AUSTRIA | Railways

[KingNick]

Originally Posted by earthJoker

Couldn't they avoid most of the mountains with a route about 20km to the east of the A2 till Fürstenfeld and then going west from there?

This sure could have been option, but there are three arguments against that idea:

1) All the important industry in the Mur-Mürz Valley would have no access to the high-capacity rail line.

2) Way more people live along the current track than in the south.

3) You'd have to built everything new from Wr. Neustadt all the way to Graz.

[KingNick]

Originally Posted by LtBk

Why did it took so long to start digging?

Eventually it can be nailed down to political reasons. Prime Minister of Lower Austria blocked the project for at least 10 years.

[earthJoker]

Originally Posted by KingNick

This sure could have been option, but there are three arguments against that idea:

1) All the important industry in the Mur-Mürz Valley would have no access to the high-capacity rail line.

2) Way more people live along the current track than in the south.

3) You'd have to built everything new from Wr. Neustadt all the way to Graz.

Well I understand those arguments for local traffic and freight traffic. It's kind of a compromise solution similar to the Swiss projects.

[Verso]

Slovenian Pendolino at Spielfeld-Straß:


http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?...20120122194749

[Suburbanist]

Horrible grade-level crossing on a through track. Not even a pedestrian gate!!!!

[KingNick]

Originally Posted by Suburbanist

Horrible grade-level crossing on a through track. Not even a pedestrian gate!!!!

This is in a freaking one horse town with a train crossing every now and then.

[MarcVD]

Originally Posted by Suburbanist

Horrible grade-level crossing on a through track. Not even a pedestrian gate!!!!

We can't see from the picture, but may be there is are stairs too, and
this is just used by railway personnel.

But that said, I agree with you about the pedestrian gates. This seems
to be a quite common device in the Netherlands, but does not seem to
exist anywhere else. Although in my opinion, it's a very good alternative
to stairs for stations with limited traffic. It's somewhat strange to see
those apparently very good ideas that for some reason never managed
to spread away from their country of origin. Just NIH syndrom ? I wonder.
The russian grade crossing might also be a good example of this...

[MarcVD]

Originally Posted by KingNick

This is in a freaking one horse town with a train crossing every now and then.

Although you can see three of them together on the same picture...

This is may be the station of a tiny village, but located on a very busy
railway line ! If there are frequent trains going through the station
without stopping, this is just an accident waiting to happen. Specially
with those new trains that make no more noise than a hunting cat...

[KingNick]

This railway line is far from busy. You can say there's a train every 20 minutes. Why should people be capable of crossing streets, but when it comes to train tracks we have to come up with gates?

[MarcVD]

Originally Posted by KingNick

This railway line is far from busy. You can say there's a train every 20 minutes. Why should people be capable of crossing streets, but when it comes to train tracks we have to come up with gates?

Because if the pedestrian does something foolish, a motorist still has some
chance to avoid him by braking or altering his course, while the train is
stuck on its rails and takes a mile to stop...

[KingNick]

Originally Posted by MarcVD

Because if the pedestrian does something foolish, a motorist still has some
chance to avoid him by braking or altering his course, while the train is
stuck on its rails and takes a mile to stop...

That is a weak argument, especially inside the station area like that. In the picture above you see 2 trains standing and one leaving. If you're too stupid to actually realize, that there might be a train running on these tracks and you better look left and right before crossing, it's for the sake of the human gene pool.

[Momo1435]

This is a border station with a current break, it's also on a single track line. In other words there aren't any non-stop trough trains, and if there are they can use the tracks on the outside of the platforms that don't have a railway crossing. All trains that pass this particular crossing do this at slow speed.

[Coccodrillo]

In these cases in Italy it's the conductor of the first train arrived who check that the passage is free, and he allows the second train to enter the station only when all passengers have boarded or left his train.

On double track lines the rules are somewhat stricter, as fa I know a train cannot stop or pass through track 1 if a passenger train is standing on track 2 and to quit the station from track 2 one must cross track 1.

[nachalnik]

Originally Posted by Coccodrillo

On double track lines the rules are somewhat stricter, as fa I know a train cannot stop or pass through track 1 if a passenger train is standing on track 2 and to quit the station from track 2 one must cross track 1.

This is the same rule in Austria.

Unfortuntaley we still have some such stations, even on lines with a lot of traffic (between Wels and Salzburg).
It is quite annoying, as this also has to be considered when designing the timetable. So it means that you need to plan a time-interval of ~2 minutes between a stopping train in direction A and a passing train in direction B in all these stations.
Of course, a stopping train in direction B and a passing train in direction A are possible at the same time, so this can cause asymmetric timetables...



Nachalnik

[joseph1951]

Originally Posted by Suburbanist

Horrible grade-level crossing on a through track. Not even a pedestrian gate!!!!

"Horrible grade-level crossings" are also very common elsewhere, for instance in Italy, on many secondary and rural lines.....,or in the States...

[gramercy]

Originally Posted by Suburbanist

Horrible grade-level crossing on a through track. Not even a pedestrian gate!!!!

LOL! here, have a coronary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR7UbJYYIgI

an important junction station in eastern hungary with several IC trains, tons of freight traffic, thousands of people getting on and off, lot ot through traffic at high speed, 2 meter wide platforms and NOT an under/overpass in sight...or a single injury in years

can you deal with that?

[Momo1435]

When people are used to a dangerous situation they will act accordingly and watch out. If someone from let's say the Netherlands go to the station in Hungary it will create unsafe situation since people are not used to cross the tracks like this.

Eventually it's good when more and more stations will change into modern stations with higher platforms and safe crossings. It's not just more safe, but also better for the passengers when it comes to comfort with higher and wider platforms etc.

But money doesn't grow on trees, not all stations can all be changed over night. It's not that weird that station with more passengers will be improved before the smaller stations.

[joseph1951]

Originally Posted by Momo1435

When people are used to a dangerous situation they will act accordingly and watch out. If someone from let's say the Netherlands go to the station in Hungary it will create unsafe situation since people are not used to cross the tracks like this.

Eventually it's good when more and more stations will change into modern stations with higher platforms and safe crossings. It's not just more safe, but also better for the passengers when it comes to comfort with higher and wider platforms etc.

But money doesn't grow on trees, not all stations can all be changed over night. It's not that weird that station with more passengers will be improved before the smaller stations.

True, and also people adapt their habits according local customs.

Link:
US freight train:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1My11wwdIvo

[Suburbanist]

In any case, passenger gate are an easy, if patchy and still not-optimal, solution to avoid dangerous crossings.

What I realize is that some people are more fatalistic in certain countries in the sense of accepting a couple deaths every year from lower standards of security (not only in rail transportation) as "part of life". Maybe more damaging litigation and more dramatic press can help change that perception by instilling outcry for drastic measures "no matter the cost".

==========================

There is another important factor in regard of passengers crossing track: platform height. The higher the platform, the less passengers will cross tracks and the more complex it becomes to build level crossings. Which all summed increases safety.

For instance, in the Netherlands platform heights are 760mm. That is pretty steep for most people and thus you will rarely see people crossing tracks in a station, whereas Spain (the other extreme) has many stations with 240mm platforms routinely violated by people crossing tracks instead of going through marked crossing or under/overpasses.

[joseph1951]

Originally Posted by Suburbanist

In any case, passenger gate are an easy, if patchy and still not-optimal, solution to avoid dangerous crossings.

What I realize is that some people are more fatalistic in certain countries in the sense of accepting a couple deaths every year from lower standards of security (not only in rail transportation) as "part of life". Maybe more damaging litigation and more dramatic press can help change that perception by instilling outcry for drastic measures "no matter the cost".

==========================

There is another important factor in regard of passengers crossing track: platform height. The higher the platform, the less passengers will cross tracks and the more complex it becomes to build level crossings. Which all summed increases safety.

For instance, in the Netherlands platform heights are 760mm. That is pretty steep for most people and thus you will rarely see people crossing tracks in a station, whereas [

1-
B]Spain[/B] (the other extreme)

has many stations with 240mm platforms routinely violated by people crossing tracks instead of going through marked crossing or under/overpasses.

The same is true in Italy.