This Week’s World Rail Report Incl. High Speed Rail for UK (+Video)

in General by Jon C — August 28, 2009 at 8:45 pm | 0 comments

It’s been a record week for Aucklandtrains traffic here with healthy monthly increases - as always thanks everyone for your contributions and for passing by.

As part of some expansions to the site that will be rolled out in the next few months , this is the first of regular reports on what’s happening overseas where there is renewed interest in improved commuter rail in many places. Interesting some of the new web traffic has also come from overseas especially after the site was for some reason praised on a UK transport site.

The reports on overseas developments may remind the odd NZ politician and official whom I know comes by - that we need to be leaping into this sort of development, not just a few more diesel trains thank you! And countries are pouring billions into fast public transport - so those of us advocating on this site for change are on the right track.

First stop is the UK where there’s the exciting vision of journey times from London of just 2 h 16 min to Glasgow, 1 h 06 min to Manchester and 46 min to Birmingham. Wow, that has to be competitive with air travel.

Yesterday Network Rail Chief Executive Iain Coucher unveiled the findings of a study on how best to meet demand for rail transport over the next 30 to 50 years.
The year-long review concluded that ‘the best answer’ is the construction of a high speed network which would largely duplicate the current West Coast Main Line costing in total £34bn, or around £44m per route-km. The presentation said building a new line all the way to Scotland offered bigger benefits than a shorter route serving only Birmingham and Manchester. The preferred option is a trunk line from central London to Preston and Glasgow with branches to Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Edinburgh.

Saudi Arabia: Interfleet Technology this week completed the first phase of its passenger train design project for the Saudi Railway Company (SAR). It has developed conceptual designs for a fleet of new diesel passenger trainsets to operate on the North-South Railway, which is currently under construction.

The services will run north out of the capital Riyadh to the cities of Hail and Al Haditha and an eventual extension to Amman, Jordan in the near future.

There will three classes of service – executive, business and economy, as well as for restaurant vehicles and sleeper coaches.

China:

Metro rail is roaring ahead here - with this week the Quigdao city authorities approving a US$ 4.3 billion metro system for the city, which is on the Shandong Peninsular in eastern China.

Phase I and II, which are expected to be completed in 2016, will see 54.7 km of metro line constructed in the city’s downtown district.

In total 231.5 km of line will be built for eight subway lines.

Part of China’s 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010), total investment in the country’s light rail and metro system is expected to be US$ 29.4 billion. Between 2010 and 2015 a further 65 urban rail lines will be built, with a total length of 1700 km.

Tags: China Saudi Arabia UK