OpenGeofiction
Hey there,
I’ve been drafting an inter city high speed rail network for my country Kojo, and I named it ICTR. You can read more about it here: http://opengeofiction.net/wiki/index.php/ICTR
I’m trying to come up with reasonable frequencies to run these trains on, as well as reasonable connections in the first place; I layed them out in the above article, besides generall information about the network and its technology.
I’m trying to estimate values for usership appropiate to the system’s major role it’s supposed to play in the inter-city transportation for Kojo, with nearly no domestic air travel and highways mostly focused on goods transportation and highly tolled. I tried to create an easy overview over Kojo’s major cities with their population here: http://opengeofiction.net/wiki/index.php/Kojo#Demographics
Now, here’s my request; I would really appreciate some feedback on the system, especially if some routes (of which many overlap over long distances) could be overproportionally covered or undercovered. I haven’t made a simple network map yet, and unfortunately the tracks are hardly visible at the moment due to flooding, but maybe some of you guys would like to give it a shot :) Feel free to ask questions or point out any flaws you see!
Discussion
Comment from histor on 10 June 2015 at 06:52
Only a first reaction: To avoid many short aircraft-traffic, fast train-service is a good idea. The same is made in Latina.
400m trains are o.k. or 250 m with wagons with double floor. A frequenz every 20 minutes for the hi-speed-train may be too many - 1/2 hour is more realistic. If there run all 30 minutes or more frequent the hi-speed-trains, you need more tracks for local traffic and freight traffic.
Make the two tracks nearer together. In reality there are only 5 or 6 m between (middle to middle of tracks). I draw with zoom 18 to copy the 2nd track.
Your main-staition in Pyngshum has only 8 tracks as terminal. For your traffic you need more (around 20). And you can make smaller the platforms (10 m are enought). So you can draw at the same place more platforms and tracks.
At “Help and Ressources” of the OGF-wiki there is a tutorial about railway-lines.
Comment from histor on 10 June 2015 at 07:02
2nd = your railway-hi-speed-net can be more effectiv, if you connect the southern main station with the northern and western with two tunnels (each two tracks), so the trains can run thru. And too you need near this stations place for the service of trains (landuse = industrial). So you need west and north 4 hi-speed tracks at the stations and south 6 or 8.
Comment from UnSoiDisantOracle on 10 June 2015 at 22:22
Hi Neighbor,
I have been meaning to ask you where you intend to operate your ICTR service in Ataraxia.
I see that you call it a maglev service. Ataraxia favors interoperability, steel wheel on steel rails, with TGVs that can operate on a high-speed line from Ataraxia City to Léopoldville and continue on conventional lines to Ginex or Gif for example.
I can’t see the Ataraxian government investing so much in technology that can’t operate on the Ataraxian rail network. Especially close to the urban core of Ataraxia City… if it has to be maglev technology, maybe it could come to Marbella or as close as the A25 beltway at Croix de St. Henri / St. Henry’s Cross. Could be helpful if partly funded by Kojo government ;)
I also think 10 min. is too often for intercity service. Plus, need to think about the volume of trains on the common sections, Leshfyomi-Sul to Pingshum for example, might be a tight squeeze with all of the different lines at that level of service.
Comment from Sarepava on 10 June 2015 at 22:40
My first observation is that Maglev systems are seriously expensive. Wikipedia quotes costs of between US$50-100 million per mile and then another $50million a year to maintain. This leads to some verisimilitude issues: Firstly, whilst Kojo has a very high GDP, the political and economic risks of any project to construct a national network of this cost would be huge and the capital outlay such that it would have to be constructed in stages over many years. I estimate that Line 1b alone would cost a minimum of $1 billion. Therefore I would not really expect that the entire national network of such great scale would be operational by 2015. Also ticket costs can’t be cheap, unless there is some serious public subsidy going in. How high are taxes in Kojo?
The idea of having a rapidly-accelerating maglev be able to serve lots of closely-spaced stations faster than a conventional train could is not a bad one in theory. However, at a certain distance on a route a limited-stop conventional high-speed train will overtake the maglev due to the latter having to come to a halt every few minutes. Assuming that the maglev lines are one track in each direction there would be no option for faster maglevs to overtake (unless you have massively long passing loops and switches, adding to cost) This means that in service most of the maglev passengers will be short-distance commuters rather than long-distance, meaning that the network would be better confined to the Pyingshum area and the long-distances left to the already existing high-speed trains.
Comment from Leowezy on 11 June 2015 at 13:18
thank you all so much :D This was exactly what I was looking for. (I will try to answer to the comments in chronological order)
I will definetely reduce the freuquencies to 30min the shortest; that indeed sounds more reansonable. Thank you also for your tips on platforms’ and tracks’ space consumption histor, I will try to redraw it in the near future. About the tunnel proposal; I’m not sure if a direct connection through the inner city and under the river would be very cost effective, and originally thought of spanning some “exchange tracks” for carriages etc. along the S-Bahn ring. But maybe it could be done in the context of a major transportation overhaul :)
To dono; yes i think a high-speed connection would be a great idea! Since after all these suggestions I’ll probably reduce the maglev system to only 2 or three lines, perhaps we could link up our countries with “regular” high speed trains? Most importantly I think there need to be connections from Pyingshum and Finkyase to Ataraxia City; it seems like travellers could access all other major cities in Ataraxia by transferring in Ataraxia City with relative ease. Another way would be to link up Pyingshum over Finkayse to Ataraxia City via one maglev line; I will take a more serious look at costs per kilometer etc, as suggested by Sarepava, and maybe we could find a good way to jointly operate that section then :) [btw, did you get my other message…?]
So again, especially due to Sarepava’s comment I will drastically reduce the ICTR network to only 2 or three stem-lines connecting absolutely major population centres. I found costs-estimations of 20million € per km (in china though) onwards, so your objections seem really justified. Also I have to admit that I didn’t spend much thought on the fact, that with my existing lines, I would at least need TWO tracks per direction, and even more along busy paths… so I will have to design services in a way that that isn’t needed.