80 April 2019Modern Railways http://www.modern-railways.com
Europe View Keith Fender
The first of the new trains, which will comprise
an electric locomotive and Talgo coaches, will
enter service in 2023. The trains will be used on
the Berlin – Amsterdam international route (which
requires 220km/h running on the Hanover to
Berlin high-speed line) and the Köln – Westerland
(Sylt) and Hamburg – Oberstdorf domestic routes,
both of which will require diesel traction as well
as electric as neither Itzehoe to Westerland (Sylt)
or Ulm/Augsburg to Oberstdorf are electrified.
DB is yet to release any more detailed information
about the design or layout of the new trains.
It is unclear if this order will replace previous plans
announced by Dutch operator NS to hire 12 Vectron
electric locomotives to operate the Amsterdam to
Berlin inter-city services from December 2019.GO-AHEAD AND TRANSDEV
SHARE AUGSBURG CONTRACTS
Go-Ahead has won its fifth German operating
contract, although it has yet to start operating
any of them! The first Go-Ahead contracts
go live in the Stuttgart area in June.
Go-Ahead Verkehrsgesellschaft Deutschland
has been awarded the contract to run services on
the following electrified lines serving Augsburg,
west of Munich, from December 2022 for 12 years:
n Ulm – Augsburg – Munich;
n Würzburg – Ansbach – Treuchtlingen –
Donauwörth – Augsburg;
n Aalen – Nördlingen – Donauwörth.These services are currently operated by
DB Regio using a fleet of 2008/09-vintage
Alstom Coradia Continental DB Class 440
EMUs ordered for the Augsburg network.
Go-Ahead has ordered 56 new EMUs from
Siemens at a cost of €400 million to operate the
services – 12 five-car part double deck Desiro HC
units seating 538 passengers, and 44 three-car
Mireo single deck articulated EMUs seating
216 passengers. The new units can interwork
with each other; two Mireo EMUs can work in
multiple with a Desiro HC and the Desiro HC EMUs
can operate in 10-car pairs, whilst the Mireo can
operate with up to four trains in multiple (12 cars).
The second part of the Augsburg network
contracts awarded by Bavarian state rail
tendering body BEG has been retained byTransdev subsidiary Bayerische Regiobahn
(BRB) to operate non-electrified routes from
Augsburg serving Schongau, Ingolstadt
and Langenneufnach (the latter following
the reopening of the Gessertshausen to
Langenneufnach line from December 2022),
plus the Eichstätt Stadt branch line.IRELAND
PASSENGER RECORD
BROKEN FOR IÉ
2018 was Iarnród Éireann’s (IÉ) busiest ever year,
with overall passenger growth of 5.25% from
45.5 million in 2017 to 47.9 million in 2018.
Growth occurred across all three service sectors,
however the 8.5% growth on inter-city services
(to 12.4 million journeys) was unexpected and
has caused capacity issues on some routes.
Commuter services saw an increase of 4.5%
to 14.6 million journeys. The new ‘cross city’
services in Dublin from Hazelhatch via the
Phoenix Park tunnel line to Grand Canal Dock
proved very popular, adding to the commuter
sector total. DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit)
services carried 20.5 million passengers, an
increase of 4.3%. Additional carriages for the
inter-city DMUs have been ordered to provide
increased capacity and new DART trains
(including bi-mode) are to be ordered soon.
IÉ’s current Public Service Contract expires in
December 2019 and negotiations are currently
underway with the National Transport Authority
(NTA) concerning the new contract, including
relevant performance and reliability metrics for
it. Possible service enhancements are likely to
include hourly services from Sligo and two-hourly
services from Westport to Dublin, plus additional
daytime services on the Dublin – Rosslare line.
Negotiations are also taking place with the
Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport
(DTTaS) to develop a five-year multi-annual contract
for infrastructure funding. DTTaS is reviewing the
previous five years’ expenditure to form a view
on requirements for the new contract, which
may include enhancements to the network.
The delayed five-month DTTaS investigation
regarding reopening the Athenry to Claremorris(via Tuam) section of the Western Rail Corridor is
also expected to begin shortly. Tim CastertonFREIGHT TO RETURN TO SLIGO?
Pulpwood trains operated by IÉ for Irish forestry
company Coillte from Sligo are expected to resume
during 2019. The trains would serve Waterford
to supply the Medite building materials factory.
Should services recommence, it is expected that
loading will take place at Sligo Quay yard, which
is currently mothballed, with the steeply graded
branch out of use (except the first few hundred
metres, which are used as a stabling siding).
Pulpwood trains are currently operated from
both Ballina and Westport to Waterford, however
a large volume of timber is supplied from the
forests located around Sligo, Leitrim and Donegal,
involving around a 180km round trip for the HGVs
carrying the timber to the current loading points.
Until December 2008 the pulpwood trains had
operated from Sligo twice-weekly. Tim CastertonNETHERLANDS
BETUWEROUTE
TRAFFIC DECLINES
The dedicated freight-only Betuweroute between
Rotterdam and the German border saw a 12%
decline in train kilometres operated in 2018. This
was chiefly due to long-running engineering works
to increase freight capacity by adding a third track
between Zevenaar on the Dutch/German border
and Oberhausen in Germany; freight traffic was
diverted via the classic network instead. The work
in the Netherlands is complete, although the work
in Germany will continue for several more years.
Overall, freight movements in the Netherlands
measured by train kilometres increased by 4%
according to national infrastructure manager
ProRail, with the long hot summer leading
to traffic diverting from barges to trains as
low water levels in rivers such as the Rhine
imposed major restrictions on the amount of
freight that could be transported by water.AUTONOMOUS TRAIN ON TEST
In late December Dutch rail freight operator
Rotterdam Rail Feeding worked with nationalFreight on the Betuweroute: Captrain Traxx MS
loco No 186 151 heads east with steel on
the Betuweroute just west of Geldermalsen
on 13 September 2018. Keith Fender078-081_MR_Apr 2019_europe.indd 80 11/03/2019 17:28