High-Speed Transport - a Necessity

In Europe, the railway high-speed enjoys a real success, fact also confirmed through the continuous amplification of the concerns aiming at extending the network and at increasing the traffic. A year ago, the total length of the new European high-speed tracks has reached to 3,260 Km.

Last year, to the high-speed lines have also joined Leuven - Liege railway section, from Belgium, making the connection between the big European towns Paris, Brussels, Koln, Amsterdam and London. As part of the main railway corridor from Belgium and Germany, Leuven - Liege railway section is the second branch of the network including three high-speed lines centered on the Belgian capital. The western branch, from Brussels to the borders with France, has been put into operation in 1977, and the northern line, between Antwerpen and Netherlands, will be finalized at half of year 2005.
The line includes 60 km of new infrastructure, which provides the traffic with a 300-km/h speed, and 10 km of modernized line. It is part of the main corridor (and it is in full modernization stage) Brussels - Koln; when it will be finalized, at the end of year 2006, the direct trains will link the towns Brussels and Frankfurt in less than three hours.

Promising beginning…
Because Leuven - Liege railway section is right next to the highway E40, it was necessary to protect the network in order to prevent the possible accidents with the cars. Therefore, along the railway have been built some protection walls made of earth, and where this was not possible, there was built a "green wall" of about three meters, made of prefabricated sections put together to form certain huge boxes, which were filled with earth and natural vegetation. Still for the protection against the sound pollution, in certain localities have been assembled a kind of aluminum plates, in order to attenuate the noise.
The achievement of this railway section has also implied the building at Bierbeek of a 750-m tunnel, which implied three stages: the uncovering, the covering and the temporary deviation of the highway. When the highway was built, in 1960, there has been noticed that the respective land was given to a strong subsidence, that's why after the construction of the railways there will not be necessary any ulterior stabilization. In Berloz region, there where, at the end of the XIXth century, have been exploited the lodes of phosphate, there were several underground cavities. Unfortunately, a great part of these galleries are not traced on the map and the attempts to localize by micro-gravitational measuring the hollows found under the railway track have not provided the necessary precision degree. In order to avoid the occurrence of certain problems in the future, this section of track has been placed on concrete plates (rigid line). There have been used the same solutions as at the eastern section, and finally the quality of the track on the first high-speed section from Belgium has proved to be quite satisfactorily.
The superstructure of the line has a 14.5-m width at the level of the ground, with a ledge of foundation of 0.5-m thickness. The support-ledge, strongly compact, has a 200-mm thickness, with ballast on 300-mm height and it is located under the mono-block slippers made of concrete. There is used UIC 60 track everywhere. In order to avoid the problem of interface with the support-ledge, especially with the drainage pipes, and in order to limit the pollution of the foundation ballast for the catenary pillars, the constructors for civil works achieved them. The line is electrified in alternative power of 25 kV, with substations and self-converters, in free space. The testing of the lines with conventional trains operating with the 220 km/h speed has started on August 19, and on September 6, the Thalys train was performing the first tests on the new route at 330 km/h, with 10%over the service maximal speed. The contact line, with magnesium and cooper alloys bears a voltage of 20 daN/mm2 and resists at corrosion by free hanging. In order to avoid the achievement of equi-potential links between the supply conductors and the contact ones, there are used switches.
The main problem in the field of electrification has been far away from the railway company control. The regional authorities have refused to allow the building of new distributions through the air lines of 380 kV. An accepted alternative has been the connection by underground cables of 150 kV, and even that had some claims from the local authorities, as well as many other, individual, so that the power supply has consumed quite a lot of time in order to obtain the licenses necessary to place the cable.
The hauling substations had available, finally, three links to the distribution network of 150 kV, but when the first line has been inaugurated there was only one link, making the supply quite vulnerable at interruptions in case of the occurrence of certain accidents.
The signaling of the western line to the border with France has been designed as a continuation of the equipment assembled by the French Railways (SNCF) on TGV Nord in order to prevent the interface problems in the border crossing area. Still, there was no reason to assemble the same signaling system on the eastern branch. Due to the fact that the international transports (where the traffic will be performed with a 300 km/h speed) there will be used local trains equipped with automatic protection equipment of SNCB type, the Transmission Beacon - Locomotive (TBL) system has been assigned as a complement to the alignment of the signaling colors, but there has been modified for its use in high-speed exploitation. It is a discontinuous system, based on block actions of 1,500m, using track circuits with audio frequencies from a computer, based on communication with a central signaling system, located in Brussels. TBL system modified will not be assembled everywhere, because the future high-speed lines will be endowed with level 2 ERTMS/ETC.

Safety and time saving
The new line has reduced the travel duration from Brussels to Frankfurt with an hour and 15 minutes, even if the passengers have to change the train at Koln, transiting from Thalys to an ICE, in order to use the high-speed line Koln - Frankfurt, that has been inaugurated on July 2002.
Since December 1997, on Paris - Brussels - Aachen - Koln - Dusseldorf, the international trains operate with Thalys train sets. There will be many other operating in pairs between Paris and Brussels, where from some of them will head to Amsterdam and others to Koln. The German trains ICE 3 will supply the services between Brussels and Frankfurt, because there have been also certified for being exploited in Belgium. There is scheduled to provide a direct service between Paris - Frankfurt, yet the operators have established that this is not possible. The locale services performed with the trains belonging to SNCB intercity between Oestende and Eupen will use the new line at a maximal speed of 200 km/h. They will operate with locomotives class 13 and wagons I - 11, the most modern rolling stock of SNCB, and equipped with last hour endowments, offering to the passengers comfort and a high quality services.

Financing and management
The total value of the investments has reached 600 million Euro, without Liege station. The average cost on kilometer has been of 9 million Euro for the new line and 14 million Euro for the modernized section, for the works and the contracted materials being allocated 80% from the amount, for the design and the management 13%, and for various works - air topography, assurance, geo-technical studies and environment - 7%.
The owner of the line is the Belgian Railways (SNCB). The main principle is the one that the federal government finances the infrastructure necessary for the internal services, yet does not cover at all the costs of the infrastructure for the international traffic.
There is important to mention the fact that the project for the high-speed line could not be profitable if SNCB has to finance all the costs of the construction, especially that this type of trains are used almost exclusively for international travels. The studies for each section on the network have been elaborated based on the prognosis of the number of trains necessary in the internal and international traffic, so that there can be shared the funds between the state and SNCB. Meaning that, finally, around 50% for the international traffic and 50% for the internal traffic, the state providing the half for the cost of the infrastructure.
Because, generally, in Belgium, the government finances only around 25% from the cost for the entire high-speed network, there have been searched, of course, other alternatives for financing the resources, including the government holdings and private funds; there has been necessary a special subsidy in order to gather the funds.
The management project of the railway infrastructure needs a special structure, meant to provide the flexibility in organization. In 1992, SNCB and Transurb Rail have set up the company TUC Rail, specialized in engineering, which is in charge of the high-speed network. TUC Rail has performed all the technical studies and has achieved the management of the project and of the sites. Excepting certain specific works at the tunnel structures, at the lines and at the signaling, most of them have been executed by public auction, based on detailed studies, together with auction documents. This traditional method for tendering has proved to be efficient.
As Belgium considers the railway infrastructure as being a national interest element, in order to avoid the unjustified delays in purchasing the necessary lands, regularly, it performed the expropriations by royal decrees. The high-speed network, representing an international project has also taken advantage of this approach, which has been sanctioned by joint treaties between Belgium, France, Germany and Netherlands.
Still, according to the specialists, the finalization of the works at the high-speed network from Belgium is still far away. The western branch has been put into operation in two stages: on June 1996 and on December 1997. On the eastern branch, up to December 2005, Brussels - Leuven railway section will be enlarged from two to four lines and the speed will be increased up to 200 km/h. the Tunnel from Soumagne (6.2 km), situated quite far from Liege, will be put into operation on December 2006. Another section of the new line will be built up to 3 km from the borders with Germany, where there will be linked with the existing lines, which have been modernized in order to reach the speed of 160 km/h. towards Netherlands, the line is following the alignment of the highway E 19, the works being planned to be finalized at half of year 2005. The most important projects for this northern branch, are the achievement of the double tunnel to Antwerpen and the enlargement of Antewerpen Central railway station. The new station Liege will be also inaugurated during the year 2005.

High-speed…a real competition!
The high-speed has become a reality not only in Europe, but also on other continents, as Asia and North America. This fact is first of all due to the advantages of the railways in comparison to the other modes of transport, mainly in comparison to the road and air transport, with respect to the environment protection. Reason why many decisions at international level are coming to support the development of the railway high-speed networks.
Europe has practically become a territory without borders in the last years, the free circulation of the people and of the goods inside it being more like a necessity. The distances that have to be covered are bigger and bigger, and the competition between various modes of transport is more and more bitter.
This competition is going to be seriously "perturbed" through the adoption of certain regulations aiming at preserving the environment, which should include the environment taxes, respectively the external costs, in the overall cost of the transport services performance. All these regulations will create hierarchies in the transport services on three areas: short routes (up to 80-100 km), where the supremacy belongs to the road transport, average routes (100-800 km), dominated by the railway transport, and the long routes (over 1000 km), where the air transport predominates.
If during the last decades the building of certain high-speed lines represented only an ambition of the countries that are very industrialized, presently this represents a necessity.

Magdalena Fedeles