What's ahead for high speed train in the future

Analysis of Mediarail.be - Signalling technician and railways observer

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26/01/2015

Today, 480 high-speed trains (Trains à Grande Vitesse, or TGV) radiate around France and to the Benelux countries from Paris. In Germany, more than 260 trainsets in five different versions called InterCity Express run with speed from 250 to 300km/h. Treno Alta Velocita is the name of the Italian’s high speed train of Trenitalia and his concurrent is called NTV-Italo. Spain had the biggest high speed line network in Europe. Recently, first works began in California while China continue his gigantic network. So, life seems to smile on the sector of high speed train. In reality, it’s depend. A brief overview.

An irreversible phase of decline?

Until years 60’s, nobody thought the railways future would soon be threatened. This was the effect of building a comfortable welfare state after world war II. But in years 70’s, it appeared the idea of a irreversible decline of the railways, because people had reached an adequate standard of living by combination of cars and airplane. Railway became the unnecessary ground transportation and many plans were developed for dismantle the railway network. The mentality and the spirit can be summed up thus : we maintain just a necessary backbone for intercity trains, no more. English still remember the famous Beeching Plan which identified 2,363 stations and 8,000 km of railway line for closure in UK. Railway was in an irreversible phase of decline, say all politicians. The subsidies were falling down dramatically.

Renaissance of railways

This was without reckoning with tenacity of many ingenieurs and directors who have faith in the future. During the mentality time of decline, they studies a new concept of train, helped by the birth of the first high speed trains in Japan, in 1964. To ride at more than 200 km/h is not a theoretical dream, but became a reality. One condition : to ride on a specific infrastructure able to accept high speed level. That was the aim of the french which inaugurated his first high speed train in september 1981. Suddenly, railways changed their self-image dramatically : modernity of TGV buried definitively the filthy and worn steam train of our grand parents. Renaissance ?

A Duplex train set of SNCF (photo by Alain Stoll via flickr CC BY-NC 2.0)

A spectacular expansion

The first country in Europe equipped with a high speed network was however not France as mentioned but well Italy, with his Direttissima opened in 1977 linking Rome with Florence. The top speed on the line was 250 km/h while the first high-speed service was introduced in 1988-89 on the Rome-Milan line with the ETR 450 Pendolino train at 250 km/h. In France, the route Paris-Lyon in 1981 was followed by the Atlantic Route toward Tours and Le Mans (1989-1990) and in 1993, the North line called TGV-Nord toward Lille and Calais was open. In Germany, the 99 km line connecting the cities of Mannheim and Stuttgart was officially opened on 9 May 1991 while the first regularly scheduled ICE trains ran on 2 June 1991 from Hamburg-Altona to München Hbf. 

Frecciarossa ETR500 from Trenitalia (photo by Ricardo Zappala via flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

In april 1992, Spain begins his great adventure of a new railways century, with his first high speed linking Madrid to Sevilla, but above all it’s first line with standard gauge (1,435mm). In November 1994, the first high speed train ran between London and the Continent, partially on high speed line. Success of France encouraged Belgium to build his own network, where first line L1 was open in 1997 : it was the first fully cross-border high speed service of the world, linking Brussels to Paris in 1h25. Thereafter, high speed network expands rapidly toward Marseille, Berlin, Naples, Amsterdam…

In 2005, Spanish government announced a very ambitious plan of high speed network which would allow a majority of people to live from 50 kilometers of a High Speed Rail station. Around 1,000 kilometers of new track is set to open in 2015, expanding the current network by a third.

Spain begins in 1992 on the route Madrid-Seville (photo by Matthew Black via flickr CC BY-SA 2.0)

Battle against airliners

The great challenge of the high speed is to beat aviation trips around an hour, or 1000 km. With a fully high speed line on the same traject, it's possible for railways to stay under three hours. This travel time is a kind of "mental frontier" where people choose the train or the airplane. These impacts greatly on the modal share of the high speed trains. As a study of MTI reports, mode shift to HSR results when passengers select HSR over modes, such as airplanes or cars because the competitive advantages of HSR, in sum, offer greater perceived value.

The French Train à Grande Vitesse (TGV) line resulted in a 24% loss of market share for aircraft and an 8% reduction in car and bus travel. The best example is the Eurostar service, linking Brussels, Paris with London : the modal share is today more than two third. The connection between Paris and Marseille rose from 22 to 70 percent of market share after five years of his opening. In Spain, a 27% loss of market share was observed for aircraft and an 8% loss for cars and buses.

In Japan, Shinkansen and Intercity services accounts for 18 percent of all domestic passenger-kilometers by all travel modes, airlines includes. By 2014, high-speed trains operate in nearly 24 countries, including China, France, Italy, Japan, Spain, and UK. The global fleet seems to reach in the world more than 3,500 trainsets. Countries as unlikely as Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and...the United States want now their own high speed network. Works begin in California and are going toward the final step in Saudi Arabia. Without to count the expansion of the network in China...

The great question of costs

The question of costs must be seen within two aspects: the cost of infrastructure and the operating costs. The two should be considered separately because there are not subject to the same policy. Infrastructure is a public object, open for anybody (the railways). The costs of infrastructure must call upon public policy with public funds, because theirs amounts are unaffordable for a private business, even in the case of a concession, such in Netherland. The last example in California has shown this evidence of the need of state funds. In some case, financial technics such as PPP can be used to provide more funds that State cannot procure. In all case, taxpayers may be expected to carry the costs and in all case, there are no alternative.

The second kind of the costs is very different. Indeed, the operating costs are only the costs from the train operator. Generally these costs are two sets of issues: a cost of infrastructure utilization (tolls) and operating costs of the trains services itself (energy, maintenance, onboard personal, drivers, marketing...). On this point, experience has shown that management can be very different between an incumbent operator and a private operator. That has been even demonstrated into the French SNCF itself : the Ouigo TGV train sets provide much more mileage than the "classic TGV services", turning continuously to 12-13 hours per day instead usually of 6 hours. That impact on the maintenance process where fewer trains must be brought to a standstill and where the rules of maintenance must be renewed.

Times change in France

As reported The Economist in august 2014, most of the high speed lines in France are running at a loss and even the profitable ones are not earning enough to cover their cost of capital. This is forcing SNCF, France’s state-owned railway, to consider taking the axe to what has been a rare symbol of French technical and business success. Le Figaro stated that the growth of the TGV activity suffered a serious downturn. Number of travelers fall down in 2013 by 0.7 per cent while in 2012, the growth was barely 0.1 per cent. For the branch SNCF Voyages sales decreased by 1.4 per cent and now amounted to only 11.4 per cent of the total sales. In addition, between 2007 and 2013, the cost of infrastructure utilization rose to 8.0 percent per year. Similar changes are seen in other countries. What exactly happened?

New societal attitudes

This is some of the new habits taken up by people. For example, speed seems not play the same role as it did yesterday. Alternative consumption is becoming more frequent and citizens are concerned about the preservation of their lifestyle, but not at just any price. Low-cost products now plays a growing role in social life and economy. Restaurants, travel, cars, insurance, electronics, real estate, leisure, clothing, food: nothing seems to escape the pull of low-cost shopping. The buyer is finding that low-cost shopping helps him purchase similar articles at lower prices. Carpooling is no longer a marginal market but becomes a real competition, like that of intercity buses, which are now liberalized in Europe. This means that railways are now again an expensive product and everyone knows that Ryanair or Easyjet have widely conveyed the message : today, aircraft is  cheaper and is within everyone's reach. On politic side, all countries are implementing structural reforms and putting their public finances into order. That calls for a series of measures to reconcile increased needs with budgetary constraints and to seek, within the existing budgetary framework, better efficiency. This concerns also the business of high speed trains.

Missing targets?

It might seem at first glance. According De Spiegel, in Germany, the national railway DBAG has already received €60 billion ($76 billion) in taxpayer money to fund his renovation, spending more than a third of the money on new high-speed routes like the Cologne-Frankfurt and Nuremberg-Munich lines. Nevertheless, the political target was not met. From 1994 to 2009, the number of passengers on long distances declined while only suburban and local traffic increased, thanks to hefty subsidies. Which is clear evidence that citizens increase to focus to regional and local sustainable transport, because this is their living environment, as mentioned above. The low speed would replace the high speed ? This is also the opinion of the long distance bus customers, for who the low-prices are the main element rather than the travel time. So, in this context, what’s ahead for high speed train in the future ?

German's railways spend more than a third of the money on new high-speed routes (photo by Mundus Gregorius CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

High speed trains are not death

The development of high-speed railways makes still people's life more convenient. You can go in the morning in Brussels and come back to London in afternoon. You do that with a carbon reduced footprint. Of course not everyone has the same needs nor an "international" life. But without high speed trains, the same quantity of customers would use airliners with a very bad carbon footprint. It recognised that the crisis should also be taken as an opportunity to set our economy more firmly on the path to a low-carbon and resource-efficient economy. High speed can help but one of the things you have to consider is that there appear to be little gains from further improving speed while the cost of energy is rising. It's is crucial to renew the business model of high speed trains. The french SNCF made an attempt with his new low-cost service Ouigo. While manufacturers build trainsets with more efficiency, low carbon footprint, and more seats. The new Velaro UK of Siemens sold to Eurostar proposes 900 seats on 400 meters long, while the "old" train set of 1994 proposes only 700 on the same lenght. Efforts are increasingly focused on improving efficiency, safety and security, as well as on reducing environmental impacts. The success of high speed train will lie upon a good planification of the needs and a clever combination of financial tools. There is an ongoing need to try to do better with less and that will force railways to make better use of more and more scarce public resources.

The project of new station of Birmingham-Curzon (www.birminghampost.co.uk/)

The coming of high speed train in the city must be the opportunity to renew the station's neighbourhoods. For example, in Birmingham, according the HS2 website (UK), high speed rail has the potential to stimulate further the ongoing regeneration of the city centre. It's depends however of other factors outside the railway areas, such as local politics of urbanization. As a KPMG report says about HS2 in UK, by changing the connectivity offered in the West Midlands, certain business sectors could benefit more than others. For example, improving long distance passenger transport will help to create a market for many companies in the service sector. On environmental side, high speed trains are powered by electricity, so their environmental performance will improve over time as more electricity comes from renewable sources. The new high speed lines free up  more resources for local and regional traffic, and it is precisely that require the citizens, as mentioned above. The question today is whether they would be willing to pay for its social cost. And this is precisely what makes the contemporary debate so interessant...

High speed trains : the new californian dream for next decade

Analysis of Mediarail.be - Signalling technician and railways observer

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20/01/2015

After many years of controversy and skepticism about the California's bullet train, the state is finally ready to break ground on the San Francisco-to-Los Angeles rail line. What’s really happens in America, the country where high speed line was just a toy for old Europe ?  Analysis.

As this told  in the website Contra Costatimes.com Larry Gerston, a political expert at San Jose State University: “before, you never knew if and when the project would really get going. Now, as those tracks get laid, mile by mile, it gets harder and harder to turn back the idea.” And so took place last January in Fresno, a ceremony which will be a etching in the pages of railway history. That was the day, California began one of the largest infrastructure projects of his history, a massive high-speed rail line that would connect San Francisco to Los Angeles. The dream comes true ? It's depends. Dream for some people, a nightmare for others.

Fresno (photo from Department of Transport)

Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin, a Republican, said she backs the rail system. In addition to putting construction workers on the job in the short term, Swearengin said the rail project will connect the Central Valley agricultural region with other sectors of the state's economy. Californian Governor, Jerry Brown (D), 76 years old, who is in his fourth term, told to Washington Post last year : « we should be able to have at least one high-speed rail, and the only place that’s going to happen in our lifetime is California ». As everyone know, California is really a Earth of the future. The rail project is estimated to cost $68 billion over the next 14 years, and the inaugurated section account only 29 miles. Phase one of the project is planned to run from Merced to Bakerfield in 2018, as shown the map bellow :

The entire project will reach the north of Los Angeles in 2028, in Burbank. the next stage of the passage through the city of angels, to Anaheim, is uncertain however. One again a tunnel, like the famous Alameda corridor ? The system will run from San Francisco to the Los Angeles basin in under three hours at speeds capable of over 200 miles per hour (320 km/h). The 836 kilometers of line will account 24 new stations.

History

Plans for a high-speed train system linking Northern and Southern California were proposed by Governor Jerry Brown in the 1980s, the same governor that today ! In 2008, voters approved by referendum the issuing of bonds with 52.7% voting in favor, the called Proposition 1A (the ‘Safe, Reliable, High Speed Passenger Trains Bond Act for the 21st Century').From this date, things began to mature. The project is however not without controversy. Local governments and opponents critical of the rail system’s cost and legality have sued to block the project several times. Those suits, along with slower-than-expected land acquisition, have set back the beginning of construction by two years. The California Supreme Court still ruled in October against a suit brought by Kings County that would have blocked construction.

Who is responsible ?

The project’s governing body is the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA), created in 1996, and responsible for planning, designing, building and operation of the first high-speed rail system in the nation and which is working with regional partners to implement a state-wide rail modernization plan that will invest billions of dollars in local and regional rail lines to meet the state’s 21st century transportation needs. 

A big financial challenge

In 2008, the cost of the initial San Francisco-to-Anaheim segment was originally estimated by the Authority to be $33 billion. But after many years, the estimated spending grew up to to $53.4 billion in 2011 and finally reached $68.4 billion. Last price ? Surely not ! With this kind of project, the actualized spending will not still reflect the reality. It will be sufficient to refer to the Eurotunnel project or of many high speed lines in Europe, when it is becoming taken for granted that the high speed ecosystem becomes a deficit machine, like in France.

In the Anglo-American world, taxpayers' money is a issue which enrages many people, many more than outside in the world. People don't hesitate to say that after the Obama Administration’s unaccountable spending in the early years of his presidency, the American people spoke loudly and ushered in a new Republican Congress to stop the waste. How, therefore, California authority can do to justify a spending of 68 billion dollars over 14 years ?

The first approval in 2008 by voters was a issuing of bonds for $9.95 billion. The Obama administration added another $3.2 billion in federal grants, and the legislature agreed in 2014 to provide funding through cap-and-trade taxes on greenhouse gases, which will add another $250 million to $1 billion per year, what makes us a total for only $26 billion at best. California High-Speed Rail Authority officials have said they expect advertising, real estate developments and private investors to fund up to a third of the total costs. Over the past six months, the authority scored a major legal victory that will allow the state to sell more than $8 billion in bonds and won its first steady stream of state funding from a program that collects fees from California's worst polluters.

Works began

Before the ceremony of Fresno, CHSRA has selected in april 2013 an offer of $985millions by the consortium of Tutor Perini Corp, Zachry Construction Corp and Parsons Corp to undertake civil works on the first 47 km section, from Madera to Fresno in the Central Valley. This  time, things have really started.

Rolling stock

The question of rolling stock is widely anticipated. In October 2014, according International Railway Journal, California High Speed Rail Authority had received 10 responses to its request for expressions of interest in a contract to supply trainsets and a maintenance facility. The manufacturers are :

Alstom Transportation;

AnsaldoBreda;

Bombardier Transit Corp;

CSR Corp;

Hyundai Rotem;

Marnell Transportation;

Kawasaki Rail Car;

Siemens Industry;

SunGroup USA & World Harmony City/CNR Tangshan Railway Vehicle Co;

Talgo.

The Authority anticipates that the final design would be a single-deck EMU capable of revenue operation at speeds up to 354 km/h (220 mile/h). A maximum train length of 205 m is specified, with a minimum of 450 seats in first and business classes with seat pitches of 1 067 mm and 991 mm respectively. Static axleloads should not exceed 17 tonnes, in line with the European high speed Technical Specification for Interoperability issued in 2008, CHSRA said. With a fleet of up to 95 trainsets, it is clear that a great battle begins…

So there's an enthralling project to follow on the next ten years. If we add to that the HS2 project in England (1), we have two projects of new railways infrastructure in the Anglo-American world, with his unique attributes for financing. We are very keen to find out how that goes…

Twenty years old : happy birthday Eurotunnel

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This Tuesday, we celebrate the 20 years of Eurotunnel. A dream of 200 years became a reality on May 6, 1994 with the official opening of the Channel Tunnel by the Queen Elisabeth and french President François Mitterand. The Queen took the first highspeed British train to use the tunnel and arrived in Calais at the same time as the French president's train from Paris. That ended the insularity of Britain, although the British people do not feel at all the things like that.

We have come a long way ! The first project was imaginated in 1802 by French engineer Albert Mathieu-Favier put forward the first ever design for a cross-Channel fixed link based on the principle of a bored two-level tunnel. The real first test was attempted in 1973 : the construction and the operations of a railway tunnel under the Channel is finally launched at Chequers by Edward Heath, British Prime Minister, and Georges Pompidou, French President, when a Franco-British Channel Tunnel Treaty was signed. But in 1975, Harold Wilson, British Minister, announced that the project is stopped and withdrawn for financial reasons and in particular due to the oil crisis. But the truth lies elsewhere. As reported the Express.co.uk « An island is an island and should not be violated, wrote Labour Cabinet minister Barbara Castle when the scheme was dropped ».

Project was relaunched in 80’s when Mrs Thatcher came to power in 1979 at the head of a new Conservative government. A study conducted in 1984 by a group of British and French banks had ruled on the economic viability of the project, despite its enormous size. Thatcher wanted a road tunnel, Mitterrand a railway tunnel due to more security. In 1986, Margaret Thatcher and François Mitterrand announced in Lille that the Eurotunnel bid presented by a Franco-British Consortium « France-Manche-Channel Tunnel Group », has been selected. The Channel Tunnel is a railway tunnel (French requirement), but his construction is only made by a private consortium (british requirement). Eurotunnel, who manages and operates the Channel Tunnel, is holding the Concession until 2086.

Conception

There are two 7.6-metre diameter rail tunnels, one by direction, plus a central tunnel for safety. Tunnel « South » go from France to England, the « North » tunnel for the reverse direction. The length of the tunnel is exactly 50.5 kilometres long between the portals at Beussingue and Castle Hill, but the exact length under the sea is 37.9 kilometres long.  Power is delivered to the trains via a catenary at 25 kV 50 Hz, and the train protection is provided by the French cab signalling system TVM430 (used by French TGV), given information directly to train drivers on a display screen on board. Two control centers manage the rail traffic on the both side, one british and one French, where there are also extensive surface-level terminal facilities and marshalling yards at Frethun in France and at Folkestone in the UK, as shown picture below.

 Folkestone terminal and departure of a truck shuttle (par Ed Clayton via Flickr CC BY 2.0)

Operations

Many people are still confused between Eurotunnel and Eurostar ! Eurotunnel is a railway shuttle service for road transport : cars, trucks and bus which are loaded on special shuttle via a terminal facilities. The service is only provided between terminal at Calais-Fréthun and Folkeston (50 km). No shuttle go to London or Paris ! Eurostar is a passengers railway company which don't provide any shuttle services but well a railway services by high speed train between the « three capitals », Paris, Brussels and London, and, in the future, to and from Amsterdam (2016). There is therefore three different traffic in the tunnel : shuttle for road clients by Eurotunnel, international trains for rail passengers by Eurostar,  plus freight trains but at very low quantities.

 Boarding in a car shuttle (par dvdbramhall via Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

The finances : a troubled history

That was the sine qua non requirement of Thatcher : no public penny for the tunnel. The result was that on May 6, 1994, the final cost of the biggest tunnel in the world  reached 80% more over that its predicted budget of nearly £5billion. Financing costs were 140% higher than forecast because heavy interest charges on its £8bn of debt.

Financial situation became the main topic of conversation for the first ten years. The traffic of Eurostar and more espacially the freight services were largely surestimated. Revenue was dramatically less than expected : the question of the debt and the relation with creditors became highly critical. Losses incurred by many little shareholders is making life unbearable for Eurotunnel. 

In 2004, a dissident shareholder group succeeded in taking control of the board and, in 2005, the french Jacques Gounon took complete control becoming Chairman and Chief Executive. Despite a deal voted by shareholders in 2006, french court has placed Eurotunnel into bankruptcy protection. As reports Wikipedia, in May 2007 a new restructuring plan was approved by shareholders whereby Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup agreed to provide £2.8bn of long-term funding, the balance of the debt being exchanged for equity, and the shareholders agreed to waive the unlimited free travel and other perks that they had enjoyed. Following the restructuring, Eurotunnel was finally able to announce his first but  small net profit in 2007 and the return to financial health allowed to the company to announce in 2009 the anticipated voluntary redemption of some of its convertible debt. The financial story seems now to go to more quiet waters...

Today

Eurotunnel reports a traffic reaching 10 millions passengers by shuttles of cars and bus, plus 17.7 Mi tons of freight by shuttles of trucks. His main client Eurostar announced for the first time more than 10 millions annual passengers between the three capitals, that makes us more than 20 millions passengers per year in the tunnel. On average, only seven rail freight trains run through the tunnel each day – leaving a 43% unused capacity.  Only 1.3 Mi tons of goods are shipped by other rail companies, that make us a market share of 15% for rail transport, 85% for trucks…

Now Eurotunnel takes matters on hand for freight traffic when in 2009 was formed the company Europorte with some subsidiaries in UK and in France. 

Europorte in action in France (par rino54 via Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

In 2012, Eurotunnel acquired three ferries from the declined company Sea France which were chartered to start the MyFerryLink ferry company. However, this operation on sea depends on a decision of the British competition authorities who intend to renew the ban on vessels from ex-SeaFrance to dock in the port of Kent in the course of this year.

The last news was the dispute between Eurotunnel and his client Eurostar. The railway company was accused in june 2013 of spreading “totally false” information about track access charges. Eurostar said track charges accounted for 25% of the cost of passenger tickets. Earlier in may, the European Commission called for a cut of up to 50% in track fares, which it said were excessive. It threatened France and the UK, which regulate Eurotunnel, with legal action if they did not act within two months to cut costs of the tunnel. Ultimately 28 april, 2014, Eurotunnel announced that it will reduce its track access charges by 25% (1).

As reported Benedict Brogan in The Thelegraph, « the Chunnel Tunnel quickly proved itself to be an economic success that aided trade and provided greater opportunities for British businesses to take goods and services to Europe ». And he concludes: « the Channel Tunnel will mark not just our connection to the Continent, but how hard it is to break ». Happy birthday Eurotunnel…

(1) See at these link

France-Barcelona : standard connection by high speed train

Analysis of Mediarail.be - Signalling technician and railways observer

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It was long overdue: the France-Barcelona Service with "standard gauge" has finally become a reality through the new line of TP Ferro and its extension to the Catalan capital. Spain, which has reconfiguring its railway by a large high-speed network is now connected to Europe with the gauge of 1.435mm. A brief overview.

The Talgo time

Let us remember : spanish and portuguese gauges are 1.668mm instead the “standard European gauge” of 1.435mm. There exist still some doubts from many historians about the reasons of this choice. The British decision to end the anarchy of many constructors of railways in UK could be the answer. Rolling stock built with broad gauge were be sold ... to a country which had any railroad before October 1848. The result : a full transfer between trains in the border and complete isolation of the Iberian rail network with the rest of Europe , making the heyday of twins stations of Irun / Hendaye and Port-Bou/Cerbère . Creative company Talgo invented 100 years later an articulated train which, from June 1969, can to switch between gauges thanks to its " rodadura desplazable " (RD), a independent wheels systems that plugs automatically on the gauge of France or Spain . Here begins the great period of Talgo III RD which ride in France, as the famous TEE Catalan - Talgo (Barcelona- Geneva from 1969 to 1982 and then as Euro –City limited in Montpellier) and the night services with the Elypsos services to latter days, reaching Paris - Austerlitz. December 2013 marks the end of this time of 44 years ... (1)

The Trans-Europ-Express Talgo in 70's : locomotive also changes of the gauge at Port-Bou (Mediarail.be collection)

A new High Speed Line

The idea came in 1992 at the time when Europe dreaming of a large high speed line network through the Continent, and the decision was taken in 1995. The works started only in 2004 with the little – but difficult - section between Perpignan and Figueres.  The line is granted to the private company TP Ferro which is equity held by Eiffage (FR) and ACS (SP).  The private section of 44,4km was delivered on time in january 2009, just 3km before the city of Figueres, including the tunnel of Perthus (8km). The whole project costed ca 1.000 billions €. Problem was the spanish section to join Barcelona  was seriously overdue. The delay in Spain forced his government to compensate TP Ferro - without traffic - to pay compensation and to extend the concession from 50 to 53 years. In autumn 2010, a first little section to Figueres-Vilafant was delivered (schema below). That permitted to start a first train service between France and Spain by SNCF TGVDuplex with gauge of 1.435mm, but limited to Figueres where a Civia of Renfe was connected to reach Barcelona. Complete journey Paris-Barcelona took ca 7h37 to 7h40, partially under 25kV and ETCS 2 version 2.3.0d (TVM and KVB in France). This first step have stopped unfortunately the two day-return Talgo services : the Catalan-Talgo and the Mare-Nostrum, to and from Montpellier.

Schema of the HSL line : private section by TP Ferro (in red) and the rest  by national ADIF (in blue) (schema by Mediarail.be)

With a temporary track with Iberian gauge, the station gave immediate connection with a Renfe Emu Civia to reach Barcelona via the classic line at 3kV, offering a journey from Paris to Barcelona about 7:37 to 7:40. In January 2013, nine AVE class S-103 per day joined Madrid to Figueres via Barcelona when the full section Barcelona-Figueres was open. During summer 2013, many rumors spread by medias talk about a full service open between Paris and Barcelona. Technically, reading balises were correct in one direction but not in the other for TGV SNCF. Info or may be intox, it was without counting the political horse-trading about the distribution of services France to Spain.

Catalonia, RENFE, Siemens and Alstom

Like Belgium, Catalonia has sent lately political signs showing his "difference" with his country. During 2013, Catalonia shown his preference towards the French SNCF rather than the Spanish RENFE for his railway network. But the HSL Barcelona- Figueres is owned by ADIF, the Spanish infrastructure manager, on which run trains of the Spanish RENFE. Catalonia has not the full control ! On other side, the rolling stock used between Madrid and Figueres is the AVE class S-103, a sister of the ICE 3 from Siemens, while the TGV Duplex come from Alstom. To strike an appropriate balance between the two countries, twelve AVE S-101, sister of the TGV-Atlantic, were sent to Alstom-Belfort for installation of the KVB and the French high speed system TVM, and finally tested.

The balance of the exploitation

The map above - seen on the website of RENFE (2) - indicates the following balance: no AVE S-101 reaches Paris, and no TGV Duplex reaches Madrid ... Both SNCF Parisians day return are "compensated" by 3 RENFE day return "South of France" touching Toulouse, Lyon and Marseille, the latter city being the only directly connected with Madrid. The Barcelona-Lyon route makes undoubtedly think to the veteran TEE "Catalan-Talgo", and it is not excluded that an extension to Geneva would take place at the future. Route with Toulouse in 3 hours is a novelty which is subjected to interrogation about his sustainability : schedule is design for a half day in Toulouse, but not for French in Barcelona, except by a change of train at Narbonne !

Schema of the schedules in 15 december 2013 : in red TGV Duplex SNCF and the rest AVE S-101 of Renfe.

Girona and Figueres maintain 7 domestic connections on 9 with Madrid and 3 others by a change of train at Barcelona-Sants. RENFE and SNCF hope more than 1 million international travelers in 2014 on these trains. The schedules can be seen below :

Schema of the schedules in 15 december 2013 (compilation by Mediarail.be)

The HSL France-Barcelona can also count with another project : the railway “ring” which start at the north of Barcelona (at Montmello), to bypass the city and to join the harbor area at Morrot. This line include two gauges and 3 rails (standard + Spanish). This bypass permits for the harbor to be connected directly with the rest of the European containers network.

Consequential damages

The renewal of the train service between France and Spain has his consequential damages. Firstly by the closure of the two Elypsos night’s Talgo services to and from Madrid, Barcelona and Paris : station Paris-Austerlitz is to be emptied of international content. Officially Talgo is now not represented in France. Secondly, the route by the twins station Cerbère/Port-Bou fall down dramatically, except maybe of some freight services. Let us remember that the catalan HSL is a mixing line which accepts freight trains with 750m of length, to compare with the 450m of length on the classic network of ADIF.  Many forwarders will be tempted to move the freight traffic via the new HSL. The “Vermeille” coast stations are preparing for enter to a state of torpor for many years…

Today, Figueres-Vilafant replace Port-Bou as entry gate of Catalonia (picture by Mediarail.be)

For the next ?

It will depend of the good desires of each : at the moment, HSL from north of Europe stop at Montpellier and no project to reach Perpignan through the Languedoc region is planned for the next decades, except if political changes come in France…When the financial crisis came, the political orientation turned in favor of the commuters railways traffic, which provide the better political potential growth. With the missing section of HSL in Languedoc, we cannot dream exactly of a long high speed route of 1.435mm between Amsterdam and Sevilla…

The only sanction will be the verdict of the market on a catalan route with a double axis of concurrence. Firstly with SNCF, which is not hiding the fact of his expansion in Spain, a new market. And secondly, by the change of strategy of the low-cost airliners which want now to operate air routes to and from the big airports, and not only regional airports (3). That would force SNCF and RENFE to maintain their fares Paris-Barcelona under 70€ if they want to stay in the race…

(1) To read (in spanish langage) : the Talgos

(2) The website de la RENFE

(3) See the recent tactic of Ryannair to operate from Brussels-National Airport, which would mean a reposition towards major airports, a reality valid throughout Europe ....

HS2 : the sea snake of England

Analysis of Mediarail.be - Signalling technician and railways observer

(version française disponible ici)
More news, in english en french, on the facebook page of Mediarail.be

08/10/2013

Like Sweden, Great-Britain is the only « big » countries with very few mileage of new High Speed Lines. Today the CTRL 1 comes to London from the Continent. But towards the North, there are no trains which ride over than 200km/h. The project HS2 (High Speed Two) is trying to catch up the delay, but it is facing a considerable debat between pros and cons. A little overview of the situation.

CTRL 1

The first real british High Speed Line (HSL) was built in two times. The first section was opened 29th of september 2003 and the second section, with more difficulties, the 14th of november 2007. This HSL is a copy of french HSL, with overhead line of 25kV and protection system TVM430, to the train station of St Pancras. The advantage of this location, on the north of London, is that St Pancras is head station from Midland Railways, while the nearby station of King Cross is the head station of ECML (East Coast Main Line), towards Newcastle and Edimburg. But towards the Wales, Midland and Scottland, you must go to the very dark station of Euston, 10 minutes walk from St Pancras. Not easy with luggages….

Geography

The Midlands is caracterized by a big concentration of cities from 100.000 to 2 millions people and many regions have experienced major growth of urban sprawl. As a result the Midlands looks like the german’s region of Rhur or the italian’s Lombardia, with a string of small and big towns at every 50 kilometer.  Four cities have a real importance : Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds. In this context, the railway’s network is very meshed and concentrates a large number of local and freight services.

WCML

The West Coast Main Line (WCML) is a main line of 640km joigned London to Glasgow via the Midlands and slip through this Midlands network.  This is the most important intercity rail passenger route in the UK which was entirely electrified in 25kV in 1974. Some sections allow a speed of 200km/h and the traffic reaches 75 million passenger journeys and 43% of all UK rail freight traffic . For all times, the main focus is to join Glasgow as fast as possible, today under the five hours, to compete with airliners. The first idea was to introduce a tilting train, in the 1970s, by the creation of the Advanced Passengers Train (APT), which never received any support of political authority. The backbone of express passenger services on the WCML from the 1970s to 1990s was the Mark II trains hauled by the BR class 87. At the time of privatisation, the franchise was awarded to Virgin which introduced the Alstom's Pendolino class 390. This franchise should have been renewed in october 2012 but a big mistake of the Departement of Transport (DfT) has cancelled all bids of bidders. Whatever the train services awarded, we are not in the case of a high speed train, although Virgin connects today London to Glasgow Central with a travelling time from 4h30 to 5h00.

The Pendolino class 390 ofAlstom : not a real high speed train (photo bob the lomond)

Arguments and counter-arguments

In Europe, the definition of a High Speed Train indicates a train which riding with a speed over 250 km/h without tilting system. This is the case of all HSL in France, Germany, Spain and Italy, as well as in the Benelux countries. At the beginning, the english project called HS2 was supported by a large political consensus, but the financial crisis and the grow of the sceptic political party has caused a large self withdrawal. Public opinion today is divided between the choice of a national concept and the improvement of his daily local life. Commuters have vigorously called for a hardly action to upgrade the regional traffic and do not understand why the gouvernement will spend dozens billions of £ to a project which they feel do not directly concern them. It is exactly the same argumentation presented by the opponents of the french HSL studied between Marseille and Nice (LGV PACA).

This is true that today the branding of TGV or the ICE has lost ground in the mind of many people, particularly by the fact that high speed trains does not responds to the wide array of destinations and that to connect a city at more than 1000 km, airliners stay the best way to travel, particularly with the low-cost services. Germany and France see that their motorway are not empty and that the high speed train has only ate a part of the growth of transports. The other argumentation is that the construction of HSL has left out the needs for regional and suburban traffic, except in Germany where the local traffic was improved at the same time that construction of HSL lines.

HS2

A first proposal called HS2 was presented in 2009 in UK to join major city centres served directly by HSL: London, Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester, and by extension on existing tracks, Liverpool and Scotland. In January 2009, the Labour government established High Speed Two Limited (HS2 Ltd) to study the possibilities  of a new British high-speed line towards Birmingham and Manchester. The first conclusion was presented to the gouvernment on 11 March 2010. But the parliamentary elections of may 2010 have replaced the Labour party by a  conservative gouvernement leading by David Cameron. Which published a slightly revised line of route for public consultation based on a Y-shaped route from London to Birmingham with branches towards Leeds and Manchester. A consultation period was set to run until July 2011 and when the results were published, it revealed that over 90% of respondents to the consultation were against HSL. In January 2012 the Secretary of State for Transport announced despite all the go-ahead for HS2 which would be built in two stages, causing a large protest movement and faced with many legal challenges.

Phases 1 and 2 of the project (photo Wikipedia)

Airport connection ?

It was also expected originally a option to connect HS1 with a International interchange station at Heathrow, with a line at north of London linked the CTRL1 via a by-pass already built just out the entrance of St Pancras station. This idea was withdrawn, with consequences that the first european airport stays in his confined aerial environment without railways connections with his neighboring cities at 200 or 300km. This going completely against the overall mobility and many examples outside the UK, such as Francfort, Schipol or Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle. In December 2010, the labour government announced that a high speed connection with Heathrow Airport would be built at Old Oak Common, where High Speed 2 would have an interchange station with the Heathrow Express and Crossrail, the large suburban railway project in London, which will be the link from Heathrow to Canary Warf.

2013 : Where are we right now ?

To implement the HS2 proposals the government will introduce on behalf of HS2 Ltd two hybrid bills, one for each phase.The first phase of HS2 was launched the 16th of May 2013 with the launch of consultations on the project’s draft Environmental statement and proposed design refinements, such as more tunnels in sensitive areas. The timeline shows a introduction to the parliament at the end 2013 and to become a law by spring of 2015. The built of the phase 1 of HS2 is expected to begin after the promulgation of the first bill and is expected to be completed in 2026 ! This refers for a double track line of 225km linking Euston to Birmingham in 49 minutes instead current travelling time of 1h12 or 1h24.

The developpements concerning implantation in Birmingham have shown the impossibility to integrate the HS2 traffic into the present station of New Street. and the new station will be adjacent to Moor Street local station.  New Street and the new HS2 station could be directly linked via a people mover with a journey time of two minutes. The hybrid bill for phase 2 will be prepared for January 2015 and will consist to a V-shaped with two lines, one towards Manchester and a other towards Leeds.

The implantation in Birmingham (photo HS2)

The costs

This is the traditionnal sea snake for this kind of project. Nobody know exactly the total of the costs because it's depend for the final design of the line : how many bridges or tunnels to reassure opponents and sceptics ? The reality of the costs will appear when the construction will begin, in principle in 2018 for phase 1. According the Mail Online website, the official budget has already rocketed from £30billion in 2010 to £42.6billion in 2012, and today, he grow up to £73billion.

Finally

We see a traditionnal jostling between for and against. There are no doubt that this battle will be highlighted by typical british elements. The experience of CTRL1 - or HS1 - has shown that the wonderful gardens of the Kent were not been devastated and  that the only animal escaped from the Continent is the Eurostar TMST emu Class 373 with his design...so british ! We see also that the most opponents against the HSL are the same who criticize the...regional train. Many people forget that there are no growth of the railway without investments. Upgrade an existing line do not prevent the congestion where differents trains move with differents speeds, and we achieve a minimum of optimum results for a maximum of costs. Why have we incorporated the speed differenciation on road network, with our motorways, and not on railways ? Discriminatory policies are the future ?