6/2011
New Trains For NTV And Virgin
At the company’s Savigliano works on
30 November 2011 Alstom presented to visitors one of the four Class 390 Pendolinos currently being delivered to Virgin Trains, together with an AGV Italo, one of the batch soon to be delivered to the new Italian open access rail operator NTV.
The final assembly hall at Savigliano, where the two new trains were presented. The end car on the left belongs to the second NTV AGV built here, ETR 575 019. On the right is the end car of 390 056, the third of the four extra 11-car Class 390s being built for Virgin Trains’ WCML services.
Photo: Jaromír Pernička
The Galician High Speed Link
At 11.00 on 10 December 2011 RENFE Operadora and ADIF formally inaugurated the new high speed railway between Ourense, Santiago de Compostela and A Coruña. In mid-2012 the Talgo Class 730 electro-diesels will make their debut on Madrid to A Coruña services, enabling a journey time between these cities of just under six hours.
The longest viaduct is Saramo, not far from Santiago, 1,485 m, while the highest is that over the Ulla gorge, a mere 630 m long but a dizzying 116.9 m high - the highest railway viaduct in Spain, to date. It is situated only a short distance downstream from that on the „Directo“, which is also a magnificent structure, 219 m long and 86 m high, dating from the 1950s (in background). On 6 October 2011 structural tests are being carried out using two Class 319 diesels and two rakes of ten hopper wagons.
Photo: Carlos Pérez Fontana
The Desiro RUS EMUs Are Taking Shape
In December 2009 RZD ordered 38 five-car Desiro RUS EMUs from Siemens. Delivery of these trains will be completed by autumn 2013 and they will first be used during the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi before being deployed on regular local services both on the Severo-Kavkazskaya doroga (North Caucasian Railway) and in the Moskva area, for instance on the Aeroexpress airport services.
As in the case of the Desiro ML, the body-shell is made of lightweight closed and extruded aluminum profiles. This lightweight construction was further modified for the Russian requirements, these including the generous loading gauge width and adapted for the maximum standee crush loading of seven passengers per m2 (as compared to the average crush loading on middle distance routes in western Europe of four or six standees per m2).
Photo: Siemens
WESTbahn Starts Up
The start of the 2012 timetable on 11 December 2011 heralded the launch of one of Europe’s most ambitious open access passenger operations. This is WESTbahn’s Wien - Salzburg service.
4010 004 (on the left) and 006 on 11 December 2011 at Freilassing, which is really the western terminus of most WESTbahn trains between Wien and Salzburg.
Photo: Juraj Kováč
TRAKO 2011
The ninth edition of the TRAKO (Transport Kolejowy) trade fair was held in Gdańsk between 11 and 14 October 2011. In comparison with previous years the main difference was that space in the available outdoor exhibition area used for vehicles was restricted owing to construction activity at the adjacent station of Gdańsk-Oliwa. It was thus necessary to display only a choice section of the new trains and trams offered to Polish operators over the previous two years.
The photo shows the view obtained by visitors upon entering the exhibition. ŠKODA TRANSPORTATION's 380.020 (designated type 109 E) is the last one of the batch for ČD and after TRAKO it was starting its authorisation procedures in Poland, this activity being one of the terms of the contract. Polish production of electric locomotives was (again) represented by the E6ACT’ Dragon prototype and sixth four-car ELF EMU, EN76-015 for Koleje Mazowieckie, which has ordered 16 such trains from PESA.
Photo: Tomáš Kuchta
And much more!
Cover of 6/2011
Poster
Features: one of the four Class 390 Pendolinos currently being delivered to Virgin Trains, together with a Class ETR 575 AGV, one of the batch for the new Italian open access rail operator NTV at Alstom’s Savigliano works on 30 November 2011