Deutsche Bahn
Deutsche Bahn AG is a German railway company. Headquartered in Berlin, it is a private joint-stock company, with the Federal Republic of Germany being its single shareholder. Deutsche Bahn describes itself as the second-largest transport company in the world, after the German postal and logistics company Deutsche Post / DHL, is the largest railway operator and infrastructure owner in Europe. Deutsche Bahn was the largest railway company in the world by revenue in 2015, it carries about two billion passengers each year. The group is divided into a large number of companies, including DB Fernverkehr, DB Regio and DB Cargo; the Group subsidiary DB Netz operates large parts of the German railway infrastructure and thus the largest rail network in Europe. In rail transport, the company generates about half of its total revenue; the other half of the operating business comprises the further transport and logistics business as well as various service providers. The company generates part of its sales through public transport contracts.
Passenger transport companies carried around 4.4 billion passengers in 2016 with their trains and buses. In 2016 DB logistics companies transported 277 million tons of goods in rail freight transport.2019 trains. The Deutsche Bahn Group is divided into various organizational units that perform their tasks with subsidiaries. DB Personenverkehr is the group that manages passenger travel within Germany. Called Reise & Touristik, this group is responsible for the managing and running of German passenger services; this group is divided into three business areas: DB Fernverkehr, DB Regio and Arriva. Deutsche Bahn placed a bid in May 2010 for the UK-based transport company Arriva. Arriva runs bus and rail companies in 12 European countries; the merger was approved by the European Commission in August 2010, subject to DB divesting Arriva services in Germany. The merger became effective on 27 August 2010. Services in the UK run as DB Regio are now operated by a new subdivision of the company, Arriva UK Trains.
It operates the Northern, Chiltern Railways, CrossCountry franchises as well as open-access operator Grand Central. It operates the London Overground concession as Arriva Rail London, has lodged an application to operate services under the Great North Western Railway brand; the former Tyne & Wear Metro operations started by DB Regio UK, ended in 2017, while Arriva Trains Wales services passed to Transport for Wales in 2018. DB Fernverkehr AG is a semi-independent division of Deutsche Bahn that operates long-distance passenger trains in Germany, it was founded in 1999 in the second stage of the privatisation of German Federal Railways under the name of DB Reise & Touristik and renamed in 2003. DB Fernverkehr operates all InterCityExpress and InterCity trains in Germany as well as in some neighboring countries and several EuroCity and EuroCityExpress trains throughout Europe. Unlike its sister companies DB Regio and DB Cargo, DB Fernverkehr still holds a de facto monopoly in its segment of the market as it operates hundreds of trains per day, while all competitors' long-distance services combined amount to no more than 10–15 trains per day.
Additionally DB Fernverkehr operates a few long-distance coach services throughout Germany, called IC Bus. DB Regio AG is the subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn that operates passenger trains on short and medium distances in Germany. Unlike its long-distance counterpart, DB Fernverkehr, it does not operate trains on its own account. Traffic is ordered and paid for by the Bundesländer or their respective SPNV-Aufgabenträger; some states have awarded long-term contracts to DB Regio, in others, DB Regio’s operations are decreasing, in North Rhine-Westphalia, their market share is expected to be lower than 50 %. DB Regio rail services are divided into several regional companies: DB Regio Nord for Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony, Bremen DB Regio Nordost for Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern DB Regio NRW for North Rhine-Westphalia DB Regio Südost for Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia DB Regio Hessen for Hesse DB Regio Südwest for Rhineland-Palatinate, parts of Baden-Württemberg and Hesse DB Regio Baden-Württemberg for the rest of Baden-Württemberg DB Regio Bayern for Bavaria S-Bahn Hamburg S-Bahn Berlin RegioNetz The bus services consist of 25 bus companies, which have subsidiary companies themselves.
The infrastructure division is divided into the DB Netz, DB Station&Service and DB Energie business units. DB Engineering & Consulting, responsible for construction supervision, construction planning and maintenance, is assigned to this department without being part of a business area. Via its subsidiary DB Engineering&Consulting, DB signed a memorandum of understanding with Iranian rail operator Bonyad Eastern Railways in May 2017 and shortly after a consulting contract with Islamic Republic of Iran Railways; the California High-Speed Rail Authority's board approved on November 15, 2017 an early train operator contract with DB Engineering & Consulting USA. The firm is the U. S. arm of Deuts
Lauter (Rhine)
The Lauter is a river in Germany and France. The Lauter is a left tributary of the Rhine, its length is 55 kilometres. It is formed by the confluence of two headstreams north of Hinterweidenthal in the Palatine Forest in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, it flows through Dahn, crosses the border with France, flows through Wissembourg, forms the French-German international boundary until its confluence with the Rhine near Lauterbourg and Neuburg am Rhein. Lines of Wissembourg List of rivers of France List of rivers of Rhineland-Palatinate http://www.geoportail.fr The Lauter at the Sandre database
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and largest city of the Grand Est region of France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located at the border with Germany in the historic region of Alsace, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin department. In 2016, the city proper had 279,284 inhabitants and both the Eurométropole de Strasbourg and the Arrondissement of Strasbourg had 491,409 inhabitants. Strasbourg's metropolitan area had a population of 785,839 in 2015, making it the ninth largest metro area in France and home to 13% of the Grand Est region's inhabitants; the transnational Eurodistrict Strasbourg-Ortenau had a population of 915,000 inhabitants in 2014. Strasbourg is one of the de facto capitals of the European Union, as it is the seat of several European institutions, such as the Council of Europe and the Eurocorps, as well as the European Parliament and the European Ombudsman of the European Union; the city is the seat of the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine and the International Institute of Human Rights.
Strasbourg's historic city centre, the Grande Île, was classified a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1988, the first time such an honour was placed on an entire city centre. Strasbourg is immersed in Franco-German culture and although violently disputed throughout history, has been a cultural bridge between France and Germany for centuries through the University of Strasbourg the second largest in France, the coexistence of Catholic and Protestant culture, it is home to the largest Islamic place of worship in France, the Strasbourg Grand Mosque. Economically, Strasbourg is an important centre of manufacturing and engineering, as well as a hub of road and river transportation; the port of Strasbourg is the second largest on the Rhine after Germany. Before the 5th century, the city was known as Argantorati, a Celtic Gaulish name Latinized first as Argentorate, as Argentoratum; that Gaulish name is a compound of -rati, the Gaulish word for fortified enclosures, cognate to the Old Irish ráth, arganto-, the Gaulish word for silver, but any precious metal gold, suggesting either a fortified enclosure located by a river gold mining site, or hoarding gold mined in the nearby rivers.
After the 5th century, the city became known by a different name Gallicized as Strasbourg. That name is of Germanic origin and means "Town of roads"; the modern Stras- is cognate to the German Straße and English street, all of which are derived from Latin strata, while -bourg is cognate to the German Burg and English borough, all of which are derived from Proto-Germanic *burgz. Gregory of Tours was the first to mention the name change: in the tenth book of his History of the Franks written shortly after 590 he said that Egidius, Bishop of Reims, accused of plotting against King Childebert II of Austrasia in favor of his uncle King Chilperic I of Neustria, was tried by a synod of Austrasian bishops in Metz in November 590, found guilty and removed from the priesthood taken "ad Argentoratensem urbem, quam nunc Strateburgum vocant", where he was exiled. Strasbourg is situated at the eastern border of France with Germany; this border is formed by the Rhine, which forms the eastern border of the modern city, facing across the river to the German town Kehl.
The historic core of Strasbourg however lies on the Grande Île in the river Ill, which here flows parallel to, 4 kilometres from, the Rhine. The natural courses of the two rivers join some distance downstream of Strasbourg, although several artificial waterways now connect them within the city; the city lies in the Upper Rhine Plain, at between 132 metres and 151 metres above sea level, with the upland areas of the Vosges Mountains some 20 km to the west and the Black Forest 25 km to the east. This section of the Rhine valley is a major axis of north–south travel, with river traffic on the Rhine itself, major roads and railways paralleling it on both banks; the city is some 397 kilometres east of Paris. The mouth of the Rhine lies 450 kilometres to the north, or 650 kilometres as the river flows, whilst the head of navigation in Basel is some 100 kilometres to the south, or 150 kilometres by river. In spite of its position far inland, Strasbourg's climate is classified as oceanic, but a "semicontinental" climate with some degree of maritime influence in relation to the mild patterns of Western and Southern France.
The city has warm sunny summers and cool, overcast winters. Precipitation is elevated from mid-spring to the end of summer, but remains constant throughout the year, totaling 631.4 mm annually. On average, snow falls 30 days per year; the highest temperature recorded was 38.5 °C in August 2003, during the 2003 European heat wave. The lowest temperature eve
Ecotone
An ecotone is a transition area between two biomes. It is where two communities integrate, it may be narrow or wide, it may be local or regional. An ecotone may appear on the ground as a gradual blending of the two communities across a broad area, or it may manifest itself as a sharp boundary line; the word ecotone was coined from a combination of eco plus -tone, from the Greek tonos or tension – in other words, a place where ecologies are in tension. There are several distinguishing features of an ecotone. First, an ecotone can have a sharp vegetation transition, with a distinct line between two communities. For example, a change in colors of grasses or plant life can indicate an ecotone. Second, a change in physiognomy can be a key indicator. Water bodies, such as estuaries, can have a region of transition, the boundary is characterized by the differences in heights of the macrophytes or plant species present in the areas because this distinguishes the two areas' accessibility to light. Scientists look at color changes in plant height.
Third, a change of species can signal an ecotone. There will be specific organisms on one side of the other. Other factors can illustrate or obscure an ecotone, for example and the establishment of new plants; these are known as spatial mass effects, which are noticeable because some organisms will not be able to form self-sustaining populations if they cross the ecotone. If different species can survive in both communities of the two biomes the ecotone is considered to have species richness. Lastly, the abundance of introduced species in an ecotone can reveal the type of biome or efficiency of the two communities sharing space; because an ecotone is the zone in which two communities integrate, many different forms of life have to live together and compete for space. Therefore, an ecotone can create a diverse ecosystem. Changes in the physical environment may produce a sharp boundary, as in the example of the interface between areas of forest and cleared land. Elsewhere, a more blended interface area will be found, where species from each community will be found together as well as unique local species.
Mountain ranges create such ecotones, due to the wide variety of climatic conditions experienced on their slopes. They may provide a boundary between species due to the obstructive nature of their terrain. Mont Ventoux in France is a good example, marking the boundary between the flora and fauna of northern and southern France. Most wetlands are ecotones; the spatial variation of ecotones form due to disturbances, creating patches that separate patches of vegetation. Different intensity of disturbances can cause landslides, land shifts, or movement of sediment that can create these vegetation patches and ecotones. Plants in competition extend themselves on one side of the ecotone as far as their ability to maintain themselves allows. Beyond this competitors of the adjacent community take over; as a result, the ecotone represents a shift in dominance. Ecotones are significant for mobile animals, as they can exploit more than one set of habitats within a short distance; the ecotone contains not only species common to the communities on both sides.
The phenomenon of increased variety of plants as well as animals at the community junction is called the edge effect and is due to a locally broader range of suitable environmental conditions or ecological niches. An ecotone is associated with an ecocline: a "physical transition zone" between two systems; the ecotone and ecocline concepts are sometimes confused: an ecocline can signal an ecotone chemically, or microclimatically between two ecosystems. In contrast: an ecocline is a variation of the physicochemical environment dependent of one or two physico-chemical factors of life, thus presence/absence of certain species. An ecocline can be a thermocline, halocline or pycnocline. Ecocline transitions are less distinct, have more stable conditions within, hence a higher plant species richness. An ecotone describes a variation in species prevalence and is not dependent on a major physical factor separating one ecosystem from another, with resulting habitat variability. An ecotone is unobtrusive and harder to measure.
An ecotone is the area. Ecotones can be identified by distinct change in soil gradient and soil composition between two communities. Ecotone transitions are more clear-cut, conditions are less stable, hence they have a low species richness; the Kra ecotone between 11°N and 13°N latitude just north of the Kra Isthmus that connects the Thai-Malay Peninsula with mainland Asia is an example of a regional scale ecotone. It marks the transition zone between the moist deciduous forest in the mainland Southeast Asia biogeographical region in the north and the wet seasonal dipterocarp forest in the Sundaland region in the south, it has been shown to be the biogeographical transition between Sundaic faunas. 152 species of bird were found to have northern or southern range limits between these latitudes. Population genetics studies have found that the Kra ecotone is the major physical barrier that limits gene flow in the honeybees Apis cerana and Apis dorsata and the stingles
Germany
Germany the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central and Western Europe, lying between the Baltic and North Seas to the north, the Alps to the south. It borders Denmark to the north and the Czech Republic to the east and Switzerland to the south, France to the southwest, Luxembourg and the Netherlands to the west. Germany includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,386 square kilometres, has a temperate seasonal climate. With 83 million inhabitants, it is the second most populous state of Europe after Russia, the most populous state lying in Europe, as well as the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is a decentralized country, its capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while Frankfurt serves as its financial capital and has the country's busiest airport. Germany's largest urban area is the Ruhr, with its main centres of Essen; the country's other major cities are Hamburg, Cologne, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf, Dresden, Bremen and Nuremberg. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity.
A region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period, the Germanic tribes expanded southward. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation. After the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, the German Confederation was formed in 1815; the German revolutions of 1848–49 resulted in the Frankfurt Parliament establishing major democratic rights. In 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the revolution of 1918–19, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic; the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 led to the establishment of a dictatorship, the annexation of Austria, World War II, the Holocaust. After the end of World War II in Europe and a period of Allied occupation, Austria was re-established as an independent country and two new German states were founded: West Germany, formed from the American and French occupation zones, East Germany, formed from the Soviet occupation zone.
Following the Revolutions of 1989 that ended communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe, the country was reunified on 3 October 1990. Today, the sovereign state of Germany is a federal parliamentary republic led by a chancellor, it is a great power with a strong economy. As a global leader in several industrial and technological sectors, it is both the world's third-largest exporter and importer of goods; as a developed country with a high standard of living, it upholds a social security and universal health care system, environmental protection, a tuition-free university education. The Federal Republic of Germany was a founding member of the European Economic Community in 1957 and the European Union in 1993, it is part of the Schengen Area and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999. Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G7, the G20, the OECD. Known for its rich cultural history, Germany has been continuously the home of influential and successful artists, musicians, film people, entrepreneurs, scientists and inventors.
Germany has a large number of World Heritage sites and is among the top tourism destinations in the world. The English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine; the German term Deutschland diutisciu land is derived from deutsch, descended from Old High German diutisc "popular" used to distinguish the language of the common people from Latin and its Romance descendants. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz "popular", derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- "people", from which the word Teutons originates; the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a coal mine in Schöningen between 1994 and 1998 where eight 380,000-year-old wooden javelins of 1.82 to 2.25 m length were unearthed. The Neander Valley was the location where the first non-modern human fossil was discovered.
The Neanderthal 1 fossils are known to be 40,000 years old. Evidence of modern humans dated, has been found in caves in the Swabian Jura near Ulm; the finds included 42,000-year-old bird bone and mammoth ivory flutes which are the oldest musical instruments found, the 40,000-year-old Ice Age Lion Man, the oldest uncontested figurative art discovered, the 35,000-year-old Venus of Hohle Fels, the oldest uncontested human figurative art discovered. The Nebra sky disk is a bronze artefact created during the European Bronze Age attributed to a site near Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt, it is part of UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme. The Germanic tribes are thought to date from the Pre-Roman Iron Age. From southern Scandinavia and north Germany, they expanded south and west from the 1st century BC, coming into contact with the Celtic tribes of Gaul as well
SNCF
The Société nationale des chemins de fer français is France's national state-owned railway company. Founded in 1938, it operates the country's national rail traffic along with Monaco, including the TGV, France's high-speed rail network, its functions include operation of railway services for passengers and freight, maintenance and signalling of rail infrastructure. The railway network consists of about 32,000 km of route, of which 1,800 km are high-speed lines and 14,500 km electrified. About 14,000 trains are operated daily. In 2010 the SNCF was ranked 22nd in 214th globally on the Fortune Global 500 list, it is the main business of the SNCF Group, which in 2017 had €33.5 billion of sales in 120 countries. The SNCF Group employs more than 260,000 people. Since July 2013, the SNCF Group headquarters are located in a Parisian suburb at 2 Place aux Étoiles in Saint-Denis; the President of the SNCF Group is Guillaume Pepy. SNCF operates all of France's railway system, including the TGV. In the 1970s, the SNCF began the TGV high-speed train programme with the intention of creating the world's fastest railway network.
It came to fruition in 1981. Today, the SNCF operates 1,850 km of designated high-speed track that accommodate more than 800 high-speed services per day. SNCF’s TGV trains carry more than 100 million passengers a year. TGV lines and TGV technology are now spread across several European countries in addition to South Korea; the SNCF's TGV has set many world speed records, the most recent on 3 April 2007, when a new version of the TGV dubbed the V150 with larger wheels than the usual TGV, was able to cover more ground with each rotation and had a stronger 25,000 hp engine, broke the world speed record for conventional railway trains, reaching 574.8 km/h. The SNCF has a remarkable safety record. After nearly 30 years in operation, SNCF’s TGV system has only experienced one fatal accident, which occurred during pre-opening testing and not in regular operation. In 2011 SNCF in partnership with Keolis, unsuccessfully bid for the InterCity West Coast franchise. In April 2017 SNCF took a 30% shareholding in a joint venture with Stagecoach Group and Virgin Group to bid for the West Coast Partnership that will operate services on the West Coast Main Line from May 2020 and the High Speed 2 line from 2026.
In April 2019 Stagecoach were banned from bidding for any franchises including the West Coast Partnership which has meant that Virgin and SNCF have now had to withdraw from the shortlist. Since the 1990s, SNCF has been selling railway carriages to regional governments, with the creation of the Train Express Régional brand. SNCF maintains a broad scope of international business that includes work on freight lines, inter-city lines and commuter lines. SNCF experts provide logistics, construction and maintenance services. SNCF operates the international ticketing agency Oui.sncf Voyages-sncf.com and Rail Europe. SNCF has employees in 120 countries offering extensive overseas and cross border consulting; those projects include: Israel: Training. SNCF International provides assistance to Israel Railways in every area of rail operations including projects to upgrade the network's general safety regulations. Other assistance and training programmes involve the Traction Division. Taiwan: Operations Training.
SNCF supervised the prime contractor responsible for construction of the Taiwan Railways Administration’s main high-speed rail line. It trained rail traffic controllers and crew members. On behalf of the Government of Taiwan, SNCF managed the high-speed railway Command Control Centre. United Kingdom: Maintenance. In 2007-2008, SNCF-International consultants audited the maintenance practices applied to the track and overhead electric power line on British high-speed rail lines connecting London to the Channel Tunnel. In addition, it conducted an audit of the maintainer’s performance from the service quality and cost control standpoint, made recommendations for improvements, proposed a three-year Business Plan. South Korea: HSR Electrification Design. SNCF advised Korean Railroads on the electrification of tracks between Daegu and Busan and on linking existing conventional tracks to the new high-speed line. SNCF assisted in selecting and inspecting high-speed rolling stock and trained 400 senior manager and executives in a broad range of skills, including signalling, track, rolling stock maintenance, HSR operation, safety management and passenger information systems.
Until the end of 2009, SNCF assisted Korea in maintaining its high-speed. Spain: Signalling System. SNCF partnered with ADIF in the study, supply and maintenance of the standard EU railway signaling system along the Madrid-Lleida high-speed line. On behalf of the Spanish Government, SNCF designed and led maintenance operations on this line over a two-year period. France: Lead Infrastructure and Rolling Stock Maintainer – The SNCF maintains 32,000 km of track, 26,500 main sets of points and crossings, 2,300 signal boxes, 80,000 track circuits, over 1 million relays, etc, it maintains 3,900 locomotives and 500 high-speed trains. Each of SNCF’s TGV trains travels more than 39,000 km a month – enough to circle the globe; each year SNCF’s Human Resources Department provides over 1.2 million hours of training to its over 25,000 employees. SNCF was formed in 1938 with the nationalisation of France's main railway companies (Chemin de fer, literally,'path of iron', me
