škoda 2024

5/2006

Power For Electric Traction In Germany
DB Energie is wholly owned by DB, and applies its extensive knowledge of the power supply market to all railway-associated activities - supplying electricity for the operation of trains and for activities at stations, and also diesel locomotive fuel and other materials required for operating purposes. In 2005 DB Energie had a turnover of around 1.6 billion EUR.
Körte substation, near Melsungen, on the Hannover to Würzburg high speed line. Here, 110 kV is transformed into 15 kV 16.7 Hz and fed to the overhead wire.
Photo: DB Energie
A New Electric Locomotive Speed Record
On Saturday 2 September 2006 Taurus locomotive 1216 050, which is destined for ÖBB, toppled the longstanding speed record set by SNCF's BB 9004 on 29 March 1955, by hitting a maximum speed of 357 km/h on the new Nürnberg to Ingolstadt high speed line!
A very high shutter speed on the camera freezes 1216 050 without any suggestion of a blur at the very moment the locomotive attained its record-breaking 357 km/h near Hilpoltstein. This speed equates to 100 metres per second!
Photo: Bohuslav Kotál
InnoTrans 2006
A decade after the very first InnoTrans, what is now one of the leading rail technology trade fairs in the world celebrated its sixth edition at Berlin Messe between 19 and 22 September 2006. Once again, record figures of previous years were surpassed, and the exhibition itself covered a considerably larger area than in 2004.
The third Vossloh exhibit at InnoTrans was Am 843 503, which is the last of the batch currently being delivered to BLS, as described in R 4/06, p. 72.
Photo: Tomáš Kuchta
New Zugspitzbahn Trains
Stadler exhibited three new trains at InnoTrans - a GTW 2/6 for Arriva Nederland, a FLIRT for Cantus, and a rack EMU for the Zugspitzbahn in Germany, suitably mounted on a section of "mountain" railway angled at a gradient of 120 ‰!
DTw 12 at Eibsee on 21 July 2006. On the right is Tw 2, built by MAN/ AEG in 1950s, with a trailer car.
Photo: Stefan Milz, Stadler
Posezenie Tverskogo Zavoda
TVZ - Tverskoy Vagonostroitelny Zavod, based in Tver, about 200 km north of Moskva, is the largest carriage-building works in the Russian federation. Courtesy of Transmashholding, which owns the works, we were offered a unique tour of the establishment on 7 June 2006 in order to prepare for our readers a detailed report on its current activities. The title of this feature translates as: "A Visit to the Tver Works".
RZD’s different liveries. The dark green/white/yellow cars are type 61-4179 sleepers, while those in shades of blue are type 61-4194 open saloons. In the right-hand row are 084 23493, 084 23485 and 084 23535. In the left-hand row can be seen 084 23519 and the tail end of 084 23584.
Photo: Tomáš Kuchta
Oil And Transportation (1)
Statistics indicate that at a global level hydrocarbon-based fuels are used to provide around 96 % of all the energy required for mechanised transport. In fact, with the minor exceptions of trolleybuses and other electrically-powered road vehicles, air, sea and road transport modes are almost entirely dependent on the availability of various forms of hydrocarbons, especially petrol, diesel fuel and kerosene. It is only railways that do not suffer to such a great extent from this dependency at electrified lines. Anyway, in European union 23 % of electricity is generated from oil and gas and next 32 % from coal.
An oil refinery, oil tank wagons... and an electric locomotive. The big future question regarding the rail transport sector is whether the latter will seize advantage of the enormous potential offered by electric traction. Such a step would certainly lead to far more dynamic development than that taking place at present.
Photo: OMV
And much more!
Cover of 5/2006
Poster

Features: the latest diesel locomotive 246 001 built by Bombardier, the first of a batch of eleven TRAXX DEs for LNVG, at Bombardier's Kassel works, on 16 August 2006.