Rail conquers the Alps

30 September 2015 | Railway Gazette International
INTELLIGENCE Analysis
POINTERS
Bolloré Group and the governments of Benin and Niger
signed a concession agreement on August 13 for the
construction and operation of a railway from Cotonou to
Niamey. This project involves rehabilitation of the metregauge
Cotonou – Parakou line, and the construction of a
574 km extension. ‘Both presidents view it as a priority for
their national infrastructure’, said Prime Minister of Benin
Lionel Zinsou. ‘Never has there been such an important
investment in a West African country.’
Photo: SBB/Gian Vaitl
All trains operating over the Gotthard line must now be equipped for ETCS Level 2, including
SBB’s Roger 1000 infrastructure monitoring vehicle.
services start running as soon as the line
opens, whereas SNCF would prefer to
wait for the December 2017 timetable
change. n
SWITZERLAND
Level 2 on
the Gotthard
During the night of August 15-16,
Swiss Federal Railways successfully
switched over the first section of its
Gotthard corridor to ETCS Level 2.
This is the first changeover to ETCS on
Switzerland’s conventional network, as
opposed to new lines, and thus marks
a significant step in the national ETCS
roll-out programme.
The 19 km section between Brunnen
and Erstfeld is the first part of this important
north-south transit corridor to
be converted, as it forms the northern
approach to the Gotthard Base Tunnel,
which is also being equipped with
Level 2. Including the construction of
electronic interlockings at Altdorf and
Rynächt by AlpTransit Gotthard AG,
it is part of the work which SBB says
is needed to permit the operation of
six freight and two passenger trains per
hour in each direction through the base
tunnel when it opens next year.
The Castione – Bodio section on the
southern approach will be switched over
to ETCS with effect from November 1,
following completion of another interlocking
at Pollegio. ETCS will also be
introduced at Giubiasco/San Antonino
on June 26 2017, and through the Ceneri
Base Tunnel when that is commissioned
in 2020.
In the revised TEN-T core network
adopted in October 2013, the Gotthard
route forms a key part of the Rhine-
Alpine corridor, which under the official
ETCS deployment plan is scheduled to
be fully equipped by the end of this year.
However, the European Commission
confirmed last year that some sections
in Germany and Italy would not be
ready before 2020.
According to SBB, the Gotthard line
was blocked overnight for 9 h during
the commissioning process, with passenger
services replaced by buses and
freight trains diverted via the Lötschberg
route. The line reopened at 08.00,
allowing the Sunday passenger services
to operate without any problems. A bigger
test for the new signalling came with
the resumption of transit freight traffic
on the following Monday, but SBB reports
that ‘it all worked very well’, with
no significant issues. During an initial
shakedown period line speeds are being
limited to 80 km/h between Flüelen
and Erstfeld, but this was due to be reviewed
at the beginning of September.
The changeover comes almost exactly
three years after SBB and its contractors
ceremonially installed a Eurobalise
at Airolo to mark the start of the lineside
fit out phase of the national ETCS
programme. This will see much of the
network equipped with Level 1 Limited
Supervision to replace the legacy
ZUB train warning system (RG 6.10
p36), and Level 2 on selected corridors.
While the work was originally expected
to be completed within a decade, SBB
now says the full transition to ETCS is
likely to take around 20 years.
With the installation of lineside
equipment progressing faster than the
fitting of rolling stock, some oper ators
expressed concern that the switchover
would prevent them using nonequipped
locomotives or heritage rolling
stock on charter trains over the
Gotthard corridor. This is an inevitable
consequence of the migration process,
but the pressure should start to ease as
more routes and trains are equipped. n
Norwegian Infrastructure manager Jernebaneverket is
looking to encourage new operators to provide services
at its Ganddal rail freight terminal in Stavanger and the
Brattøra terminal in Trondheim. The project is a trial at
the behest of the Ministry of Transport & Communications,
which wants to introduce competition in the market. If it
is successful, all 12 JBV-owned freight terminals would be
opened up to multiple operators from 2017.
Following a meeting with Inter-American Development
Bank officials in Washington DC last month, Minister of
the Interior & Transport Florencio Randazzo said that the
Argentinian government was exploring new opportunities
to finance electrification of the San Martín and Belgrano Sur
commuter networks in Buenos Aires. IDB is already funding
electrification of the Roca route to La Plata, which the
government hopes to complete before the end of this year.
The Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund announced on
August 13 that a deadline of December 2015 has been agreed
for binding offers to take over Greece’s state-owned operator
TrainOSE and rolling stock maintenance contractor Rosco.
Hradf has reportedly received firm expressions of interest from
SNCF, Russian Railways and Romania’s Grampet Group for a
100% stake in the operator while Alstom, Siemens and an
RZD-led consortium expressed an interest in acquiring Rosco.
Having reopened the 200 km Palmira – La Tebaida route
in July, Ferrocarril del Pacífico of Colombia is looking to
increase freight traffic on the 914 mm gauge network from
25 000 tonnes/month to 80 000 tonnes/month in 2016 (RG
8.14 p30).
The US Trade & Development Agency has awarded a grant
of $650 000 to ANPTrilhos, the national association of
passenger rail operators in Brazil, to develop ‘a roadmap and
implementation plan’ for the adoption of real-time video
monitoring by both public and private-sector operators. This
will involve the identification of technologies as well as the
definition of standards and protocols.
Under an agreement signed with SNCF Réseau and local
authorities, the Axéréal co-operative of grain producers is to
meet one-third of the €4m cost of track renewals required to
keep the Vendôme – Montoire-sur-le-Loir – Troo line open to
freight traffic, with the infrastructure manager undertaking
to maintain the route for a period of 30 years.
The government of Bangladesh has agreed to fund a
feasibility study into a railway connecting a planned power
generation complex at Matarbari, including two coal-fired
power stations, to the BR network. The study would also assess
options for upgrading the Chittagong – Dohazari line and
construction of an inland intermodal terminal at Dhirassam.
A problem with oil seals on the bogie frames has led to the
temporary suspension of test running of JR Kyushu’s Free
Gauge Train (RG 11.14 p12). The trainset had accumulated
more than 30 000 km of test running on both 1 067 mm and
1 435 mm gauge tracks, passing through gauge-changing
facilities between the Kyushu Shinkansen and the Kagoshima
Line more than 400 times before the problems emerged.
An agreement has been reached between the Indian
government and the state of Odisha to share the cost of
constructing 177 km of the planned Rs30bn, 289 route-km
broad gauge line from Khurda Road, south of the state
capital Bhubaneshwar, to Bolangir.