Hi Martin,
Yes I have a book about those islands too. It makes a reference under Sylt that 2 steamers were sold.
I have checked out Inselbahnen.de. They say that one steamer had been sold prior to 1936. After WWII it was sold back to the mainland (Rendsburger kreisbahnen?) and no further information. Supposedly a second was sold too. No futher info on that yet.
If all goes well then next wednesday , 19 july, I will be traveling to Helgoland for a week of vacation maybe I will find out something over there.
greetings,
Marc Immeker
Hi Beaulieu,
Yes I know it is obscure but it was the first thing that came to mind. The british thread has gone in many directions, I don't mind If this one does too. Just let's all keep it civil!.
I was hoping for a reaction of some of our british forummembers. They allways seem to know about those obscure things. The british use Helgoland as a bombing target right after WWII. Maybe someone would have seen something or read about it and ad forgotten about it.
Feel free to ask and maybe I or certainly someone else will have an answer opr opinion.
Re the 1,5kv dc / 25 kv ac question. I have not followed that. Am I correct that the first section is near Barendrecht / Kijfhoek humpyard? If so, the 2 and 3 track freighttracks could easily be converted to 25 kv ac. The 2 highspeed tracks duck under the freight tracks. Only problem is with the electric powered trains that arrive from the direction of Rotterdam Centraal. They will have to change at what remains of the old yard called IJsselmonde or Rotterdam Zuid Goederen (south freight yard, goederen means goods). This is right in front of my house!
The other one is near the border, between Zevenaar and Emmerich?
That one might be more difficult to solve.
One of the more stupid things our government and parliament did was authorizing just to the border and not making sure that there was a treaty with Germany. This year, I think, we will have a state of the art freight railroad with dodble stack clearances in tunnels that, over the border funnels into a busy passenger railroad that will be upgraded somewhat (3rd track).
The biggest, I think, was electrifying at 25 kv AC. Yes, all modern schemes are at that but the Germans, Swiss and Austrians (and Sweden but not, repeat, not Denmark (also 25 kv AC and a tunnel connection to Malmo from Kopenhagen I think) run at 15kv 16 2/3 hz......
Guess where most of the traffic from Rotterdam is moving to.
Well, enough for now. Back to finalizing my trip to Helgoland next week.
Other things we might discuss are: is open acces working (preferably with supporting figures)? Operations at borders stations. Questions about locomotives and other technical stuff. Or what about great trips or photography locations.
This forum is open..
marcimmeker wrote:Hi Beaulieu,Re the 1,5kv dc / 25 kv ac question. I have not followed that. Am I correct that the first section is near Barendrecht / Kijfhoek humpyard? If so, the 2 and 3 track freighttracks could easily be converted to 25 kv ac. The 2 highspeed tracks duck under the freight tracks. Only problem is with the electric powered trains that arrive from the direction of Rotterdam Centraal. They will have to change at what remains of the old yard called IJsselmonde or Rotterdam Zuid Goederen (south freight yard, goederen means goods). This is right in front of my house!
The other one is near the border, between Zevenaar and Emmerich? That one might be more difficult to solve.
The question would be what passenger trains will operate over the section. The ICE3Ms won't have any trouble, the Jan Kipura EC service will need to use a Multi-System Locomotive. What operates the local services?
One of the more stupid things our government and parliament did was authorizing just to the border and not making sure that there was a treaty with Germany. This year, I think, we will have a state of the art freight railroad with dodble stack clearances in tunnels that, over the border funnels into a busy passenger railroad that will be upgraded somewhat (3rd track). The biggest, I think, was electrifying at 25 kv AC. Yes, all modern schemes are at that but the Germans, Swiss and Austrians (and Sweden but not, repeat, not Denmark (also 25 kv AC and a tunnel connection to Malmo from Kopenhagen I think) run at 15kv 16 2/3 hz......
Guess where most of the traffic from Rotterdam is moving to. Well, enough for now. Back to finalizing my trip to Helgoland next week. greetings, Marc Immeker
Ah, finally! I think I have figured out how to work this thing...
Anyway, I was going to ask an obscure question myself and this thread might be the place to answer half of it. I was looking over some Amtrak timetables and got to thinking about high speed trains (in Europe now and the US in decades past). The customary US practice is to list departure times but, except for selected stations, not the arrival time at intermediate stations. Is there a general rule at how long the station stops are for most high speed trains in Europe? 5 minutes? 15? 20? Too long would start to cut into travel time but I assume that the stations between terminals are fairly importatnt stops and would have considerable numbers of passengers boarding/getting off and baggage, too.
The other half of the question is what was the practice in the US when there were more high speed (for their day) trains? How long did the Century pause at Elkhart? The Zephyr at Lincoln?
beaulieu wrote:I have seen that the Netherlands government has been swayed on the issue of the 1.5kv DC islands on the Betuwe Route and are going to convert those areas to 25kv AC also. My Dutch is close to nonexistant, so has any timetable been announce for the changes, or will the be made in time for the opening next year.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Kevin C. Smith wrote:Is there a general rule at how long the station stops are for most high speed trains in Europe? 5 minutes? 15? 20? Too long would start to cut into travel time but I assume that the stations between terminals are fairly importatnt stops and would have considerable numbers of passengers boarding/getting off and baggage, too.
Is there a general rule at how long the station stops are for most high speed trains in Europe? 5 minutes? 15? 20? Too long would start to cut into travel time but I assume that the stations between terminals are fairly importatnt stops and would have considerable numbers of passengers boarding/getting off and baggage, too.
marcimmeker wrote: The biggest, I think, was electrifying at 25 kv AC. Yes, all modern schemes are at that but the Germans, Swiss and Austrians (and Sweden but not, repeat, not Denmark (also 25 kv AC and a tunnel connection to Malmo from Kopenhagen I think) run at 15kv 16 2/3 hz...... Marc Immeker
If Denmark had electrified at 15kv 16 2/3hz instead of 25kv ac in the 80's and 90's Europe would have a continous 15kv 16 2/3hz all the way from northern Sweden and Norway to Austria through Germany. That would have been usefull. The Danish 25kv ((the gap)) is only about 300km.
Some 5 to 10 years ago someone had the bright idea to re-electrify the existed electric lines. Until reality set in, it was to expensive to do and would take very long because of the number of trains involved and because the then new doubledeck trains where not designed with this change in mind, unlike the new intercity doubledeckers.
On the subject of the use of the Betuwelijn:
I predict a slow start until fees are worked out to everybody's satisfaction. Then it will grow if the European economy holds up.
For several decades now freight traffic in the Netherlands is internationally oriented. More than 70 percent is international traffic and growing.
Today all traffic to Germany must use the line through the province of Brabant with its many cities. Furthermore, the line goes right through the citycenters.
The new Betuwelijn goes through much less densely populated country and follows a motorway (A15 Rotterdam-Nijmegen).
I am not sure about the double stack clearance not being designed in, stripped out at first seems more likely.
The politicians saddled the project with a number of very costly changes like using tunnels where bridges would do the trick just as well.
After all we have railroads here in this country since 1837. Trains are moving through fields and cows and birds are used to it so why build a tunnel under a field but not under the adjacent city (near Zoetermeer on the high speed line to Belgium)?
Things like that and the slow decisionmaking process make things so costly.
Railfans should hope for freighttrains on the old route for as long as possible because the new line is almost completely closed in with sound barriers (very ugly things, i can see one that has been build on the other side of the tracks from my house!).
Multi current locomotives are pretty expensive compared to one current locomotives. 15 kv AC would have been cheaper for the operators.
And if the Betuwelijn was 15 kv too it would be possible to go from Rotterdam Maasvlakte to Narvik in far northern Norway and in the other direction to Domodossola (borderstation Switserland / Italy) and Brenner (ditto Austria / Italy).
Well, the trip is booked (ferry to the island, lodging but return by ferry not yet confirmed).
The owner of this link http://www.insel-ivoe.com/helgolandbahn/ has a dubious form of humour and has some experience with photoshop programs but it gives you an idea about the island if you mentally leave out the trains. Would have been nice though to have some of that..
I like the picture with the Airbus A380. You see both Helgland under the tail and its companion Düne under the nose.
marcimmeker wrote:And if the Betuwelijn was 15 kv too it would be possible to go from Rotterdam Maasvlakte to Narvik in far northern Norway and in the other direction to Domodossola (borderstation Switserland / Italy) and Brenner (ditto Austria / Italy). Marc Immeker
beaulieu wrote:And the 1.5kv DC requires two pantographs to get full power from the locomotive. This is where the elimination of the two 1.5kv DC islands was important.
Murphy Siding wrote: How do the railroads, and countries involved handle freight cars (and passenger cars) that cross international borders?
Murphy Siding wrote: Is there a *standard* language used in train operation on the continent?
There was a publishing company that had a railroad terms dictionary in four languages.
I think it was Elsevier.
Hugh Jampton wrote: Murphy Siding wrote: Is there a *standard* language used in train operation on the continent?Each country uses it's local profanities.
I'm sure some profanities are universal.
Hugh Jampton wrote: Murphy Siding wrote: How do the railroads, and countries involved handle freight cars (and passenger cars) that cross international borders?<snipped>Power: It's not common for locos to travel in other countries so they're usually changed at the border. This maeans that international trains are coaching stock rather than multiple units. Where electric trains have to have their locos changed because of different line voltage there is a special section that can be switched to the correct voltage for the locos to allow this to happen.
Signalling: Most railways use lineside signals so there's not really a problem here, except of course that most railways use some form of train protection system, the main ones are KVB, LZB, AWS, TPWS and a few others. As this equipment has something mounted on the locos it's another reason why they tend not to travel accross borders.Couplers: Not a problem as most international trains have hook and shackle couplers or knuckle couplers. Some of the eastern countries us the Russian coupler, so a match wagon, which has different couplers at each end is used.The EU has decreed that railways should be more interoperable with each other and has issued the Technical Standards for Interoperability (TSIs for short) and they tell the member countries which track gauge, overhead voltage etc. to use. There are 2 main TSIs, one covering high speed trains and the other conventional railways. There is also a move to standardising the signalling and they've come up with what they call ERTMS which is not a signalling system as such, but a load of waffle on functionality.
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