High-Speed Rails Planned in France, Germany, Italy

Click here for Full Issue of EIR Volume 17, Number 35, September 14, 1990 �TIillScience & Technology Plans are already on the drawing boardsJor high-speed. rail-based transport. including magnetically levitated trains. Partn Q{a series on theEuropean Productive Triangle. With the reunification of Germany set to go ahead on Oct. the switch in power production to nuclear power, which led 3, the implementation of Lyndon LaRouche's "Productive to a situation in which transportation of oretoday constitutes Triangle," centered on Paris-Berlin-Vienna high-speed rail only 3.5% and, of fuel, less than 5% of the total traffic. links, takes on great urgency. Fifteen years ago, 65% of the SNCF's income was from This series takes up some of the central features of how freight transport; today it is only 35%, and the portion is the Triangle must work. It is excerptedfroma Special Report continuing to shrink. produced byEIR Nachrichtenagentur in Wiesbaden, Germa Independent of the fact that the decrease in traffic in both ny, titled, in English translation, "The Paris-Berlin-Vienna the areas referred tomust be evaluated in light of the national Productive Triangle: A European Economic Miracle as the economy as a whole, it should be said that the railroad has Motor for the World Economy." This chapter was written by not managed to keep pace with changing economic develop Ralf Schauerhammer and translated into English by John ment. It was incapable of that because its rail network, Chambless. freight-car fleet, and organizational forms were outmoded as In Part I, we proved that the "systems analysis" and the result of decades of underinvestment. "free market" approaches to upgrading and integrating Eu Meanwhile, the same sort of operational economic data ropean transport were methodologically disastrous. Fur found in other European countries made the problem of the ther, we showed how the development of rail-borne transport railroad obvious. Some efforts were launched to try to im has been systematically neglected in Europe for decades. In prove the situation. However, it is to be expected that the the section that follows, we look at the situation in several concepts generally under discussion will not fundamentally European countries, and what must now be done. solve the problem. The reasonsfor that arethe false economic dogmas that in the past decades led to the neglect of rail France: progress, with problems transportation in the first place. Programs such as that, say, Symptomatic of the problems facing Europe in general disseminated by the Society of European Railroads, in the is the situation in France, the European country that, through framework of the International Railroad Union (UIC) in the the construction of the TGV (Train a grande vitesse) net last year, the "proposal for a European high-speednetworlc," work, has arrived at the leading positionin the areaof passen will not be powerful enough with regard to the intended ger rail transportation. In the area of freight transportation, development in the Paris-Berlin-Vienna economic triangle. the French national railways SNCF has suffered a decrease in traffic of one-third (measured in kilometer-tons) in the last Proposal for a European rail network 15 years; in volume (measured in tons), the decrease was The Work Group of the Industrial Chambers of Com one-half. The cause was a decrease in steel production and merce in Baden-Wfirttemberg appropriately characterized 14 Science & Technology ElK September 14, 1990 © 1990 EIR News Service Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission strictly prohibited. " France's new high-speed .,8 TGV train, the Train a � grande vitesse, is a leader :s in passenger rail � transport. Its economic £ success is unique and � uncontested. But when it � comes to movingfreight, '§ France faces problems, &: like the rest of Europe. the situation in its "Economic Proposals for a Modem Rail struction, will go in the directions of Lyons, Toulouse, Le Concept in the Future European Fast Train Network" as fol Mans, Amiens, and Metz-Nancy. The star-shaped network lows: "The magnitude and importance of the task is clear for around Berlin earlier encompassed connections to Hanover, the economy: Practically, the work of Friedrich List and Hamburg, Gdansk, Warsaw, Wroclaw, Dresden, and Leip Heinrich Harkort, which, in its day, led to an optimal German zig. Vienna lies in a knot of connections to Prague, Krakow, rail network for the relations then prevailing, must be repeat Budapest, Graz, and Linz. ed on a European scale for Rail 2000. In this sense, what is Up to now, the orientation of thenetwork has been north to be conceived and realized is a well-rounded, high-perfor south. After the opening up of Eastern Europe, concentrated mance network for rapid transport with corresponding supply east-west arterials must be constructed. That is particularly routes and optimized international connections or transitions clear in Germany. Today, the principal axes all runin a north into the rapid rail networks of neighboring states." south direction (Figure 1): If European officials primarily concentrate on patching together existing national solutions, that will not at all be 1. Bremen-Osnabrtick-Miinster-Cologne-Frank what constituted "the work of Friedrich List and Heinrich furtiMain-Mannheim-Basel (with a branch to Mu Harkort." Rather, what must be conceptually developed is nich via Stuttgart, VIm, and Augsburg). the fundamental structure of a European rail network based 2. Hamburg - Hanover - Gottingen - Fulda -Wiir on the existing structure of human settlement and planned zburg-Nuremberg (with a branch through Regens economic activities. A larger plan is necessary, which pro burg to Passau)-Munich. vides an orientation and unifies through that. This task must 3. Rostock-Berlin-Leipzig (or Berlin-Dresden). be feasible, since Europeis today significantly less fragment ed than the "crazy quilt" of small German states in the time The presentation of the rail network in "Intercity Sys of Friedrich List (1789-1846). tem 2000," documents how strongly the national railway Additionally, the development in Eastern Europe makes is conceived to be in the north-south direction. it necessary to fundamentally rethink all existing concepts Before 1945, the most important trafficarteries in Ger on the basis of the central Paris-Berlin-Vienna development many ran in the east-west direction: triangle. Each of the vertices of the Paris-Berlin-Vienna tri angle is itself a center from which traffic networks will radi 1. FrankfurtiOder-Berlin-Hamburg. ate, or fromwhich, before World War II, theyused to radiate. 2. Berlin-Hanover-Cologne. From Paris, the TGV high-speed network, now under con- 3. Dresden-Leipzig-Kassel-Cologne. EIR September 14, 1990 Science & Technology 15 FIGURE 1 Germany'smain rail lines before 1945 (left) and after 1945 (right). showing the shiftfrom an east-west to north-south orientation. In the newEuropean Productive Triangle. the east-west lines will have to be restored. 4. Berlin-Leipzig-Erfurt-Fulda-Frankfurt/Main. the East German national railroad alone. 5. Berlin-Leipzig-Regensburg-Munich. High-speed transportation Naturally, these former arterials will be rebuilt, within Although the discussion of the future of the railroad has the framework of a European system. Of particular impor concentrated increasingly in recent years on "high-speed tance is the reactivation of the connection between the two trains," it is hardlyrecognized what a radical transformation centers Berlin and Frankfurt (with stopovers in Leipzig this technology will entail. Withthis high-speedtechnology, Halle and Erfurt/Weimar, with Fulda as the transfer station there will no longer be "trains" in thesense we now think of for the new ICE [West Germany's Inter-City Express] them, i.e., a unit consisting of a powerful and expensive route from Hanover to Wtirzburg).In a reunifiedGermany, locomotiveand many passive tollingand relatively inexpen Berlin and Frankfurt should not be more than two hours sive cars.Merely a glance at theexisting plansfor high-speed apart, making possible daily �usiness trips on the express. trains showsthat they are becoming shorter and shorterwith In the European framework, where likewise the construc increasingvelocity, and the entire traincan takeon approxi tion of north-south connections dominates, efficient east mately as many passengers as a,high-capacity airplane. Also, west connections must also be constructed .... for operational and safety reasons, the cars of high-speed The new high-speed network will be 12,080 km long, trains are no longer interchangeable; a "total train concept" and requires investment and operational costs of DM 265 is now discussed. Efficient drive and braking systems as billion. In addition to these expenditures, the costs for well as lightweight construction and interior furnishings are reorganizing the railways in the East European countries reducing thegreat cost differential between car andlocomo must be added in; they are estimated at DM 100 billion for tive typical of traditional trains. 16 Science & Technology ElK September 14, 1990 The economic quality of the technology sensible and competitive system. The mere fact that compo To understand the technological and economic develop nents are increasingly being suggested for the wheel-track ment that are involved here, we must recall how it came system that aretypical of electromagneticdrive systems must about that

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