Galeria Caspar

Today I was at a parc in The Hague in Olanda, there is "Madurodam" a themeparc with a lot of highlights from Olanda in miniature. They have also a lot of trains and some stations.






The railway bridge in Dordrecht.


Which can be opened. There are a lot of railway bridges which can be opened here. Some don't have an overhead wire on the bridge, so the traindrivers must shut down the traction when they are approaching a bridge wihout a wire. (and of corse put it in again when they passed the bridge)




The High Speed Railway bridge over Hollands Diep. The trains between Rotterdam and Belgium pass here with 300km/h.
Sadly there were no high speed trains in the museum today. But normally there are!
It's very nice to see that this parc pays a lot attention to details, everything correspondents with the reality.

Here is a link were you can see the real bridge with a train:



This locomotive is still in use, but only for some cargo trains and for bringing trains from the yard to the station.
The maximum speed is 125km/h. When I was a little child, I found this machines very impressive.


This one is only a museum train these days. Its from 1946.










A VDL Citea bus, a typicalli Dutch bus.


Canals in Utrecht.


Amsterdam.


Groningen, one of the most beautiful stations here.










Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, with KLM airplane.


The train in front is from 1950's and isn't in use anymore. They are unofficially called Hondekop, which means ''Dog-head/face''. Almost everyone in The Netherlands knows wat you mean when you say Hondekop.  


Also the signals are working in this museum.






Valkenburg.





All trains are running with a speed of +- 5 km/h in the parc.

Last weekend I was at Eurospoor a model railway event.

One highligt was a French railway club CFFC:













And Swiss:


There were also a lot of stands were you can buy little trains and busses, but I haven't seen one CFR train.
When I can find an AVA coach I will buy one. But it's impossible here in The Netherlands...

AVA coaches are available in Romania http://jucarii.com.ro/prodlist.php?ctg=30 (and in other stores) and also on some shops outside Romania and on e-bay.

Marea Nordului, 06.12.2014:







Cyclingroute in the forest near the sea:


It's the same path as this one, but then several hundreds meters away:

This was in the summer, but last month al the cyclingroutes in this area are transformed into concrete ones.
I liked the old ones paved with (in Romanian) "scoici" better, especially on my mountainbike.

27.12.2014:






6 and 8 means V=max 60 and 80 km/h on that track.


12 coaches... :shock:


Snow + trains + Netherlands...
10 cm snow and in 30% of the country, all trains were broke down for some hours...

Why are they so vulnerable to snow?

First of all, the Netherlands has a crowded rail system, with on most lines 4 trains per hour per direction. In case of snow or other problems, sometimes a switch could fail, and someone has to repair it. When the technic-crew is not in the area at that moment, they have to come by car and are sometimes one hour in their car before doing their job at the broken switch (in case of snow, they get also stuck in the trafficjams on the roads...) So, one small issue could take over one or  two hours to fix.
In the mean time, trains are waiting, or they must take the opposite track. But with 4 trains an hour, you could not run every train on one single track for 15-20km before you see a second switch to go back on the right track again (because there is always a train who must wait from the opposite direction...) . Some trains has to cut out of the timetable for that part...
There comes the second part of the story. The schedules of the train staff in The Netherlands are very complex. To prevent boring working days, traindrivers has very much diverse routes on their job. A shift of 8 or 9 hours consist of 4 to 8 different trains for him/her. They drive mostly between 30 to 150 km in the same train during a day. But there are trains of 250 kilometers route here. One train of 250 kilometers has mostly between 2 or 4 different traindrivers during a part of the route. Example: a train from Bucharest to Sibiu has 3 drivers: one from Bucharest till Ploiesti, in Ploiesti the second traindriver takes the train to Brasov, and there a third one takes him to Sibiu.
The problem is, when one traindriver gets stuck behind a place with a problem (suicide, disfunctioning switches in case of snow, stolen components of infrastructure etc etc) he couldn't drive his next train 50 kilometers away one hour later.
The traffic controls signals this potentional problem, and send another traindriver to that train, and gives the traindriver who is waiting behind the broken switch another train. But in case of huge disturbans with several problems in one region, the traffic control couldn't handle it and lost the control over the sitation. There are about 20 people on that traffic control for a few hundred people (traindrivers/conductors) on the train. When they all have to be rescheduled within a very short time, the situation is getting out of control.
The next problem is that there are trains in a station with passengers on board, but without a traindriver, and without somebody who know's who can drive it. Those trains are occupying the platforms. With 4 trains per section per hour, a large trainstation like Amsterdam is filled up complete within one hour with such trains. Traindrivers calls their traffic control, but they can't reach them because the telephone line is allready occupied. Some staff drive a train theirselves but nobody knows anymore who is doing which things anymore. (mostly traindrivers take a train in such a situation when they are almost at the and of their working day, and have only drive 30 minutes to go to their ''home'' )
To complete the situation, the people ho are giving the green signals don't often know if the train has no trainstaff, so there are green lights for trains without a traindriver. Such trains are blocking complete emplacements when they don't leave (because the supposed drive-way has the switches turned on for him) . Other trains couldn't depart or enter the station in such situations....

In countries like Austria or Switserland there are far more people to prevent switches to get disfunctioning in case of snow. But due to cost reduction, we have them minimal. We have only 10 days of snow in average, and it's expensive to have that teams for the whole winter, only working on 10 days.

With about 200.000 passengers daily in Amsterdam Central, you get such pictures when you have two hours without (most) trains:

This was in 2009 I guess.

But even in my hometown with 13.000 passengers daily the station is really fast overcrowded when the trains are cancelled for a period of an hour or two:



Between 06.30h and 09.00h it's very crowded with people who live here, and are working or going to university in Amsterdam (45 km away)

But... Where else in the world you could ice-skate next to the railtracks?




This is me, in 2010.

I think your network managers went too far with cost reductions and they left too little (if any) margin for error.

Insulă Texel:


2 ferries.


Beach.


Beach and wind... The beach is here about 1500 meters wide. (perhaps the widest beach in our country).


Dunes.


This place is called "De Slufter" A unique place, 2 times a day the sea gets into the land here.
When the tide is low, all the water flows back into the sea again. With storms, the complete area is filled up with water.
You can walk to the sea (when the tide is low), but have to keep in mind that the sea level could rise, and walking back could be impossible then...


Low waters.


A few hours later, all this would be filled up with seawater again.

Last weekend the trainstation in Alkmaar was totally closed due to rehabilitation works of the station.
The old pedestrian tunnel under the platforms and the railway tracks is too small for the growing amount of pessengers there, so the city and the railways are building a new pedestrian bridge over the railwaytracks. This bridge will also be usefull for inhabitants who live in the neighbourhoud on the north side of the station which can walk easily to the old center of the town on the other side of the station.


Old tunnel, without elevators etc.

The whole new bridge above the railway tracks is installed in just one weekend, or 54 hours. The framework of it has been build on the ground since some months, so this weekend, all of it has to been but on its place. Therefore Europe biggest mobile crane came to Alkmaar, which could bring the 116 tonns bridge on its place.


Left is Europe´s biggest mobile crane. Unfortunately, when I was there, the bridge was allready on its place and the crane is already dismantled...


The new bridge, placed there in once. They are now installing the wires for the overheadwire.


New bridge, with stairs, elevators and moving staircases (scară rulantă)


The end of the bridge has to built in the next weeks. But that doesn't annoy the trains.




Another large crane.









I couldn't believe my eyes, I came here for almost all of my live frequently, and the station was almost the same. But now in just 48 hours, it completely transformed...

That crane! :shock: :shock: In Romania such a procedure would take two and a half years and it would cost at least 5 times the Golden Gate

No trains this time...

Last night I woke up because of an explosion. I stayed in bed first, but after a minute, I heard a second explosion and got out of bed to take a look at my windows. I saw a lot of smoke, and I saw a fire. A few seconds later, there were 4 men on 2 motorscooters, driving away. I called the police and got my clothes on to take a look what was happening outside:


The fire near my house. (i live in an appartment above some shops).


The fire is allready gone 15 minutes later.


The blowed up the ATM cash machine with some explosives. There were some 10€ papers left, blowing in the wind in the air.


This vehicle was used to give the wall a ramp. With full speed they drove into the wall first, than placed their explosives, and finally set the vehicle on fire. This vehicle seemed to be stolen.




One hour ago, you can see the damage coused by the explosions.

This happened at 4.30h in the night, and I could return to my home at 5.30h. The firemen first has to find out if there are hazzardous smokes in the appartments. Later in the morning I was at the local police station to declare what I have seen.
The police used a helicopter to find them, but they are still gone.

2 railway tracks crossing each other in Haarlem, The Netherlands.