High Speed Two publishes its plans to be a “good neighbour” while railway is built
High Speed Two Ltd, the company planning to build
Britain’s new high-speed railway, has published its plans for being a good
neighbour during construction of the line’s first phase between London and the
West Midlands.
Measures outlined in its draft Code of
Construction Practice explain how the company will develop the line in a way
that builds on the best practice established by recent large infrastructure
projects, and will follow those practices at the time construction starts –
currently planned for 2017.
International Railway Journal
FOLLOWING China's first public tender for low-floor LRVs, CSR Nanjing Puzhen Rolling Stock has been awarded a contract by Suzhou Rail Transit to supply 18 Flexity 2 vehicles for light metro Line 2,
TWO 9.93m-diameter TBMs have begun boring the central section of the 32.5km Koralm tunnel, the centrepiece of the new Koralm line between Graz and Klagenfurt in southern Austria.
CONFIDENCE in the British railway franchising process has been damaged by the Inter City West Coast fiasco but the system is not broken, according to Eurostar Chairman Mr Richard Brown..
THE Australian government has allocated $A 95m ($US 90m) to Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) to support investment in reliability and capacity upgrades on the Adelaide – Perth rail corridor..
www.progressiverailroading.com US News
Virginia Gov. McDonnell proposes transportation funding overhaul, gas tax elimination
Amtrak's 2013 agenda features infrastructure, equipment and high-speed upgrades
Transportation Services Index increased in November
FTA unveils changes to New Starts/Small Starts program
Transportation systems should be self-sustaining, Reason Foundation says
Jacksonville port joins 'responsible transportation' coalition; Tacoma port installs Meyer as president
Ohio utilities commission advances three crossing projects; Kentucky city schedules crossing closure
Rail supplier updates from Bombardier, Parallel Infrastructure and Parsons Brinckerhoff (Jan. 10)
US Department of Transportation.
New Congress means new opportunities
to advance transportation priorities
Last week, a new year kicked off here in Washington, DC, with the swearing in of the 113th Congress. Now, new Representatives and Senators will join their returning colleagues from around the nation to tackle some of the most pressing issues facing America today--including transportation. As Secretary of Transportation, and as a former U.S. Representative from Illinois, I congratulate all of them and wish them great success as they take up their important work.
In addition to congratulating the 113th, I also want them to know that I look forward to working with them to address our national transportation priorities.
Last year, the 112th Congress passed the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21). This new surface transportation law streamlines and consolidates many programs, adds important new ones, and --most importantly--gives DOT the legislative authority to operate for the next two years.
MAP-21 allows DOT to continue increasing safety on our nation's roads and transit systems. It allows us to continue improving the way we move the freight that fuels our economy. And it allows us to continue investing in the infrastructure our country needs to succeed--all while putting thousands of Americans to work.
(Ray LaHood official blog)
HIGH SPEED RAIL SUMMIT - WASHINGTON DC 2013
USHSR website....
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Highlighted Speakers
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U.S. Department of Transportation Deputy Secretary John Porcari
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| Deputy Secretary Porcari has served as the 19th United States Deputy Secretary of Transportation since June 1, 2009. As Deputy Secretary, Porcari is the Department of Transportation's chief operating officer with responsibility for the day-to-day operations of 10 modal administrations and the work of more than 55,000 DOT employees nationwide and overseas. Porcari is focused on transportation's key role in economic development and providing the foundation for America's future prosperity. Before becoming Deputy Secretary, Porcari served as Secretary of the Maryland Department of Transportation since January 2007, a position he also held between 1999 and 2003. As MDDOT Secretary, Porcari was responsible for an integrated, multi-modal, statewide transportation system that included highways, the Port of Baltimore, Baltimore-Washington Thurgood Marshall International Airport, a statewide general aviation system, Maryland's toll authority, and its Motor Vehicle Administration. |
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Joseph Szabo, Federal Railroad Administrator
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Federal Railroad Administrator Szabo oversees the operations of the eight hundred person organization managing a comprehensive railroad safety program, enforcing railroad laws and regulations, and developing and implementing national freight and passenger rail policy and new programs.
FRA oversees the nation's new high speed rail program launched under President Obama in 2009. This new rail system is set up to connect communities and economic centers across the country, and move America into the 21st century. |
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Joseph Boardman, President & CEO - Amtrak
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| Appointed to the top post at Amtrak in November 2008, Mr. Boardman has nearly 30 years experience in the transportation industry in city, county, and State government. Prior to coming to Amtrak, Mr. Boardman was the Federal Railroad Administrator. He also served as the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Transportation since July 1997. Most recently, he was chairman of the Executive Committee of the Transportation Research Board, and Chair of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials Standing Committee on Rail Transportation. Mr. Boardman is a lifelong resident of New York State, and holds a B.A. degree in Agriculture Economics from Cornell University, and a Master of Science Degree in Management Science. |
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Rod Diridon, Executive Director - Mineta Transportation Institute
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Rod Diridon, Sr., has served as executive director of the Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI) created by Congress in 1991. Mr. Diridon has chaired more than 100 international, national, state and local programs, most related to transit and the environment. He frequently provides legislative testimony on sustainable transportation issues and is regarded by many as the "father" of modern transit service in Silicon Valley. He was appointed by Governors Davis and Schwarzenegger, in 2001 and 2006, respectively, to the California High-Speed Rail Authority Board, of which he is chair emeritus. After many years of public service in various capacities in California, Santa Clara County renamed its main train station "San Jose Diridon Station" in his honor.
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U.S. Congressman James Oberstar
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| Having served his country as a Member of Congress for 36 years - most of his career - Chairman Oberstar has had a tremendous influence on transportation policy. He served as Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee from 2007-2011. During his time in Congress he was involved in the following coalitions and caucuses: Bike Caucus, Caucus for Sustainable Development, Caucus on Global Road Safety, Human Rights Caucus, Steel Caucus, Travel and Tourism Caucus, Homeland Security Task Force, Great Lake Task Force, International Relations Committee, Medical Technology Caucus, Mississippi River Caucus, Native American Caucus, Renewable Energy Caucus, and the Upper Mississippi Task Force. |
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| An avid cyclist, Oberstar has been a champion of creating bicycle trails to promote healthy living. In 2005 he authored and helped pass the Safe Routes to Schools program, and was a co-sponsor of the SAFETEA-LU act, a $295 billion program that funds transportation infrastructure. Chairman Oberstar holds a B.A. from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, and a Master's degree in European Studies from the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium, and has further studies at Universite Laval in Sainte-Foy, Quebec, Canada, and Georgetown University. He speaks 6 languages, and has travelled extensively around the country and the world examining the most effective ways to move people and goods while revitalizing America's infrastructure. |
Transport for London issues tender for renovation of Vauxhall Tube station
Transport for London (TfL) has invited bids for the £45m renovation of Vauxhall Tube station in London, UK, over the next few...
Christian Wolmar
The Underground is the least loved of British inventions, especially by its passengers at rush hour. It is used as an excuse for being late at work more often than it is praised. Nevertheless, when the first underground train, operated by the Metropolitan Railway, puffed and wheezed down the track between Paddington and Farringdon 150 years ago, it did not just mark the invention of a new form of transport but actually revolutionised the very nature of cities.
The Times had been sceptical that the idea would catch on. During construction, its correspondent wrote: ‘A subterranean railway under London was awfully suggestive of dark, noisome tunnels…passages inhabited by rats, soaked with sewer drippings and poisoned by the escape of gas mains’. He underestimated Londoners’ fortitude. On that first day, January 10 1863, 30,000 people, ventured into the ‘noisome tunnels’, bringing in total receipts of £850, and the Underground has never looked back. Within a few years, extensions were sprouting out to remote villages, bringing them into the Metropolitan fold and transforming the scale of the capital. The strawberry fields of Hammersmith soon became the suburban homes of the new breed of commuter.
The Times had not been the only sceptical voice. It had taken three decades to get the line built after the idea had been first mooted by Charles Pearson, the the City solicitor who has the best claim to be the father of the Underground. Now, however, there was no looking back. The Metropolitan Railway’s success was all the more remarkable in that it was the only underground railway in the world ever to be operated by steam engines. That was a brave – foolhardy even – idea to say the least. Although the engines were fitted with mechanisms to condense the smoke, the atmosphere was bad enough to ensure that local pharmacies did good business out of the ‘Metropolitan Mixtures’ they sold near stations to revive choking passengers. The Metropolitan Railway’s spin doctors were unabashed, however, suggesting that a trip on its railway provided a kind of health cure for people who suffered from asthma, for which the sulphurous and other fumes were beneficial.
The journey itself may have taken place in a cloud of smoke, but the whole idea behind building underground lines was to improve the way people lived and get them out of their insalubrious housing. No longer did they have to reside close to where they worked which, in London, meant the rookeries of Seven Dials or the slums of Southwark. Pearson was motivated by the prospect of enabling Londoners to live in little houses with gardens far from the smoky factories where they worked.
In fact, rather ironically in view of Pearson’s ideal, underground and suburban railways have allowed towns to remain more compact than they would have been without them. Essentially, without them, London would have had to be redesigned on the American model of urban spaces, with wide streets and huge parking lots to accommodate the daily commute into work. The very fabric of the capital would be completely different and many of its landmarks would have been torn down in the rush to accommodate the insatiable appetite of the motor car.
The Underground, therefore, has been a civilising influence even though people understandably have no affection for it when they are they are squeezed, nose to armpit, into the cramped trains. However, that is the result of the system’s very success but also, sadly, the failure to understand its value by successive generations of politicians who withheld money to invest in the system.
Remarkably, in London, by 1907, all but two of the current Tube lines, had opened. By 1907 and, at the time, the capital actually had a surfeit of lines, all built by private companies. Then, however, as funding became the responsibility of government because of the rising costs, the opportunity to build on that situation was missed. Consequently, in the following 62 years, there were only extensions into the suburbs rather than any additions to the network in central London.
Indeed, even the two more recent additions, the Victoria (opened in 1969) and the Jubilee (1979 and 2000) had no new stations within the central London bounded by the Circle Line.
That means there are still significant areas of central London that have no Tube such as Chelsea and Fleet Street, and in effect London is short of a couple of lines. And again, the sceptics are being allowed to dominate the debate. Sure, Crossrail, the new tunnel under London linking Liverpool Street and Paddington stations, will be completed by the end of the decade, and it will be built to a very high standard with fantastic stations, but it took 50 years from drawing board to construction.
Worse there is nothing definite on the stocks. There is vague talk of a Crossrail Two, the old Chelsea to Hackney plan, but the Mayor, Boris Johnson, has been slow to work up plans for any major new lines, concentrating, instead, on the rather minor extension from Kennington to Battersea which, it is hoped, will be largely developer-funded. Places like Streatham, Camberwell and Harlesden, ripe for tube extensions or new lines, will remain off the wonderful Harry Beck map seemingly forever.
London, therefore, is still suffering from the failure of imagination that has dogged the history of this great invention in its homeland. The politicians are always looking at ‘business cases’ or suggesting new lines ‘need to pay their way’ when, in fact, it is so obvious that a healthy and growing Underground is the very basis for a health and growing London economy. Even 150 after years of success and worldwide imitation, that lesson has still to be learnt.
Subterranean Railway (Atlantic Books, 2004)
A social history of the tube
The Subterranean Railway celebrates the fantastic achievement of the Underground’s pioneers who created a transport system that was not only unique in the world but also was vital in creating the London we know today. Read more >>
Down The Tube (Aurum, 2002)
The battle for London’s Underground
Strikes and the threat of strikes, breakdowns, signal failures, crumbling infrastructure and rising crime – for every Londoner, and many commuters, too, the disastrous condition of London’s underground system is a daily reminder of the political and managerial failures that have brought a critical public service to the verge of collapse. Now that the Labour government has committed the future of the Tube to the Treasury’s Public/Private Partnership Scheme, the question is: in ten years’ time will we see as promised, a refurbished and revitalised system? Or will we be lamenting yet another instalment in a long litany of failure? Read more >>
Network Rail on YouTube
Reading train care depot -- building of a new train care depot at Reading by Network Rail during 2012
More News....
Shedmaster Railway News
laht.com reports that Spain has completed the High-Speed Rail Link with France.
World Heritage & Railway News
bbc.co.uk - A wooden toy company which offered to take over the West Coast rail franchise
has been turned down by the government due to the "safety" of its trains. !!!!!!
RailwayGazette.com asks..Has the 3rd Rail had its day?
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