1.
Berlin S-Bahn
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The Berlin S-Bahn is a rapid transit railway system in and around Berlin, the capital city of Germany. It has been in operation under this name since December 1930, having previously called the special tariff area Berliner Stadt-. It complements the Berlin U-Bahn and is the link to many outer-Berlin areas, in other parts of Germany and other German-speaking countries, the brand name S-Bahn is used without those Berlin specific features. The Hamburg S-Bahn is the other system using third-rail electrification. The Berlin S-Bahn consists today of 15 lines serving 166 stations, the S-Bahn carried 395 million passengers in 2012. It is integrated with the mostly underground U-Bahn to form the backbone of Berlins rapid transport system, unlike the U-Bahn, the S-Bahn crosses Berlin city limits into the surrounding state of Brandenburg, e. g. to Potsdam. Although the S- and U-Bahn are part of a fare system. The S-Bahn is operated by S-Bahn Berlin GmbH, a subsidiary of the Deutsche Bahn, whereas the U-Bahn is run by BVG, the main public transit company for the city of Berlin. The S-Bahn routes all feed into one of three lines, a central, elevated east-west line, a central, mostly underground north-south line. Outside the Ringbahn, suburban routes radiate in all directions, lines S1, S2 and S25 are north-south lines that use the North-South tunnel as their midsection. They were equally distributed into Oranienburg, Bernau and Hennigsdorf in the north, lines S3, S5, S7 and S75 are east-west lines using the Stadtbahn cross-city railway. The western termini are located at Potsdam and Spandau, the eastern termini are Erkner, Strausberg Nord, Ahrensfelde and Wartenberg. Before 2009 and after 2017, the S9 used and will use a curve at Ostkreuz to change from Stadtbahn to the South-Western leg of the Ringbahn. Lines S41 and S42 continuously circle around the Ringbahn, the former clockwise, lines S45, S46 and S47 link destinations in the southeast with the southern section of the Ringbahn via the tangential link from the Görlitzer Bahn to the Ring via Köllnische Heide. Lines S8, S85, and S9 are north-south lines using the section of the Ringbahn between Bornholmer Straße and Treptower Park via Ostkreuz, using the Görlitzer Bahn in the South. Generally speaking, the first digit of a number denotes the main route or a group of routes. Thus, S25 is a branch of S2, while S41, S42, S45, S46, so S41, S42, S45, S46 and S47 are together S4. However, the S4 does not exist as an independent entity, since 9 January 1984, all the West Berlin S-Bahn routes are labelled with an S followed by a number
2.
Rapid transit
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Rapid transit, also known as heavy rail, metro, subway, tube, or underground, is a type of high-capacity public transport generally found in urban areas. The stations typically have high platforms, without steps inside the trains and they are typically integrated with other public transport and often operated by the same public transport authorities. However, some transit systems have at-grade intersections between a rapid transit line and a road or between two rapid transit lines. It is unchallenged in its ability to transport large numbers of people quickly over short distances with little use of land, variations of rapid transit include people movers, small-scale light metro, and the commuter rail hybrid S-Bahn. The worlds first rapid-transit system was the partially underground Metropolitan Railway which opened as a railway in 1863. In 1868, New York opened the elevated West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway, china has the largest number of rapid transit systems in the world. The worlds longest single-operator rapid transit system by length is the Shanghai Metro. The worlds largest single rapid transit service provider by both length of revenue track (665 miles and number of stations is the New York City Subway. The busiest rapid transit systems in the world by annual ridership are the Tokyo subway system, the Seoul Metropolitan Subway, the Moscow Metro, the Beijing Subway, Metro is the most common term for underground rapid transit systems used by non-native English speakers. One of these terms may apply to a system, even if a large part of the network runs at ground level. In Scotland, however, the Glasgow Subway underground rapid transit system is known as the Subway, in the US, underground mass transit systems are primarily known as subways, whereas the term metro is a shortened reference to a metropolitan area. In that vein, Chicagos commuter rail system, serving the area, is called Metra. Exceptions in naming rapid transit systems are Washington DCs subway system the Washington Metro, Los Angeles Metro Rail, and the Miami Metrorail, the opening of Londons steam-hauled Metropolitan Railway in 1863 marked the beginning of rapid transit. Initial experiences with steam engines, despite ventilation, were unpleasant, experiments with pneumatic railways failed in their extended adoption by cities. Electric traction was more efficient, faster and cleaner than steam, in 1890 the City & South London Railway was the first electric-traction rapid transit railway, which was also fully underground. Both railways were merged into London Underground. The 1893 Liverpool Overhead Railway was designed to use electric traction from the outset, budapest in Hungary and Glasgow, Chicago and New York all converted or purpose-designed and built electric rail services. Advancements in technology have allowed new automated services, hybrid solutions have also evolved, such as tram-train and premetro, which incorporate some of the features of rapid transit systems
3.
Train stop
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The train stop system comprises two basic components. One is the trip arm mechanism, mounted on the adjacent to the rail. The other is the trip cock, which is connected either directly or electrically to the trains braking system. The trip arm is raised automatically whenever a train should be brought to a halt, when the signalling system determines it is safe for the train to proceed, the motor drives the trip arm down to the lowered position. The time taken for the arm to rise or be lowered is approximately two seconds, the mechanical train stops have been found to be relatively safe with their historic models from the 19th century to be still in use in the 21st century. Because of the quadratic force increments in relation to speed these mechanical systems are restricted to low speed applications and their continued usage can be found in urban rapid transit systems with trains making no more than 100 km/h. Whereas later contactless train stops require a receiver on the train to initiate the emergency stop the mechanical stops have initially been kicking the brakes directly. Because the trip arm may hit the brake lever directly there have been installations that every wagon of a train has a trip cock on each bogie that has brakes. Hence in some installations the trip arm will be folded back to the position only a few seconds after a signal has turned red in order to reduce wear. Because of wear the trip arms for the direction on the same rail will be actuated along with the trip arm for the nominal direction. Like many early systems a mechanical train stop does not inherently control speed, there were accidents where trains had overrun the overlap due to excessive speed. These expensive speed control systems are generally phased out in favour of a cab control computer that can check a braking curve while approaching a signal. If a train tries to pass the signal, the cock on the train strikes the raised trip arm. When the signal indicates it is safe to proceed, the arm is lowered. With a timed train stop, the trip arm stays raised until the train has shunted a track circuit on the approach for a period of time corresponding to a set speed. If the train approaches at a higher than the one that is set. If the train approaches at an equal to or lower than the set speed, the trip arm lowers before the train arrives. Some timed train stops require the driver to acknowledge a stimulus before the arm is lowered on a yellow signal
4.
InnoTrans
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InnoTrans is the worlds largest trade fair focused on the rail transport industry. It is held two years at the Messe Berlin exhibition centre, which has outdoor standard gauge railway sidings which can be used to exhibit railway vehicles. During the weekend after the show the public can visit the rolling stock on display. InnoTrans has grown steadily in area and exhibitor numbers since it moved to Berlin in 1996, for the 2010 fair, organiser Messe Berlin Ltd announced an increase to 2,000 exhibitors from 44 countries, which covered the whole area of the exhibition centre for the first time. A spin-off supplementary exhibition Public Transport Interiors aimed at the transit sector was planned. InnoTrans 2012 was instead the first to include a separate Public Transport and Interiors Hall Forum,201620 to 23 September 2016 in Berlin. Conference Corner where exhibitors, associations and transport companies can hold lectures, the summer-garden yard is opened to display electric buses and to allow a round driving course. An InnoTrans Daily newspaper will be produced by Railway Gazette International Messe Berlin has constructed a further exhibition hall called the CityCube Berlin, in addition to the general ten standard gauge tracks a Special Gauge Display allows to show broad gauge and narrow gauge vehicles. List of rolling stock on show, more than 110,000 trade visitors are expected. An InnoTrans Daily newspaper will be produced by Railway Gazette International, list of rolling stock on show
5.
Berlin Ringbahn
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The Ringbahn is a 37.5 km long railway line of the Berlin S-Bahn network in Germany, around the city centre. The circle route is made up of the double tracked S-Bahn ring, S-Bahn service on the line is provided by lines S41 and S42, carrying 400,000 passengers a day. Due to its shape, the line is often referred to as Hundekopf. These four sections served as tariff zones of the railway Berlin suburban fare structure before the world war. It was laid in the streets, disrupting traffic and disturbing residents, in order to minimise disruption of traffic, trains ran at night, with the train bell being rung constantly. Plans were soon developed to build a ring line primarily for freight, funding for construction was possible only after the victory in the war with Austria of 1866. The Lower Silesia-March Railway Company was commissioned to construct and manage the line, the first section opened on 17 July 1871 from Moabit through Gesundbrunnen, Central-Viehhof, Stralau-Rummelsburg, Rixdorf and Schöneberg to Potsdamer ring station, an annex of Potsdamer station. From there, trains returned in the opposite direction, the line crossed the Anhalt Railway on bridges. This section from the ring into the Potsdamer ring station became known as the Südringspitzkehre. Passengers could change at the Kolonnenstraße station across the platform to continue to ride on the Ring without going all the way to the Potsdamer Ringbahnhof, from 1 January 1872, freight was carried on the line to freight yards separate from the passenger stations. The line was electrified in 1926, in 1930, ring line operation was combined with the Stadtbahn and suburban services as the Berlin S-Bahn. Since the trains were pulled by locomotives, they had to be refilled with water and coal and serviced at relatively short intervals. Originally, there were not even the necessary rails for continuing on the Ring between Schöneberg and Papestraße stations, in World War II, the Potsdamer and Anhalter stations were heavily bombed, the Südringspitzkehre was closed in 1944 and was never reopened. From 1944 until the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, with the building of the Wall, the line was broken in two places, In West Berlin a separate line on a three-quarter ring ran between Gesundbrunnen and Sonnenallee or Köllnische Heide. In East Berlin the remaining section ran between Schönhauser Allee and Treptower Park, on the lines to Bernau and Königs Wusterhausen or Schönefeld Airport. The building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 prevented continuous operation, after passenger numbers on the West Berlin side. This was caused partly by a politically motivated call for a boycott, because revenue from the West Berlin S-Bahn, the East Berlin section, from Schönhauser Allee to Treptower Park, remained in operation as it formed part of a major north-south tangent. After the 1980 S-Bahn strike, service on the part of the ring was suspended for about 13 years
6.
European Train Control System
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ETCS requires standard trackside equipment and a standard controller within the train cab. In its final form, all information is passed to the driver electronically, removing the need for lineside signals that, at high speed. It is a requirement that all new, upgraded or renewed tracks and rolling stock in the European railway system should adopt ETCS. Many networks outside the EU have also adopted ETCS, generally for high-speed rail projects, ETCS is specified at four different levels, Level 0, ETCS-compliant locomotives or rolling stock interact with lineside equipment that is non-ETCS-compliant. Versions are called System Requirement Specification and this is a bundle of documents, which may have different versioning for each document. A main version is called Baseline, unfortunately was a long time no strait release management and so exists no clear numbering scheme and hidden differences in practical installation until BL3. The European railway network grew from separate national networks with more in common than standard gauge. Notable differences include voltages, loading gauge, couplings, signalling, both factors led to efforts to reduce the time and cost of cross-border traffic. On 4 and 5 December 1989, a group including Transport Ministers resolved a master plan for a trans-European high-speed rail network. The Commission communicated the decision to the European Council, which approved the plan in its resolution of 17 December 1990 and this led to a resolution on 91/440/EEC as of 29 July 1991, which mandated the creation of a requirements list for interoperability in high-speed rail transport. The rail manufacturing industry and rail network operators had agreed on creation of interoperability standards in June 1991, until 1993 the organizational framework was created to start technical specifications that would be published as Technical Specifications for Interoperability. The mandate for TSI was resolved by 93/38/EEC, in 1995 a development plan first mentioned the creation of the European Rail Traffic Management System. The specification was written in 1996 in response to EU Council Directive 96/48/EC99 of 23 July 1996 on interoperability of the trans-European high-speed rail system, in July 1998 SRS 5a documents were published that formed the first baseline for technical specifications. UNISIG provided for corrections and enhancements of the baseline specification leading to the Class P specification in April 1999 and this baseline specification has been tested by six railways since 1999 as part of the ERTMS. The railway companies defined some extended requirements that were included to ETCS, the SUBSET-026 is defined from eight chapters where chapter seven defines the ETCS language and chapter eight describes the balise telegram structure of ETCS Level 1. Later UNISIG published the corrections as SUBSET-108, that was accepted in decision 2006/679/EEC, the earlier ETCS specification contained a lot of optional elements that limited interoperability. The Class 1 specifications were revised in the year leading to SRS2.3.0 document series that was made mandatory by the European Commission in decision 2007/153/EEC on 9 March 2007. Annex A describes the specifications on interoperability for high-speed and conventional rail transport
7.
Senate of Berlin
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The Senate of Berlin is the executive body governing the city of Berlin, which at the same time is a state of Germany. According to the Constitution of Berlin the Senate consists of the Governing Mayor of Berlin and up to eight Senators appointed by the Governing Mayor, the Senate meets weekly at the Rotes Rathaus. King Frederick I of Prussia by resolution finally had both towns, and three later founded adjacent cities, merged and elevated to the Royal Capital and Residence City of Berlin as of 1 January 1710, the council was headed by a Lord Mayor, or Oberbürgermeister. Lord Mayor Heinrich Sahm, elected in 1931, remained in office, and joined the NSDAP in November 1933 and his power totally depended on Julius Lippert, on 25 March 1933 appointed as Prussian State Commissioner for Berlin. So Berlin was de facto under the governance of the Nazi regime. After the defeat of Nazi Germany, Berlin was to be under the governance of the Allied Kommandatura. However, in the election of 20 October 1946, the city elected an SPD-majority Stadtverordnetenversammlung, the second elected SPD mayor, the devoted anti-communist Ernst Reuter, was vetoed by the Soviet commander, so Louise Schroeder officiated as only acting lord mayor. This was unacceptable to the Soviets, who engineered the establishment of a city council in the sector under their direct control. In the 1950 constitution the number of senators was 16, then each elected by the parliament. Anyway, until 1990 the elected candidates gained any legal power as lord mayor, the Oberbürgermeister and the Regierender Bürgermeister similarly headed the government jointly. The senate meets in the room in the Red Town Hall which was created for the Magistrat in the 1950s. Berlin is governed by a maximum of eight senators together with the head of state, each senator presides over one of the following departments, Senate Chancellery The Senate Chancellery staff coordinates the Senates policies and supports the governing mayor. Klaus Wowereit has been the mayor of Berlin since 2001. In 2011, Björn Böhning was appointed chief of the senate chancellery, procedural Rules of the Senate Senate Departments
8.
Eurobalise
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An Eurobalise is a specific variant of a balise being a transponder placed between the rails of a railway. A balise typically needs no power source, in response to radio frequency energy broadcast by a Balise Transmission Module mounted under a passing train, the balise transmits information to the train. The provisions for Eurobalises to receive information from the train has been removed from the specification, the transmission rate is sufficient to transmit at least 3 copies of a telegram to be received by a train passing at any speed up to 500 km/h. Eurobalises are typically placed in pairs on two sleepers in the center of the track, for ETCS they are typically spaced 3 metres apart. With the balises being numbered the train will know whether it travels in nominal or reverse direction, singular balises exist only when linked to a previous balise group or when their function is reduced to provide only the exact position. There may be up to 8 balises in an balise group, a Fixed Data Balise, or short fixed balise is programmed to transmit the same data to every train. Information transmitted by a fixed balise typically includes, the location of the balise, the geometry of the line, such as curves and gradients, the programming is performed using a wireless programming device. Thus a fixed balise can notify a train of its location, and the distance to the next signal. A Transparent Data Balise, or short controllable balise is connected to a Lineside Electronics Unit, Balises forming part of an ETCS Level 1 signalling system employ this capability. The LEU integrates with the signal system either by connecting to the lineside railway signal or to the signalling control tower. A balise transmits telegrams at a specific site, to allow a continuous transmission the telegrams may be sent along leaky feeder cable being up to 1000 metres long. The Euroloop cable is connected with a balise at its end which serves as the End of Loop Marker. The telegram structure is the same as for the balise it is connected to, originally the Euroloop used the same frequency as the Eurobalises but that was changed for specification 2.0.1 in September 2004. Euroloops had been used in Switzerland which completed the change in July 2010, the downlink uses an amplitude modulation on the 27.095 MHz frequency. This frequency is used to power the passive balises, the uplink uses frequency-shift keying with 3.951 MHz for a logical 0 and 4.516 MHz for a logical 1. The data rate of 564.48 kBit/s is enough to transmit 3 copies of a telegram to a train passing at 500 km/h, the Euroloop frequency was moved to a centre of 13.54750 MHz. In a practical setup the BTM requires 65 Watt to power the Eurobalises, each pair of balises usually consists of a switchable balise and a fixed balise. A balise transmits a telegram of either 1023 bits or 341 bits in the channel encoding with 11 bit per symbol, to avoid transmission errors the payload is scrambled, substituted with a symbol code of different Hamming distance, and a checksum is added for validity checks
9.
Federal Railway Authority
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The German Federal Railway Authority has been the independent federal authority for the regulation of the railways in Germany since 1 January 1994. It is under the supervision and direction of the Federal Ministry for Transport, Construction, non federally owned public railways and privately operated railways are under the supervision of the German states, who can choose to transfer this responsibility to the EBA. To date 13 states, with the exception of Lower Saxony, Berlin, in such cases the EBA works under the direction of the states. Since 1 January 2007 the EBA has run the vehicle register for Germany in accordance with §5 Abs. 1e of the General Railway Law and the EU guidelines in §25a of the AEG and is responsible for the issue of vehicle index. The EBA has an organisational structure. Also within the purview of the Federal Railway Office is the responsibility for investigating railway accidents, in addition, the EBA has also taken on the responsibility for the approval and oversight of maglev railways under the General Maglev Law. Since 1 January 2006 the Federal Network Agency has been responsible for overseeing access to the railway infrastructure, a merger of these two authorities, originally planned for 2009, has currently foundered. The first president of the EBA was Horst Stuchly and his successor, Armin Keppel, retired in 2008. Keppel also led the Bundeseisenbahnvermögen in 2007, in 2009, a new president, Gerald Hörster, took up office
10.
Train protection system
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A train protection system is a railway technical installation to ensure safe operation in the event of human failure. The earliest systems were train stops, as used by the New York City Subway, the Toronto subway, the London Underground, the Moscow Subway. Beside every signal is a moveable arm, the Great Western Railway in the UK introduced its automatic train control system in the early years of the 20th century. Each distant signal had before it a ramp between the running rails, if the signal showed green, the ramp was energised with a low voltage current which was passed to the locomotive when a shoe came into contact with the ramp. A bell rang in the cab to confirm the clear aspect. If the signal showed yellow the ramp was dead and a siren sounded in the cab, if the siren was not cancelled, the brakes would automatically be applied. After the nationalisation of the railways in the UK in 1948, in this system data is transmitted magnetically between the track and locomotive by magnets mounted beside the rails and on the locomotive. Additionally, they require the driver to confirm distant signals that show stop or caution – failure to do so results in the train stopping. More advanced systems calculate a braking curve that determines if the train can stop before the red signal. They require that the train driver enter the weight and the type of brakes into the onboard computer, to overcome that problem, some systems allow additional magnets to be placed between distant and home signals, or data transfer from the signalling system to the onboard computer is continuous. Prior to the development of a train protection system in Europe. Locomotives that crossed national borders had to be equipped with multiple systems, in cases where this wasnt possible or practical, the locomotives themselves had to be changed. To overcome these problems, the European Train Control System standard was developed and it offers different levels of functionality, ranging from simple to complex. This model allows adopters to meet the cost and performance requirements of disparate solutions, the European system has been in operation since 2002 and uses GSM digital radio with continuous connectivity. The newer systems use cab signalling, where the trains constantly receive information regarding their positions to other trains. The computer shows the driver how fast he may drive, instead of him relying on exterior signals and these systems are usually far more than automatic train protection systems, not only do they prevent accidents, but also actively support the train driver. This goes as far as some systems being nearly able to drive the train automatically
