Railroads: Four Tracks, Soon Near My Backyard

I've been busy with our future home in Åkarp, and therefore the blog has been quiet for a couple of weeks.

From April on, I'll be able to follow a very interesting railroad project closely. The Swedish Southern Main Line (Södra Stambanan) will be expanded from two to four tracks between Arlöv (5 km North East of Malmö) and one km south of Lund. The existing commuter stations Burlöv, Åkarp and Hjärup will be rebuilt, and Lund will get its fourth station, Klostergården (south of Lund C).

The first step is to build two temporary tracks, parallel to the existing tracks. After that, the old tracks are removed and the embankment is lowered six meters. Four tracks are added and finally, the temporary tracks are removed:

Initially, there are two old tracks on the ground level

Two temporary tracks are added next to the old tracks

A six meter deep trench for new tracks is built where the two old tracks were.

Four hundred meters of the tracks are covered in Åkarp.
A public park is planned to be put on top of the tunnel.. 

The temporary tracks are removed, and the bottleneck is resolved.

I'll explore this project further in future blog posts.

I'll write about this project alongside with my personal pet projects.

Trains: Volunteers Bringing History to Life

One sunny day in June, me and my family went to a heritage railway in the eastern parts of  Skåne.

Skånska Järnvägar is a non-profit organisation that operates four stations, 13 km of railway, half a dozen of locomotives and some passenger cars. All this is possible thanks to dedicated and hard-working volunteers.

The railroad was constructed in 1901, but it was transferred to SJ fourty years later. There has been no line traffic for more than fourty years.

Thanks to Skånska Järnvägar for keeping the traffic running!

Trains: Not-so-Cute Stations / Trelleborg C

English summary:

Train operators and port authorities that want passengers to use trains instead of cars should consider equipping their public toilets with soap and paper towels. Especially if they charge the passengers for using the toilets.

Fredagen den 15 juni anlände jag med min son till Trelleborg C för en dagsutflykt. 

På stationen behövde vi använda toaletten som kostade 10 kr, vilket är en rimlig kostnad för en allmän toalett. Den ska städas, papper och tvål ska fyllas på och klotter ska saneras. Någon ska göra jobbet och hen ska ha betalt.

Tyvärr var toaletten i dåligt skick, trots avgiften.

Det fanns ingen tvål i något av de tre tvättställen. Jag såg att det inte ens fanns någon tvålpåse i tvållådorna, så städarna verkar inte ha någon tvål att fylla på.

Det fanns heller inget handtorkspapper i någon av de tre toaletterna även om städarna har lagt dit toalettpapper.

Skötbordet var nerklottrat.  

Jag har inget problem med att betala för toalettbesök, men att betala för en toalett som saknar tvål och handtorkspapper är inte acceptabelt. Många människor är i rörelse på tågstationer och färjelägen. Om det inte finns tvål och handdukar kommer sjukdomar att spridas.

Stationen ägs och förvaltas av Trelleborg Hamn AB som hoppas att fler kommer resa med tåg. Jag hoppas att resenärerna tar med sig tvål och handtorkspapper till resan. Fast det vore bättre om det funnits på plats. 

Pengar till tvål och papper finns i den svarta dosan i mitten av bilden.

Trains: Boiled, Fried or Mashed?

The local newspapers reported about two nasty incidents that ended well.

In Tomelilla, an off-duty firefighter found a four-year old child alone in a car. The weather was sunny and the temperature was quite high outside the car and very high inside the car.

Together with his officer, they started breaking in to the car. The mother arrived and unlocked the car. Luckily, the child didn't suffer any damages after spending at least fourty minutes in that car.

As a parent, I hope that I will never meet a child inside a locked car. If I do, I hope that I have the courage and presence needed to help that child. Being in a hot car is extremely dangerous.

Some sixty kilometers westbound, a similar incident occurred. Hundreds of passengers, including pregnant women, elderly people and small children found themselves trapped in a powerless train outside Malmö.

The internal loud speaker system failed, and after some fifty minutes, the passengers opened the train doors and went out on the tracks, where trains were operating in the opposite direction.

On a train, one should always follow the train personnels directions. But what to do if the clock is ticking, and the temperatures keep raising without any information? In the former incident, the necessary actions should be obvious. In the latter, one needs to consider the train operators ability to act,

I don't blame the people that left the train, even with the risk of being on the tracks in mind. However, the train operator needs to find out how to act. The passengers shouldn't need to choose between risk beeing overheated, electrocuted or run over by other trains.

Trains: High Speed Trains... in Sweden???

No one who is reading my blog can question my passion for trains. A part of me would be very enthusiastic about entering a Thalys-like train at Malmö Central, reaching Stockholm two and a half hours later. Another part of me is looking at the numbers.

In two previous blog posts, I've seen that the population is much smaller for Sweden, compared with the lines in France, Germany, Spain and Japan.

Trafikverket (The Swedish Transport Administration) has made an economical assessment of the proposed high speed rail lines. That report saw significant advantages with high speed trains:

• Increased capacity in the entire rail system, including existing lines.
• Cargo trains won't slow down passenger trains.
• Great reductions in travel time (36-64% reduction between Swedish towns along the line)

The value of the benefits were estimated to 150 billion SEK. However, the costs were estimated to be some 409 billion SEK. The return of investment would be 40%, a very poor prospect.

As the rail system in Sweden is already mature, the benefits of such a big project will smaller than the costs and the conclusion from the report is that high speed rail in Sweden will be too expensive.

I agree with that report. Such a project would starve out other investments that are necessary. The money should be used to build on the existing rail network, resolve bottle-necks and maintain the lines properly. High speed rail will starve out other, more efficient improvements.

Trains: High Speed Trains... to Lyon???

In the first blog post about the planned 320 km/h high speed rail in Sweden, I calculated the population along the line from Lund to Järna (Malmö/Copenhagen to Stockholm).

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

As of 2017, there are only four high speed lines of 320 km/h: Madrid to Barcelona, Paris (eastbound and westbound) and Dijon to Basel.

The following table compares some existing lines with the planned Swedish line. The populations are calculated within a 10 km and a 25 km radius from the stations. For the Swedish line, I exclude and include København in the calculations.

Start	End	Speed	Stations	Length	Pop 10 km	Pop 25 km
Malmö	Stockholm	320 km/h	12	460 km	1,6 M/2,5 M	3 M/4,5 M
Paris	Lyon	300 km/h	4	427 km	4,3 M	10 M
Paris	Strasbourg	320 km/h	5	409 km	4,8 M	10 M
Madrid	Barcelona	320 km/h	8	600 km	5,7 M	12 M
Tokyo	Niigata	320 km/h	12/5	270 km	8,5 M	26 M

I also added the Japanese Joetshu Shinkanshen line, one of the smaller lines in the Shinksanshen network.

The proposed Swedish line will serve a much smaller population than the other lines. Also, that line has 12 stations, that will make the trains slower. One stop will take some five minutes, according to the time tables for the French/Spanish lines.

For the Paris/Strasbourg line, there are 17 departures per day in each direction. 13 of them doesn't stop between Paris and Strasbourg. A similar tradeoff will be necessary for the train operator in Sweden: Either stop at many stops, using the stations that are built but also making the train slower, or travel directly between Malmö/Copenhagen and Stockholm, passing several important stations without stopping.

Intermediate conclusion: 
Sweden has a much smaller population density and smaller cities than the European countries. The demand for travels will be much smaller than for the existing lines.

Trains: High Speed Trains... to Tranås???

Swedish railways suffer from limited capacity and maintenance lagging behind. There are negotiations regarding some future high speed rail lines, that would connect the biggest population centres in Sweden in the future (Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö/København). The speed is planned to be 320 km/h.

There is some debate whether the project is a good idea, and I'll discuss my opinion in two blog posts. As a Malmö resident, I'll focus on the line between Malmö and Stockholm.

Let's start with demography and geography.

I'll compare the proposed line with some existing lines with respect to length, number of stops and population near the stations. I'll use an online tool to calculate the population in a 10 km radius and in a 25 km radius from the station.

The proposed line between Malmö and Stockholm (high speed between Lund and Järna) will be 550 km (approximately 500 km high speed rail). There will be nine stops between Malmö and Stockholm and the time will be 2½h according to Europakorridoren.

Excluding København (60 km from Lund), the total population of all towns served by the line will be 1.6 M/ 3 M. Including København, the population of all towns will be 2.5 M/ 4.5 M. Some of the smaller stations include Tranås and Vagnhärad with populations of 10 to 20 thousand people.

A future blog post will compare the Swedish project with some existing European high speed lines with similar speeds.

Trains: Double Decker Trains Above Öresund

On June, this year, the committee of public transportation of Region Skåne decided to introduce double decker trains on one of the busiests train line in the Öresund area (Copenhagen-Malmö-Lund-Helsingborg).

This is needed to increase the capacity on the line between Copenhagen and Malmö, that is very used by commuters and people going to and from Copenhagen airport, the busiest airport in Scandinavia.

Currently, a maximum of three trains (three 78.9 meter trains) can be connected and used, with a total capacity of some 600 passengers. The limit is the platform length of the sub-terranean station Triangeln in Malmö.

With the new trains, the capacity will increase to 800 to 900 passengers per train.

It is not yet decided which type of trains will be used but one likely candidate is Alstom Coradia Duplex, that is already in use in Sweden. Comparing that model with the current Öresundståg (X31), it seems that the capacity in terms of seats per meter is almost the same.

Öresundståg (X31) has a length of 78,9 meters and a capacity of 229 seats (2.9 passengers per meter).
Alstom Coradia Duplex (X40) comes in different lengths. The five car option has a length of 134 meters and a capacity of 570 seats (4,2 passengers per meter). The seven car option has a length of 186,7 meters and a capacity of 810 seats (4,33 passengers per meter).

The new trains are planned to be in use from 2019.

Old Tracks: Future Trail over Hallandsåsen

I've discussed trails along old tracks in two blog posts, one for a line near Malmö and one for the High Line in Manhattan. A new trail is planned for the old tracks over Hallandsåsen in the northern parts of Skåne, Sweden.

The old tracks over Hallandsås were ready 1885, as a part of the line between Helsingborg and Halmstad on the Swedish west coast. The area is very beautiful with an astonoshing view of Båstad and the bay of Laholm just before entering the railway station of Båstad.

It was aso a very difficult track for the trains for some reasons. The incline is quite high, so some cargo trains needed to accelerate before approaching the ridge in order to have a chance to cross it. At some periods, stand-by locomotives were waiting in Förslöv and Båstad to give extra support for the trains.

During fall, wet leaves made the tracks very slippery, making it even harder to pass Hallandsåsen. The railway was a single track line with very limited top speed and a meeting point in Grevie, so a very limited number of trains could pass every hour.

It became more important to resolve that bottle-neck when the traffic volumes increased between Malmö and Göteborg, and a tunnel under the ridge was built between 1991 and 2015. The project became much more expensive and complicated than forecasted.

The first leg of the trail is planned to be ready in 2018 and it will be possible to visit it by bike, foot or riding a horse. 

An article (in Swedish) about the railway history on Bjärehalvön can be found here.

Trains: Estación Internacional de Canfranc

Estación Internacional de Canfranc is a partially closed station in the French/Spanish border, between Pau, France and Zaragosa, Spain.

The line opened 1915, and the station opened in July, 1928 as the biggest station of Europe at that time. With a length of 241 meters and 75 doors on each side, the station is impressive. It also has an interesting history from WWII.

The village of Canfranc is quite small, but a huge station was needed to transfer passengers and cargo between the French standard gauge (1485 mm) to the Spanish gauge (1672 mm).

The line wasn't profitable and it was shut down after a derailment accident on the French side 1970, since SNCF decided not to repair the line.

Currently, there is still some traffic to the station from the Spanish side.

The last pictures are from another closed station along the line.

For more pictures of the interior of Canfranc station, I can recommend http://www.canfranc.de/

TrafficControl: Adding Trains to the QML Map - Background

The trains will be visualized as a rectangle QML type or possibly a QML polyline with two coordinates.

The color should reflect the type of train that is used. Initially, I'll use the color used in the most common trains in Skåne:

• Pågatågen are using X61 trains that are 74.3 m long and 3.26 m wide, with a top speed of 160 km/h and the engines have a power of 2000 kW. It has a seat capacity of 234 passengers and a weight of 155 tonnes.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:X61.jpg CC by SA 3.0

• Öresundståg are using X31 trains that are 78,9 m long and 2.97 m wide, with a top speed of 180 km/h and the engines has a power of 2300 kW. The seat capacity is 229 and the weight is 156 metric tonnes. The color will be gray.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:X31-Boras.JPG CC by SA 3.0  

It is possible to import a QtQuickItem to a map:

http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qml-qtlocation-mapquickitem.html

A MapCircle will be used for visualising the train. The initial proposal for visualising the train will be:

• border.width : ceiling(Number of passengers / 100)  
• border.color : Delay status (Green/Yellow/Red)
• center : Location of the train
• color : Color of the train
• opacity : 1
• radius : Indicator of train length. Radius = length / 2

It should be possible to animate that item. Check https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtlocation-planespotter-example.html

TrafficControl: Live Traffic Websites

Two web sites are presenting real-time information of public transportation:

Tågkartan has an impressive map showing the current train status, including delays for trains in Sweden. To do this, Tågkartan is combining data sources such as

• train info and train plan from Trafikverket (The Swedish Transport Administration), 
• user GPS data from the app TågTavlan, 
• a railway database

The other website, Livemap covers large parts of the world, and not only trains but also buses, trams, ferrys, subways and more. That map seems to calculate positions of the vehicles based on time tables and not consider delays. Also, it is interpolating straight lines between the stops. Given the huge amount of vehicles it covers, it would be heavier to follow the busses on more accurate trajectories.

The blog Cornucopia? discussed that app in a blog post covering the poor public transit services in smaller towns close to Göteborg.

Where will my program be in relation to Livemap and Tågkartan? As stated before, the purpose of TrafficControl is for me to learn programming. As a simulation tool, TrafficControl will not consider actual train scenarios.

There are also some other differences from the applications:

• TrafficControl is currently a desktop application. It will maybe be migrated to a web service in the future.
• TrafficControl will simulate the number of passengers on trains and stations.
• TrafficControl will allow the user to create non-existing tracks and stations.
• With TrafficControl, it will be possible to simulate different rules when scheduling trains.

Edit: LiveMap actually considers delays, but it depends on the transport operator. Also, some lines contain more detailed trajectories.

Trains: Article About Trains in Skåne

Sydsvenska Dagbladet has an interesting article about trains in Skåne in the 19th and 20th centuries. https://www.sydsvenskan.se/2017-04-14/jarnvagen-revolutionerade-resandet-och-krympte-varlden

Trains: Walking the Tracks

First of all: Don't ever walk on a railway track where there are active trains. Looking at a time table isn't enough - trains can be late and several trains don't follow time tables.

No trains will pass some time.

Over a hundred and twenty years ago, a railway company, MöToJ (Malmö-Tomelilla Järnväg) was founded. They operated passenger traffic until 1970 and freight traffic some more years. 

Formally, the line is still in use but in order to use it, track needs to be upgraded and renovated. Trafikverket (the Swedish Ministry for Transportation) has a paused project for that work. http://www.trafikverket.se/nara-dig/skane/projekt-i-skane-lan/simrishamn_malmo-simrishamnsbanan/. 

The railway track that goes from Östervärn, Malmö to Staffanstorp is deactivated. Most of the tracks are remaining but the tracks are removed at road intersections so it will take some time until trains are seen on that track.

My walk started from Lund and ended in Malmö. Five kilometers along non-functional tracks.

One afternoon after work, I walked home from my work, a distance of some 20 km. Five of them along Staffanstorpsbanan.

Nordanå railway station.

Along the trail, I saw some stations that I've missed adding. Nordanå is one of those stations.

It will take lots of work to make the track useful again, and I can understand that it is hard to motivate renovating the line from an economical viewpoint. Raising power connectors, groundworks and replacing tracks will be too expensive.

Neither passengers nor trains will accept the gaps between the rails.

Sege Station, another station that I forgot adding.

The railway enters the eastern parts of Malmö through a golf course.