Railway 2.0

Skid driving with SL95

Railway 2.0 — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 06:00:23 +0000

A good video on YouTube showing difficulties that tram drivers face when driving on slippery rails (click on the image to open the video page).

Original title: “Glattkjøring med SL95″. An educational film from Oslo Tramways Inc. about how to drive an SL95 class tramcar on slippery rails. English subtitles are available.

Buy a (old) piece of Thalys on eBay

Railway 2.0 — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 05:00:03 +0000

Starting from yesterday, there’s the possibility to buy some old Thalys stuffs on eBay: the deals will close on September 18th.

Thalys is refurbishing all of its trains. You can become the lucky owner of a unique seat, lamp or table, a true collector’s item!

Select the item that interests you and use your mouse to bid for it until the bid is closed.

All proceeds will go directly to UNICEF in support of its WASH programme to improve access to safe drinking water.

Here the boutique on eBay for bids and the press release (French).

Fraunhofer AutoTram: electric tram + bus of tomorrow

Railway 2.0 — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 06:00:45 +0000

Electric and hybrid vehicles will take over the cities: cars, bicycles, buses and streetcars. New concepts are needed for individual and local public transportation. In the large-scale project “Fraunhofer System Research on Electric-Powered Mobility“, researchers are developing solutions for mobility of the future. The first results have now been presented.

Closing time: the passengers are patiently waiting at their bus stop. Over and over, whenever a bus stops and pulls away again, they are subject to the smell of exhaust fumes. This scenario could soon be a image of the past . The city traffic of the future will be different: buses will not be the only vehicles propelled by electricity, hydrogen or a combination of hybrid propulsion methods. One of these vehicles of the future is the AutoTram®. As long as a streetcar and as agile as a bus, it combines the benefits of both vehicles: with no need for rails or overhead contact lines, the “bustrolley” rolls on rubber tires and follows a simple white line on the road surface.

In the large project “Fraunhofer System Research on Electric-Powered Mobility,” it serves as a research platform. The vehicle is part of the overall Fraunhofer System Research effort, a research cooperative involving 33 Fraunhofer institutes. “We want to offer workable solutions and advance electric-powered mobility in Germany. With our two research platforms – the AutoTram® and a passenger car – we are demonstrating that the new components can interoperate well,” says project coordinator Professor Holger Hanselka. The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is funding this project with a total of EUR 44 million from the Economic Stimulus Plans I and II for a period of two years. The project is broken down into four areas of focus: Vehicle concepts; energy generation, distribution and conversion; energy storage technology; and technical system integration and social issues. After a year spent in extensive research, the first results are now available.

[More in the press release]

Hereafter, you can have a look to the agility and driving precision of the AutoTram.

Romanian Trains Live

Railway 2.0 — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 18:00:27 +0000

Do you remember the Swiss Trains map with update position of trains and punctuality?

Well, it was developped by Romanian team WEBGIS, as Iulian Sirbu from Trans-Ferro noticed in the comments.

It’s the case to signal the same map concept applied by WEBGIS to the Romanian Railways: Romanian Trains Live. The result is teh same as for the Swiss one and the news will make Romanian followers proud of their compatriots.

About WEBGIS:

With more than 5 years experience in web-programming area, WEBGIS team provides the skills, dedication and determination that ideally suits your web-mapping and web-programming development needs, now and in the future.

Firefighting trains for Russian wildfires

Railway 2.0 — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 06:00:54 +0000

I’ve found this nice piece of graphic from Russian press agency RIA Novosti about firefighting trains helping to extinguish fires on railway lines.

[graphic from RIA Novosti, news seen on Tecnologias y Trenes blog]

Italo’s assembly saga continues

Railway 2.0 — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 10:00:08 +0000

As most of you already know, this blog is following the video published by NTV on the construction of its AGV named Italo.

I think it’s a good way to show the phases (lasting months, not minutes as in the video) leading the train to its final aim: carrying us!

2 videos this time. Part 4: on the bogies!

Part 5: static test begins.

50 V300 Zefiro for Trenitalia confirmed

Railway 2.0 — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 21:00:43 +0000

Following the disclosure of both technical and economic evaluations last Monday, Trenitalia announced today the winner of the competition for the supply of 50 new Very High Speed train sets for the Italian HSL.

Italian AnsaldoBreda and Canadian Bombardier will design and build the new V300 Zefiro, first application in Europe of the VHST train designed by Bombardier, currently used in China.

Innovative design and solutions will let this train operate at a top speed of 360 km/h on the existing Italian HSL.

For sure, we will not see any odd train like the concept shown by Trenitalia itself some time ago. The train exteriors will be much more likely the standard one we are used to on other similar trains, as the picture shows (courtesy of AnsaldoBreda site)

V300 Zefiro beat the new non-articulated high speed train offered by Alstom, presented during last edition of EXPO Ferroviaria in Torino and improving the current offer of trains for the segment VHST.

It is supposed it will operate not only in Italy but also on the European network covering France, Spain, Germany and the Belgium-Netherlands network up to UK, possibly.

Briefly, AnsaldoBreda/Bombardier offer gained 56,533/70 and 28,88/30 points on technical and economic evaluations while Alstom 50,759/70 and 28,61/30 points respectively. Kawasaki and Siemens didn’t present any offer for the tender worth 1,2b€.

Train Conductor 2 for iPhone

Railway 2.0 — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:00:52 +0000

I’ve bought an iPod Touch recently. It’s amazing how many games you can play so easily, just moving your fingers on the display. I saw there are also many games for railway enthusiasts and one of the most exciting tried so far is Train Conductor 2: USA from The Voxel Agents: 0,99$ for dispatching trains on the screen using your fingers.

Here a good review (perhaps not so positive, from Macworld). If you want to see the game in action, just watch the video:

CAF joins the very high speed club

Railway 2.0 — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 05:00:04 +0000

So far, this is the best article I found about new very high speed train from Spanish company CAF (Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles) called Oaris (don’t know what it means, actually). Appeared on Via Libre (June 2010) and also published on CAF website is now available for R2.0 readers on the well-known repository. The article is in Spanish. Hasta luego!

CAF Oaris, Via Libre Junio 2010

Star Wars Subway Car

Railway 2.0 — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:15:11 +0000

George Lucas fans! Guys from Improv Everywhere we already knew for the No Pants Subway Ride have come back! This time playing a Star Wars adventure in NYC subway: Star Wars Subway Car!