“I started a joke…”

When you are overseeing the biggest movement of humanity, it helps to ensure everything works. Alas, the Ministry of Railways doesn’t seem to have gotten that far yet. Chinese New Year is the most important of all Chinese holidays, in which people travel to their homes all over China to be with their families. Of course, you’ll probably know that China is quite a big place (traditionally accepted as the third largest nation on earth), and that it takes a while to travel across it. You may also be aware that China is something of an economic powerhouse, because it can source vast supplies of cheap labour. As a consequence, people go where the work is, and so often times you’ll find tens of millions of migrant workers crowding onto cross country trains from where they work in the industrialised and economically developed coastal regions, to their homes in the rural, underdeveloped interior to get home for what is their one significant holiday each year. News reports annually show the enormous queues of people at railway stations trying to buy a ticket, whether it be for a seat or even standing, for the train journey that could end up taking as much as a day. But this year it has been possibly worse. Because the Ministry of Railways decided it would be a good idea to set up an online booking system. Now, I don’t know how many of you have attempted to book tickets online for the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, but that is an interminable process of continually refreshing the page in an effort to get to the booking form. I’ve done it once and sworn never again. Imagine that multiplied by a factor of about 100,000, and you shouldn’t be wondering why the China Railways online booking system crashed. Kaput.

I tried on the Internet for a whole day but I never managed to log on
Fan Zhixin, a worker in the finance department of a web company

Fan Zhixin eventually managed to get a ticket by using the phone line. But she was only able to buy a standing ticket, rather than a seat. She works in Beijing, but comes from the city of Ulan Hot in Inner Mongolia, a 20 hour rail journey. Then there is the case of Ma Anjia, a construction worker from Shanxi Province, a 16 hour journey from Beijing:

I don’t know how to use the Internet. I queued up. I went to five or six different places and waited hours at each one before I managed to buy the tickets I needed.
Ma Anjia, Construction Worker

While one doesn’t want to criticise too much, Given how efficient the Chinese are supposed to be, and given that this is an annual thing, and given that China Railways have to move in the region of 200 million people at this time of year, why haven’t the government set in place a procedure that sees the planning for the next New Year celebrations begin as soon as the current festival has ended?

The limitations of the online booking system are apparent, how are some leaders doing their job?!
Unidentified Weibo user

“Glitch in China’s online train ticket system sparks fury”
“China’s New Year: there be dragons, but not enough train tickets”

People queue at the ticket office of Hefei station in Anhui Province - given this is not a one off event, is it not possible to come up with a plan in advance?

Be glad we don’t resort to this

Those of us that use the railway regularly in Britain invariably complain about it. Of course there are different aspects that we moan about, but must often is that, in the rush hour we’re all shoehorned onto trains and have less space than animals. And of course, this is a fair comment, especially for those commuters that are stuck with two and three car trains (unlike me, who is lucky enough to live in London, where at the very least during the rush hour we get eight cars per service usually). But, it evidently isn’t so bad that people resort to what commuters in other parts of the world do, which is travel ON TOP of the train due to lack of space. Of course, this is incredibly dangerous, and most people in the UK would have more sense. But train surfing is prevalent in areas of the world where it proves to be too expensive to buy a ticket to travel on the train, if any space can be found inside. Despite the best efforts of the various operators to prevent this, it continues. The latest wheeze comes from KRL Jabotabek, the commuter operator serving Jakarta and its surrounding area. Having tried spraying the surfers with paint and covering the train roofs with oil, now they are having frames with suspended grapefruit sized concrete balls installed at points that trains enter and leave stations, and at crossing points, in the hope that people using the tops of trains will not risk getting a serious head injury. Given that they risk electrocution or falling off while moving at speed, somehow I don’t think the presence of suspended concrete balls will prove too much of a deterrent.

I was really scared when I first heard about these balls. It sounds like it could be really dangerous. But I don’t think it will last long. They have tried everything to keep us from riding… but in the end we always win.
Mulyanto, 27, who rides daily between his hometown of Bogor and Jakarta

So the next time you complain about how squashed you are when you’re travelling on a commuter train, be thankful you haven’t decided to travel into Manchester Victoria on the roof of the Class 142 you’ve caught.

“Indonesia concrete balls combat ‘train surfing’”

Train travel could be a hell of a lot worse you know

With grateful thanks

With grateful thanks, a set on Flickr.

If you have any rail related pictures that you’d like to share with the world, and haven’t gotten around to doing so yourself, then I’d love to display them on Flickr. Hence the reason for “With grateful thanks…”, a set exclusively devoted to pictures of trains, trams and anything else by other people who have allowed me to display them on my Flickr site in their name. If you’re just casually on holiday and snap something interesting, or you spy something at the railway station on your way to work, send it in and I’ll put it up. No matter where it is, from the Tokaido Shinkansen to the model railway in your friend’s attic, I’d love to see it.

And the Nimbys complain about how close HS2 will be?

I really think all the Chiltern nimbys that have moaned about how close High Speed 2 will be to their properties should watch the first video, and then take the advice of Stewie in the second.

“Maeklong Market Railway, Thailand – The Train That Goes Through a Market”

Islands in the Stream

I guess we’re all aware of the difficulties that come from operating railways on islands. Unless the island is particularly close to a much larger piece of land, or there is some innovative, not to mention cost effective, method of bridging the gap, you have to think very carefully about whether you can afford to run a rail service. Of course, if the possibility is there to connect two major centres, then it is likely the cost is worth it – the Channel Tunnel and the Øresund Bridge are both good examples. But what if the island is simply too far from anywhere to realistically be able to connect with another piece of land? I guess that would then depend on the idea of domestic use; is the local population enough to warrant running a train, and would a train service pay its way? As an example, the Isle of Man Government conducted a study to see whether the operation of a commuter service on the Isle of Man Railway was viable as a means of easing congestion in and around Douglas. But there are only 85,000 inhabitants of the Isle of Man, so the government decided that this was not something to pursue (although extra trains are run during the TT Races). What can we make then of the fact that the Government of Jamaica and the Jamaica Railway Corporation are looking to restart passenger trains in Jamaica for the first time since 1992? A test train ran at the weekend on what is planned as the first part of the restored railway in Jamaica, between May Pen and Linstead, connecting Old Harbour, Spanish Town and Bog Walk. The restoration of a rail service is seen by the government as being part of a new integrated transport policy as a means of improving the country’s economy:

Anything that makes people move in a free movement of time and (contributes to) saving money, means that you can be more productive
Michael Henry, Minister of Transport and Works

The problem that I see is the fact that not a single passenger train has run on Jamaica’s infrastructure sine 1992, while only those sections of line that connect with the private industrial railways have remained in use. Major investment would be required to bring both railway line and structures to a minimum standard, having suffered two decades of neglect, which may well be difficult for a country the size of Jamaica. And what happens if and when the service does start again? Of course it would be successful to begin with, as it would have a novelty value. The same was true of the Western Railway Corridor in Ireland, but passenger numbers on that have fallen since it opened. And this would be much greater, as there has been no rail service at all – if people can’t be persuaded to use the train, then it will close, just as it did before. We can but hope that, with decent trains, timetabled well and that are affordable, those people that can use the train will. And, we can also hope that, if successful, there will be encouragement to reopen more of the country’s network. But, as with all things, we’ll see.

“The train is coming, so get on board!”
“Train Service Could Begin Within a Month – JRC”

It isn’t nice to mock. Still…

I’ve come across a story that has been published in The East African, a weekly news publication covering all of that region. This particular story concerns Kenya Railways Corporation and their attempt to find a private operator to run the commuter rail network in Nairobi, which is to receive $100m worth of investment to expand it as a means of easing traffic congestion in the city. Part of this is intended to see the replacement of the current locomotive hauled trains with new diesel multiple units. To illustrate this, there is a picture that, as often seems to be the case when overseas publications write about the railways, is of a British train. The picture is captioned “A modern locomotive with diesel electric multiple units” (allowing for the fact that the first language of the person that wrote it is likely not English). But the picture is of a Class 421 EMU, built between 1964 and 1972. Indeed, it is in fact this picture of 1498 “Farringford”, one of the two units that operated on the Lymington Branch Line until last May. Now, one doesn’t mean to sound rude, but surely it can’t have been that difficult to find an image of a multiple unit that has been introduced in at least the last five years? If Wikipedia is good for something, it’s at least good for background, and its pages on railway vehicles used in Great Britain are very thorough.

“Kenya seeks operator to run $100m Nairobi commuter railway system”

The Class 421 - can it really be described as the cutting edge of railway technology?

There’s been better weeks

Watching the new edition of QI tonight, the story of Tsutoma Yamaguchi came up. Tsutoma Yamaguchi was a draftsman working for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. In the summer of 1945, he had been on a three month business trip for his company. Due to return home on the 6th August, at 8.15am he was on his way to the railway station when a B-29 of the 393rd Bombardment Squadron overflew the city and dropped a single bomb. Because Tsutoma Yamaguchi had been on business in the city of Hiroshima. He survived and was able to locate his two colleagues and, the following day, despite his injuries, returned to his home by train, where he was treated and returned to work. Three days later, on the 9th August, the day he went back to work, a second B-29 overflew Tsutoma Yamaguchi’s home city and dropped another bomb. Because Tsutoma Yamaguchi lived and worked in the city of Nagasaki, and he thus became Japan’s only recognised double hibakusha. While of course this is amazing, what is almost as amazing is that the day after a nuclear attack, he was able to get on a train. The trains were running the day after a nuclear attack! We knew that Japan’s railways were efficient, but they were able to keep the trains running. Think on that.

A fair comparison

Ireland and New Zealand have much in common – both are economically developed, both are geographically isolated, and both have a larger, somewhat wealthier neighbour. In terms of the railways too, they are similar, with both using a rail gauge other than standard (1600mm in Ireland, 1067mm in New Zealand). Of course, because they are completely isolated geographically, this is not so much of a problem as it is unlikely they will ever interconnect with another country’s standard gauge operations. However, the two countries are polar opposites in how they actually use their rail networks, as the majority of traffic on Ireland’s (as we know) is passenger, while most of New Zealand’s capacity is used by freight. Indeed, other than the suburban networks in Auckland and Wellington, there are only four passenger services throughout the whole of the country, of which two are on the North Island and two on the South Island. Given the fact that in New Zealand population is concentrated in areas, this can be understood (although the lack of suburban services in the major cities of the South Island is perhaps more of a mystery), as New Zealand is a major exporter both of agricultural products, but also increasingly of energy products, which it produces in addition to that required for domestic consumption. Moving these bulk products out, and large quantities of goods that it imports, is most efficient, as everywhere, by train. Which (once again) makes you wonder why Ireland has steadily withdrawn from rail freight. Ireland is still a major exporter of primary products, particularly of metals, while its ports are major centres, both of imports to Ireland itself, but also as an entry to the EU. Ireland used to have a bustling rail freight operation. I genuinely don’t understand why it has withered away. Surely, if a country of similar size, like New Zealand is, can operate a thriving freight operation, Ireland can as well.

Investment can work

As you may have noticed, the 2010 World Cup has started in South Africa. You may also have noticed that South Africa is quite a large country. Fortunately, most of the venues are within easy driving time of Johannesburg, with only Port Elizabeth and Cape Town some distance away. However, as with all major events, the presence of the World Cup in South Africa has spurred investment, with the most visible symbol of this being the new Gautrain network. This is planned as an 80km route connecting downtown Johannesburg, OR Tambo International Airport and Pretoria. The first section, between the airport and Sandton, has opened in time for the tournament, with as many as 40,000 people using it on its first weekend. Eventually, once the whole system opens, it is intended to serve as a new fast commuter link between Johannesburg and Pretoria, connecting up various other public transport links, including MetroRail’s Gauteng regional services. However, the Gautrain has been built to standard gauge, while the rest of South Africa’s rail network uses Cape gauge (1067mm/3ft 6in), which leaves the Gautrain in the same situation as the Shinkansen network – everything will have to be built from scratch, right into the centre of the city, because the existing rail network can’t be used. The reasoning for this is several fold, according to the planning and implementation study:

• Standard gauge is safer and more comfortable to passengers.
• The rolling stock is also easier, quicker and less expensive to obtain than Cape Gauge rolling stock
• Standard gauge is also less expensive to maintain as it is more tolerant of track imperfections than Cape Gauge.
• Standard gauge allows for travel at Gautrain’s required speed of 160 km/h.

One final point made is that allowing interoperability with the existing network, which has a reputation for being unreliable and poor quality, might “tarnish the image of Gautrain”. The network is estimated to eventually cost R24bn (£2.15bn), but criticism is levelled that millions of poor people, especially those that live in the townships will be unable to afford the fares to use the Gautrain, and that it is aimed at South Africa’s increasingly affluent middle class. Of course, it will be good if people who currently spend two hours in their car commuting between Gauteng’s two major cities can leave them and use the train, and that the sparse public transport network in South Africa’s largest city has been extended. But public transport should be for everyone. While building Gautrain to standard gauge may have been a beneficial decision for Gautrain, it might have been better to funnel some of the cost of building it into improving the existing network which, with the World Cup, could have been given fresh impetus had it been directly connected to the country’s shiny new trainset.

“Welcome aboard the Gautrain, Africa’s first high-speed urban train”
“‘Tsunami’ for Gautrain over weekend”

Would South Africans be better off with Gautrain being interconnected with to rest of the railway?

The dawn of a new era?

Is it fair to use the construction of railways as a barometer of a country’s development? Most modern, industrialised nations have well developed railway networks to facilitate the transport of goods and people, while those that aren’t tend to have limited railways, if they have railways at all. So, given that a large part of the country is still a war zone, can we claim that Afghanistan is on the road to further development with the news that a 75km railway line is being built to connect Mazar-i-Sharif with Termez in Uzbekistan, and thence to the rest of the rail network in Central Asia. The intention is to allow greater access to Afghanistan’s mineral resources, allowing the growth of the economy, which can then (potentially) lead to industrialisation, which is the route countries tend to take on the development road. This is why there are plans for another railway route linking Herat with Khaf in Iran. While these will certainly open up Afghanistan’s ability to move its goods to the wider market, as well as allowing it to bring goods in more easily (as evidenced by the growth of the town of Hairatan, the current terminus of the line from Uzbekistan), the fact is that until the war is ended and Afghanistan is stablised with a government that, even if not wholly democratic, will at least not try and blow everyone up, can it really be safe to improve these kinds of infrastructural connections to the outside? Should the country’s future suffer because of what is happening in the present?

“Afghanistan sees ‘revolution’ with first railway”