@MassJumbo @JRUrbaneNetwork Very steep grades throughout that part of the city, and the rubber tyres give slightly more traction than steel wheels. Chongqing is renowned for its hilly geography.
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Robbie
5.9K posts
@JRUrbaneNetwork Why did they build a monor instead of traditional rail?
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Chongqing Metro Line 3 the world's longest and busiest monorail. Video by 东哥摄影 on xhs.
Wan Chai District, Hong Kong 🇭🇰 English
Robbie retweetledi
they're not kidding: "Multi SPAD Signal".
To be clear, within the limitations of the ATP (or perhaps absence??), this is a really good outcome. The last slice of cheese worked.
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@hutcho66 @Urban_Immerser @disco___cat Yes you can, you just need passing loops where freight trains can be overtaken. Germany, Italy and China all run mixed traffic high speed rail lines.
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@Urban_Immerser @disco___cat Yeah although you can't really have HSR running on the same line as freight? So you wouldn't want to replace the line fully if you were going to do that, you'd perhaps just build segments that passenger trains could use but keep the existing alignment for freight?
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Couldn’t this train line be upgraded to reduce the 11 hour travel time without having to go full HSR? theguardian.com/australia-news…
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@disco___cat @hutcho66 Probably about 7–8 hours, maybe as low as 5–6 if it was realigned and electrified, using 200–250 km/h trains. Not as fast as HSR but close enough to be extremely competitive, and it wouldn't preclude freight between our two largest cities either.
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@roodave @retrobike_c16 I can't help but feel that tunnelling under the Hawkesbury River is a deliberate attempt to prove once and for all that HSR is too expensive in this country.
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@retrobike_c16 Surely the piece de resistance is now emerging as HSR Sydney- Newcastle proposal in a tunnel under the Hawkesbury River and national park. Insane when you compare with footprint of nearby roads and motorways
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This is an absolutely classic tale of Anglosphere planning processes. I see this stuff literally every day
It’s THIS that is costing billions, much more so than architectural station canopies or worker wages. It absolutely kills projects
Dan Tomlinson MP@Dan4Barnet
Why can’t Britain build anything anymore? The news this week of the £100m ‘bat tunnel’ gave us some clues. Here’s the story of this tunnel, which has been 12 years in the making, and some thoughts on what it tells us
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@theboatend @OperationalInc1 But even if it was a state-owned corporation I still think they'd be this incompetent. They seem to just not want to run trains and are perpetually surprised that people want to catch them.
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@OperationalInc1 I mean that's the downside of being an agency rather than a statutory corporation, every decision becomes legally the minister's decision.
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@fictillius Tunnelling under the ridges with a few large viaducts over gorges would permit a fairly straight alignment. The alignment wouldn't need to be more than about 50 m wide, and careful construction could reduce impacts on the national parks.
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@zoqaeski Even the motorway is not straight enough for a HSR route. It would also get caught up in years of court to do anything in the national parks so it’s probably easier just to tunnel under the lot of it
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Crossing the Hawkesbury River on a trip to Sydney from the Central Coast, train passengers can see for themselves the mammoth task confronting engineers if a dedicated high-speed rail line through the area ever becomes a reality.
🔗 👇🏼
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At least we don’t have to look at ugly overhead tram wires in city streets. Or any trams at the moment either.
Seems the section south of Town Hall, equipped with regular overhead wiring continues to work just fine.
Eddie Redcliffe@fictillius
APS strikes again 😬
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@fictillius A reinforced concrete viaduct with slab track would definitely be a lot quieter. You'd need to reinstate the turnback in the abandoned tunnels at St James in order to replace the viaduct though.
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@zoqaeski I’d remove the road and then refurbish the station, possibly even replace the station and approaches entirely with something more modern looking
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In 1948, the Cahill Expressway was labelled a “proposed monstrosity”. Why are we still staring at it?
The single biggest obstacle to transforming Circular Quay
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Robbie retweetledi
I have a perfectly pleasant job but we need to abolish the 5 day/40 hour workweek because even with all of my flexibility and lack of micromanaging and working remotely I feel like I have no control over most of my life because I am expected to be working.
Allie ✞@allie__voss
Hot take but most of you have perfectly pleasant jobs and are making your own life worse by performatively hating them
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@TimQMLCNorthVic @hot_rails @aussiewongm @garry_mock The government loses money on roads but roads are seen as a net good for society so we invest in them anyway. Railways are more efficient, cheaper to construct per unit of traffic, and have fewer negative externalities, so should be seen as a net benefit to society as well.
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@zoqaeski @hot_rails @aussiewongm @garry_mock The government loses money on each rail ticket sold. They’re not going to do anything to make passenger rail faster and more popular, because they’ll lose more money…
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Blog: Why losing the XPT sleeping carriages isn’t a big deal wongm.com/2025/01/melbou…
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@vojtasTS29 @AussieWirraway @aussiewongm Even a noon service would need some track upgrades in NSW to reliably arrive at the destination before midnight
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@AussieWirraway @aussiewongm Yeah i agree, especially because the stops tend to wake you up when you sleep. I think there should be two day services (early morning from both cities and around noon) and then a dedicated night service that would only stop in the largest towns close to Melbourne and Sydney
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@hot_rails @aussiewongm @garry_mock Track upgrades combined with a rolling program to realign the worst sections in NSW will get us a decent medium speed rail line for a fraction of the cost of full 350 km/h HSR, and it won't preclude freight between the two largest cities either.
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@aussiewongm @garry_mock This is my understanding and experience. A Nightjet-style all-sleeper service would do a roaring trade.
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@Ed_of_O @whimsical523456 @OzzyAussieOtty Albury isn't a small town—there's 100,000 people between there and Wodonga. There is no reason for it not to have a decent rail link with both Sydney and Melbourne.
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@whimsical523456 @OzzyAussieOtty No HSR has ever been done that way. You won't find any examples of HSRs built to service towns as small as Albury.
Sunshine Coast-Gold Coast?
Sure
Newcastle-Wollongong?
Ok
Camberra-Wollongong?
Justifiable only b/c it's the capitol
Canberra-Melborne-Adelaide?
Forget it
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That's Melbourne to Sydney in under 3 hours.
We're a country with a hostile climate, poor soil and a low population yet still we have thrived and attained some of the world's highest living standards.
Let's be real, what is stopping us from making HSR a reality in Australia?
China Daily@ChinaDaily
#China unveils 450 km/h high-speed train prototype. #railway bit.ly/3ZSIxNT
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@hot_rails Japan has a ridiculous number of level crossings and they've developed various types of obstacle detection that alert the train driver to apply the brakes if necessary. Their crossings also show which direction the train(s) are approaching from, and they close the entire road.
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Human behaviour is an integral component of level crossing safety, but we've trained even the best drivers to ignore overly long closures due to "Fail-to-safe" engineering (ie, when there's a malfunction, the gates just stay shut). Needs a rethink (and some serious investment).
Brightline@GoBrightline
From the Brightline Safety and Security Team: Railroad safety is a community wide effort. For everyone’s safety, never drive around crossing gates when they are down.
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@hot_rails It's a cultural thing too. European crossing gates stay down much longer than American ones, and drivers don't tend to attempt to drive around them (but their gates also cross the entire road).
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@JRUrbaneNetwork Didn't Keikyū paint their trains red in homage to the Pacific Electric "Red Cars"? A lot of Japanese interurbans were directly inspired by American ones.
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You know Los Angeles was a key inspiration for...
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