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If there is one topic that brings Londoners together it is the transport system. The Mayor of greater London, Ken Livingstone, was elected mainly on the basis of his earlier record in handling this huge creaking London Railway system. The British have been found to complain about their rail network even more than than any thing else, which definitely surprises the visitors to the UK when they find such an extensive and well-developed train system. London Railway system network criss-crosses the land with services to even small towns and villages and there are almost 20,000 train services on a typical weekday. There are even trains running at intervals of every 15 minutes on some intercity train routes. LET’S TALK TECHNICAL ABOUT LONDON TRAINS NATIONAL RAIL ENQUIRIES ON PDA The new National Rail Enquiries website has been designed to facilitate access from a wide range of devices and web browsers at www.nationalrail.co.uk. Here goes the list of devices supported by this portal. Supported PDA Devices: o Pocket PC o Sony Ericsson PDA900 and PDA901 o Hewlett Packard Ipaq o Windows CE o BlackBerry TRAVEL INFORMATION ON THE MOVE National Rail Enquiries also offers travel information to customers on the move, their website is viewable on handheld devices and they provide text based and phone based self-service information. All these information resources are updated by the second, so you are guaranteed the latest information regardless of how you choose to access it. TRAINTRACKER™ TrainTracker™ is an automated telephone response system which can be accessed on the following phone no- 0871 200 49 50, which offers live information on the phone about arrival and departure. Here is a glimpse of the features supported by this system:- 1. It uses speech recognition. 2. It looks up for estimated train times and delivers these to you by automated voice. 3. It then reads out to you a station-specific status message. 4. It can provide only direct train services; it does not help with complete journey planning. 5. It has updated real-time information from the live departures and arrivals boards 6. It costs only 10pence per minute from a land-line, though charges for calls made from mobile phones may vary. CTRL PROJECT The project was originated by London & Continental Railways. Control passed to the newly-formed Network Rail in 2002. CTRL is basically a French-style LGV high-speed line linking London with the Channel Tunnel portal at Dollands Moor near Folkestone. Although Section one is quite straightforward, Section 2 requires large amounts of tunneling under the River Thames and under East and North London. INFRASTRUCTURE The major structures on the first Phase include the 1.3km long Medway Viaduct (completed in 2002) and the nearby 3.2km North Downs Tunnel. Going up north in the Phase 2, the line passes through a 3km long tunnel under the River Thames before running along an extended 1.3km viaduct under the M25 Bridge and over the adjoining Dartford Tunnel exit road at Thurrock in Essex. After this the line goes back into tunnel near Dagenham to run underground through Stratford for the next 19km. This need to tunnel under the built-up areas of London has meant that 25% of the route is in tunnel, a total of 16 miles. Also the underground station located at Stratford, a large new depot will help maintain the Eurostar fleet closer to its home route. This has replaced the existing facility at North Pole in West London, which is difficult to access from St Pancras. Redevelopment is being carried out to the entire area north and east of St Pancras station, with numerous new connections from CTRL to the existing network to allow through working, new connections for Thames link services and non-railway development. Excluding the rebuilt station at Ashford International, Section 1 has no new stations. However, Section 2 will have intermediate stations at Ebbs fleet in North Kent and at Stratford in East London. Maximum speed on the line is 300km/hr, although tunnel sections closer to London will be limited to 270km/hr and speeds are lower as the trains approach St Pancras. A great new international station has been created at the St Pancras by upgrading and expanding the earlier known Midland Railway station. Funding for Section 2, on which construction started in July 2001, came from a mixture of Government bonds, Railtrack's purchase of Section 1 and a £2.2 billion grant. LCR the owners, continue to operate the Eurostar train business and wishes to generate finance from development land at King's Cross, Ebbs fleet and Ashford. The line is designed so as to incorporate both the new and existing alignments, separated from existing lines. ROLLING STOCK Eurostar trains were introduced on London-Paris/Brussels in November 1994. The trains are based on proven technology from French TGV trains. Every train operates using the three different electrical systems used on the railways 750V DC of supply from a third rail and 25kV AC and 3kV DC of supply from overhead lines respectively. Several SNCF-owned sets also have 1.5kV DC capability for working in southern and eastern France. This is used to facilitate Eurostar's Ski Train to Bourg St Maurice in the Savoy Alps and the summer-dated service to Avignon. 'Three Capitals' train sets comprise two half-sets of one power car and nine intermediate trailers, making a total train set of 20 vehicles. Bogies within each set are articulated, sharing a two-axled bogie between vehicle ends. They are quite similar to French TGV sets but have been adjusted to UK loading gauge to allow operation over 'classic' lines in Britain. Cars are of monocoque construction, while the aerodynamic nose of each power car is made of glass-reinforced plastic with a steel safety cage surrounding the driving position. In 2004 the Hitachi group from Japan was selected to work for the CTRL domestic train contract. Dual-system EMUs, based on the ‘A-Train’ concept should be in service by 2009. SIGNALLING / COMMUNICATIONS Eurostars use five different signaling systems. On the French high-speed lines and in the Channel Tunnel they use an in-cab system, which gives the driver information. In case the top speed gets exceeded brakes start to apply automatically. CTRL uses French-style TVM430 to control trains although they retain UK AWS and TPWS for operation on classic routes. Trains have also been equipped with KVB receivers, which allow picking up of information from trackside transponders along the French high-speed route, again showing the permitted speed to the driver on an in-cab display. To end it all the London Railway system in London seems to be well equipped technologically, so why do the Londoners create such fuss. Related
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