BELGIUM | Railways

[Koen Acacia]

Originally Posted by Quente

Well that's an improvement. It's a shame they tore down that beautiful building to put up such a monstrosity - I thought that kind of stupidity was only done in the U.S.?!?

Let's put it this way: in my city, the damage done to the historical center in the decades after WW2 was easily four times as bad as the destruction that was inflicted during the war itself.
I think it's only since the late eighties or so that we've gotten our act together again and are actually adding some value once more.
Do not think for a second that the US has a monopoly on that sort of thing.

[Kuvvaci]

very nice....

[ketje]

It's almost finished !!!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/francois_n/2079878995/

[Thermo]

image hosted on flickr

[ArtManDoo]

You have got a nice one. Great work.

[an-148]

Originally Posted by Zibou

Is the station going to be served by any kind of mass transit system, besides the eventual rail commuter services and international / national trains ?
I heard a subway was eventually planned years ago for Liège, and that even a section of tunnel had been build... What happened to this project ? What about a tramway network ?
Beautiful station by the way... reminds me of some to be seen in a foreseeable future on the TAV network in Italy...

tramway was abundant in the 50ies but dissapeared in the mid-60ies.
a new line (17Km, north-south) has been decided as a first leg of a new network: it will (logically!) serve the station (like the future ones) there is also a suburban network on traintracks in project.

[Benonie]

Situation on April 11th 2009:

[hoosier]

Stunning.

[JoKo65]

Test drives on the LGV 3 (Liège–Aachen):




railfaneurope.net

[disturbman]

What do they test ? Obviously not everything since they are using diesels units to push/pull this train.

[JoKo65]

Originally Posted by disturbman

What do they test ? Obviously not everything since they are using diesels units to push/pull this train.

It's a telecom measuring train.

[hoosier]

So this stretch is almost ready to open?

Do you know what the status is of LGV 4? Wikipedia says it will open this year as well.

[Momo1435]

The LGV 3 will be opened in June.

On the LGV 4 the first trains should also start a service between Antwerpen and the station Noorderkempen just before the Dutch border next month. But it will use conventional trains so it won't be a high speed service (see picture).



The High Speed Service will only start when all the Thalys sets have the ERTMS installed, that operation is in progress right now. But the sets will be used on the LGV 3, this means the Thalys PBA sets will be the last ones that will be modified. The operation on the LGV 4 & HSL Zuid won't start before December 2009.

The V250 trains from AnsaldoBreda for the Amsterdam - Brussels services are also not ready for commercial service. Some positive news about these trains, recently 2 sets have arrived in the Netherlands for tests. But it will still take some time before they will be ready to be handed over to NSHispeed and the NMBS. And then all the staff training still has to be done, I don't think they will start the service this year.

[hoosier]

OK thanks. I am glad to read that Thalys will be running on LGV 4 and HSL Zuid by the end of the year.

[Timon91]

I'm sure that they'll find another reason why it has to be delayed another year. Once the Thalys drives there, I believe it, not before that. I don't know how long it will take before the v250 will drive there, but 2057 might be a good guess

[G5man]

I'm thinking they should cancel the v250 order and go with someone else for trains since those are way too late.

[Timon91]

So far AnsaldoBreda has delivered 2 of the trains. Officially the trains aren't too late, btw. The deadline for the trains is 9 monts after the HSL-Zuid has been finished. However, there are still problems with the ERMTS system, so officially it has not been finished yet. They should lynch the dumbass that set up this contract

[Teach]

However, there are still problems with the ERMTS system, so officially it has not been finished yet.

Yes it has. The problem is not with the signalling system on the line, but with the systems in the trains. The line is finished and has been handed over to the operators many moons ago.

BTW, AnsaldoBreda hasn't delivered a single train yet. Yes, two have gone to the Netherlands, but they are still owned by Ansaldo and are there simply for tests. They're not even finished yet, as they don't even have interiors fitted.

[MarcVD]

Originally Posted by hoosier

OK thanks. I am glad to read that Thalys will be running on LGV 4 and HSL Zuid by the end of the year.

Commercial peration will start on LGV 3 this year in June only with the
pooled DB/NS ICE3 high speed trains. Their ERTMS signalling equipment
seems to be ready and operational. That's 3 train pairs per day. For both
directions, timetables remain untouched as of Aachen and beyond. Trains will
leave Brussels 19 minutes later and arrive 19 minutes earlier.

There are not yet enough Thalys sets fitted with ERTMS to run a service
now, so this will have to wait till december. At that time, all Thalys trains
to and from Köln will also use LGV3.

Commercial operations with Thalys trains sets on LGV4 and HSL Zuid will
use the second batch of modernized train sets; in other words, it's not for
this year yet. LGV4 operations will only begin with domestic services from
Antwerp Centraal to Noorderkempen, operated by a series 13 loco surrounded
by bilevel M6 cars, like shown on the picture (this is because the M6 cab
units already have their ERTMS system operational, whereas the HLE 13
doesn't), with the cab unit alone on one side of the loc probably not open
for passengers - the four cars on the other side provide largely enough
capacity.

Marc.

[paris_nombril]

"Line 3 completes high speed network
15 Jun 2009
BELGIUM: Line 3 between Liège and the German border was inaugurated on June 12, completing the last link in the star-shaped national high speed network and making Belgium the first European country to have a network of high speed lines linking its borders.[…]"

http://www.railwaygazette.com/news_v...d_network.html