrees (Celsius), you could save 7% of money/gas.

Shining tower. In the souvenir stores around Paris, they have been selling all these mini-Eiffel Towers with annoying blinking “Christmas tree” lights for a long time. But since around 2002, such system is installed on the very tower itself.

Now decide for yourself if you like it or not, but 15 seconds of exposure gives you a pretty well-lit tower.

I know there are not many things more cliché than a photo of the Eiffel tower, but my camera has a mode of taking-night-photos-of-the-Eiffel-tower (according to the icon) so I had to use it.

Smoothies. These are the cool things these days, apparently.

Journey Planner in Paris. I am a big fan of Google Transit which calculates directions for you on the Washington, Zürich and other transit systems, but here is an analog version from the Paris Metro.

More pictures on Flickr (click here if you cannot see below):

It is also visible that stations are designed to allow a transition to heavy metro-like high-floor (similar to what happened in Stuttgart in the past decades), but this is now unlikely for Brussels given their recent fleet of low-floor trams.

—- ?Sent using a Sony Ericsson mobile phone

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Namost egy dolog a noreply@cég email cím, bár Guy Kawasaki ezt is rossz dolognak tartja:

“On a corporate level, communication would be so much easier if companies stop sending emails with a warning not to respond because the sender’s address is not monitored. I don’t mean they should not include the warning. I mean they should monitor the address.”

de a nevalaszolj azért durva.

1. Nem tegeződtünk össze, és nem kell ahhoz geeknek lennem, hogy lássam a címet.
2. A noreply eredeti inkább azt jelenti hogy nincs válasz, nem fognak tudni válaszolni, és nem azt hogy meg se próbálj válaszolni te kis pont.
3. Valószínűleg valóban nincs nagy szükség vagy kapacitás arra, hogy tömeges jegyfoglalós emaileket válaszoljanak meg, de egy vasúti cég nincs abban a helyzetben, hogy megengedhesse magának, hogy fizető ügyfelet riasszon el. (Breaking News: általánosságban is rossz ötlet). Egy automatikus válasz a MÁV Csoport valódi elérhetőségeivel viszont megfelelő lenne mondjuk egy foglalas@mav-start.hu címmel.
4. Kicsit eufemizmusnak tartom utazás adatainak hívni csupán egy dátumot és két városnevet, amikor most foglaltam egy retúr helyjegyet két konkrét vonatra.

Bónusz: Ezt a jegyet egy olyan kék-szürke dobozból fogom átvenni, amiben van egy teljes számítógép érintőképernyővel és hálózati kapcsolattal, és egy jegynyomtató. Pár méterrel odébb lesz egy sárga doboz, amelyen van bankkártya- és pénzbefogadó nyílás, néhány gomb (kevesebb, mint ahány célállomás van), és ismét egy jegynyomtató. Ha jól számolom, ez pontosan néhány gombbal és egy jegynyomtatóval több annál, mint ami ahhoz lenne szükséges, hogy tetszőleges úticélra lehessen jegyet venni automatából.

Azért ez vicces:

The picture on the left (click for large versions) is Lausanne Main Station in Switzerland, with the Swiss Alps in the background. I have spent half a year here as an exchange student and sometimes I feel like going back again to study, windsurf, ski, and, as you might have guessed, to take a train to the alps to go cycling.

The picture on the right, however, is the Budapest Déli railway station, from where I live now.

At first sight, it feels great to see such similarity in two places where I love to live, but I can’t ignore the striking difference in the quality of the rail infrastructure. I wish it wasn’t a good metaphor for the “State of the Nation” too.

Can you guess now, how many pages long the Swiss rail timetable book is for the new season just started? One last help is that the Hungarian timetable book is 815 pages long, and as such a heavy product, is only scarcely available, as described here (in Hungarian).

Well, as you can see from the picture, the swiss timetable is a stunning 1 page, which is some 99.98% less.

from sma-partner.ch, click here for large version (PDF)

I am exaggerating, yes; of course it is also available in book-like formats, and it is in fact an A3 page (so be it 8 regular pages), and there are a couple of exceptions for which you have to refer to a slightly longer document.

Switzerland, of course, has a denser network and more frequent departures than Hungary and most other countries in the World. The reason it is still possible to describe all national departure times on one single network map is because virtually all trains follow a repetitive schedule of 60 or sometime 120 minutes. This is called Integraler Taktfahrplan (ITF) and the non-integrated (i.e. with bus services) version were even tested on some lines of Hungary until December 2008.

Did I mention that less is more?

ITF is not only easy to map and hence easy to remember, but its additional cost over traditional timetables is surprisingly small, due to its high efficiency. But more on that later, now please just have a look at the Swiss map (PDF) and enjoy.

Eredetileg megjelent a BKV-figyelőn (a címet nem én adtam .

Az a tény már önmagában mulatságos, de nem meglepő, hogy dec 28-án nem lehet januári bérletet kapni. Batthyány-n pénztáros korrekten tájékoztat, hogy másnaptól, és segítőkészen felajánlja, hogy dec. 31-től tud adni (ezt kellett volna).

Dec 29-én több pénztárnál nagy sor, többen ingerülten távoznak (ez még – sajnos – nem gyanús). Sorra kerülve “csak 31-én tudok adni.” “és miért nincs ez kiírva?” “megtiltották”. – Vagyis valamely épelméjű “menedzser” kitalálta, kisebb presztízsveszteséget okoz a cégnek kitolni a fizető törzsutassal, mintha mittudomén a hitelező az igazgató úr audija után meglátja, hogy egy veszteséges állami cég visszautasítja az utasok pénzét.

Epilógus: következő pénztárnál már ki van írva, meglepődve kérdezzük, “önnek nem tiltották meg?” “de, csak látja milyen sokan várnak” – tehát tényleg igaz a tiltás, de van akinek fontosabb az utas.

—- ?Sent using a Sony Ericsson mobile phone

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