Got myself one of those mini-HD cameras. I assume at some point YouTube will add the “HD” button next to the vid. Anyway, this is my first effort.
BBC takes the Javelin
Cutting almost an hour off the journey to Ashford, Kent, Britain unveiled it’s first high-speed commuter line on its only high-speed rail line. Whilst not exactly a revolutionary day for UK commuters – up to 508 passengers per train will benefit from a limited service until the full service commences in December – it is a step in the right direction and could at least serve as the catalyst for a much bigger revolution in UK’s high-speed ambitions.
“.italo”
The recently opened line between Milan and Naples will soon be seeing a new fleet of Red AGVs hurtling along it’s length thanks to a new private rail company using the Open Access initiative being applied to Europe’s rail lines. They will be competing with Italy’s national rail operator, Ternitalia, providing services on the 560km route using a new fleet of French made AGVs. Let’s face it, if this is benefit of open access then how long will it take for the rest of Europe to go this way too, not sure about the choice of name though
New York's High Line
Urban rail projects have their ups and down (and ups again); once seen as unfashionable and no longer in keeping with “modern” thinking, rail lines are abandoned, forgotten, dismantled. In 1930s New York, on the Western side of Manhattan, an elevated rail line was built as part of a regeneration project aimed at removing rail lines from street running and raising well above people and street levels. All went well until the 1950s and trucking took over; this signalled the decline of the elevated railway until the 1980s when it saw the last train and the line fell into disuse. Thanks to the efforts of local rail enthusiasts, most of the line survived attempts to demolish it; during the late 1990s, efforts were started to reuse the route in one form or another.
Now, almost thirty years after the line was last used it has been turned into a public space; it is now a park running above the street level that acts as a green space, an elevated park. Whilst it will no longer carry rail transport, the elevated railway now provides an extensive green line running through the Western part of Manhattan serving as an inspiration to other towns and cities that might otherwise neglect or forget their railway history. It will be interesting to see how many other cities in the World use this project as an catalyst to regenerate and reuse abandoned urban rail routes and turn them into green spaces.
In order to have had the moniker “Japan’s longest railway crossing” it makes you wonder what is now the longest crossing and whether there is a World’s longest railway crossing…
The 130-meter-wide crossing in Akishima, Tokyo, was located near Haijima Station, which is served by several Japan Railways and Seibu lines. Upon the completion of a new detour route around the station, the city government decided to remove the crossing, the safety of which had always been seen as questionable.
Guess there wasn’t a Shinkansen route on one of the lines, but you never know.
There is even a video (Youtube)…
