Railroads and railways in North and South America

Conference announcement – BLOCK YOUR DIARIES

Railways & Environment conference: Prospects for a sustainable
transport system
Berlin, 19 November 2004

The International Union of Railways (UIC) and the Community of
European Railway and Infrastructure Companies (CER) together with
Deutsche Bahn AG are organising a high-level conference on 19 November
2004 in Berlin which will focus on the railways and the environment.
EU enlargement has just taken place – this conference will address the
steps to achieve a sustainable transport system in the new Europe and
on a global scale and spell out the contributions the railways are
making.

This conference will bring together Ministers, a European
Commissioner, European & national parliamentarians, CEOs of railway
companies from Europe and Northern America, consultants as well as
representatives from environmental NGOs.

Visit this link where the programme will be continuously updated:
http://www.uic.asso.fr/d_environnement/berlin-env-coordinators/coordi…

Registrations: heidi.schill…@bahn.de

Location: Williamsburg, Virginia

Date: Friday November 5, 2004.

Time: 1:00 PM

The three rail standards:

1. EN50126 (Railway Applications – The Specification And Demonstration Of
Reliability, Availability, Maintainability and Safety (RAMS));
2. EN50128 (Railway Applications – Communications, Signaling And Processing
Systems – Software For Railway Control And Protection Systems); and
3. EN50129 (Railway Applications – Communication, Signaling And Processing
Systems – Safety Related Electronic Systems For Signaling)

are examples of application sector standards referred to by IEC 61508
(Functional Safety of Electrical/Electronic/ Programmable Electronic
Safety-Related Systems).

This seminar describes how these standards can be applied to existing
systems (e.g., U.S. products targeting the European market).

For further details, contact Harley Brogan at hbro…@hcrq.com.

Suppose that one has a tunnel between two countries, such as the Mount
Blanc
tunnel, and that one wishes to maximize the traffic that can be
transported
through this tunnel, which is of sufficient cross section to
accomodate side
by side railway  tracks or highway lanes, with no shoulders.

If the tunnel were used for highway lanes, I would say that, using a
team of skilled drivers and a suitable system of feeder roads, it
would be possible
to assemble a continuous stream of Australian-style heavy road
tractors
pulling three trailers each, with a spacing of no more than twenty
feet
(six meters) between vehicles and moving at a speed of sixty miles per
hour (about 100 kilometers per hour). This would give a throughput of
about
one trailer or full sized container per second, or 3,600 per hour each
way, or perhaps 120,000 tonnes per hour of bulk commodities. Using
adaptive cruise control to control the spacing would make this easier,
and
it might be possible to use automated vehicles.

What would be the maximum capacity of the tunnel if it were used with
railroad tracks? What system of marshaling yards, feeder tracks,
signals,
procedures, etc., would be needed?

                              Thank you,
                             Peter Wezeman
                            anti-social Darwinist

I’d like to get a copy (or photocopy) of the LAST BCR tt and the FIRST
CN tt.  Apparently they’ve dropped over 70 station names.

Thanks
PL

The Bucks County Courier Times reported how developers are
working on properties served by the River Line.

http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/112-09132004-364870.html

http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/104-09122004-364027.html

I was reading a book by Christopher Buckley "Slepting (sp) in Washington
DC," and he mentioned that Pullman cars would be used for temporary sleeping
quarters at Union Station when hotels were filled because of local events
such as the inauguration of presidents. I can see people sleeping in their
coach seats in an airplane because there were not enough hotel spaces
available. Maybe US Airways could just park a bunch of planes at National
(Reagan?) airport for the next inauguration.

Tom

Hi,

Do North American railraods typically have an overlap?
I.E. is there a distance after a signal where a train could
travel and still not hit another train, or block a switch,
or foul another line, etc.

If provinding an overlap is standard or common, is there a
standard/common distance that is provided?

Sincerely,

Greg Gritton

Newsweek reported 9/13/04 that United Airlines seeks a $6.4 billion
gift from the taxpayers to bail out its pension fund obligations.
Airlines altogether may seek up to $30 billion for their pension fund
obligations.

These subsidies will overwhelm the pension guarantee fund and
will have to be made up by the taxpayers.

Why is it perfectly ok for the airline industry to get a $30 billion
subsidy?  The industry was deregulated, shouldn’t the losses be
made up by the stockholders and ticket payers?

 TOMS RIVER — Backers of a proposed passenger rail link to Lakewood and
Lakehurst will meet Sept. 28 to show support for the project, which may
be losing steam in the state’s transportation bureaucracy.

"It will be the death knell for the project," if NJ Transit’s $4 million
study does not recommend one of three routes as the preferred one for
the passenger line, according to Tom Wilson, the lobbyist for Ocean and
Monmouth county officials who back the passenger service.
  …
 Backers of the restoration of passenger rail service to northwestern
Ocean County say it will give commuters and other travelers alternatives
to automobiles and reduce congestion on Route 9 and the Garden State
Parkway.

Ocean County Observer
Full Story:
http://www.app.com/observer/story/0,2554,1057138,00.html

(Also see thread http://tinyurl.com/4de85 )