Frankfurt

strassenwolf

I've been working in Frankfurt for the last few months, on a contract.

I noticed early enough that the Wikipedia page on the region's S-Bahn system did not have an English version, though it did have versions in French, Spanish, Portuguese and Finnish. I'd often wondered who these nerds were who wrote the pages on Wikipedia...

and now I know.:D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhein-Main_S-Bahn

(Though there were obviously a number of people who helped in the process, and hopefully the page can be improved in the future. It needs it).

One question occurred to me when writing the page, which is largely a translation of sections on the German page.

Frankfurt had a situation where suburban trains from the west of the city were terminating at the Hauptbahnhof (main train station), which is a bit removed from the real action in the city. The first part of the development of their underground S-Bahn was construction of a tunnel so that these trains could continue their journey to Hauptwache, which is farther east in the city and right in the heart. A few years later, they extended this tunnel a few hundred metres further to Konstablerwache, at the other end of the same street. After a few years, this tunnel was eventually extended further to give the system which is largely in place today.

The question is this:

If it's the overall cost of the interconnector which has caused it to be delayed for so long, might it be possible to build it in sections, as Frankfurt did with their tunnel for suburban trains? Might it be possible to bring trains into a station underneath Heuston, then gradually extend this tunnel towards the busier parts of the city, until eventually it comes out the other side?

murphaph

strassenwolf wrote:

The question is this:

If it's the overall cost of the interconnector which has caused it to be delayed for so long, might it be possible to build it in sections, as Frankfurt did with their tunnel for suburban trains? Might it be possible to bring trains into a station underneath Heuston, then gradually extend this tunnel towards the busier parts of the city, until eventually it comes out the other side?

A fair question but I don't believe it's the cost that's been preventing the interconnector, I believe it's politics at a higher level. As things stand, it hands a lot of control to CIE, control they haven't really earned in the rail end of their operation at least. Munich has an interconnector like Frankfurt and they built it in one go but of course they had the Olympics as an incentive.

strassenwolf

murphaph wrote:

A fair question but I don't believe it's the cost that's been preventing the interconnector, I believe it's politics at a higher level. As things stand, it hands a lot of control to CIE, control they haven't really earned in the rail end of their operation at least. Munich has an interconnector like Frankfurt and they built it in one go but of course they had the Olympics as an incentive.

It may well be true that it's all (or mostly) about politics - and of course a lot of the rail/LUAS development which we are going to see in the next few years will be through areas that are currently undeveloped but which could (and probably will) be developed, which makes them attractive to politicians. On the face of it, such development seems unlikely in the city itself, where the interconnector will be built, unless Guinness decided to push off, which I doubt. Development of the interconnector could, of course, help development in other areas, but that may be more difficult to sell.

On the other hand, a few hundred million for a bit of it, followed a few years later by a few hundred million for another bit, followed...etc.,etc., might be an easier project to push through than one BIG project, yet could have incremental advantages along the way.

No?

Victor

Where would you have you access shafts to put in your TBMs?

strassenwolf

Victor wrote:

Where would you have you access shafts to put in your TBMs?

Good question. I've no idea.

Maybe they could use the same one (or ones) - as has been suggested for the metro, and just leave them in the ground until such time as more funding is available and you can start tunnelling again?

But I'll try and find out what they did over here.

Ste.phen

Just put them on rails ;-)