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Showing posts from December, 2019

Macau, Linha da Taipa

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Breaking News! I declare hereby that linha da Taipa (Portuguese for "line of Taipa") in Macau  is now in service on  the  10th December ! The official route map. This is the first line in the  Light Rapid Transit project  to open, run b y  fully automated rubber-tyred 2 car trains provided by Mitsubishi. It is evident from this picture that the trains are driverless. I'm so much obliged to have the honour to mark the line on the list. *For those who might be wondering why the line and the stations are named in Portuguese, Macau had been a former colony of the Portuguese Empire before it was transferred back to China in 1999. Portuguese remains one of the city's official languages.

Shenzhen M9'

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Breaking News! I declare hereby that line 9 phase II in Shenzhen  is now in service on  the 8th December ! Latest section of the network marked in the map. Once again a great example exhibiting its principle "intersecting but no interchange"... A very brief overview inside all the new stations. I'm so much obliged to have the honour to mark the line on the list.

Weekly report 50

In the 50th  issue of our (irregularly updated) weekly report, we proudly present you with the following news: Chengdu : The first city ever to have made into three consecutive issues of our series, and this time it's for the Rong 2 tram. The current system with 12 stations and no connection to other lines will be expanded to a Y-shaped branched line and knotted to the hub of west Chengdu, the West Railway Station, by the opening of the later section, and such to be installed as the main transportation of the northwestern suburban commuters.             To summarise: Line 5, line 10 phase II, Rong 2 tram later section for this year. Shenzhen : Besides being the longest line to be born in this city with a stunning length just slightly under 50 km, line 6, with its tracks fully on track now, will complement line 11 by forming conjunctively the outer peripheral vessel of the city upon its opening next year. Shijiazhuang : The first metro line ever to appear in Heibei Province,

Excursus: ART, Yibin

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On the 5th December , a middle-sized city situated in Sichuan, Yibin, celebrated the inauguration of the city's first urban rail line branded as ART or  Autonomous Rail Rapid Transit ( Wikipedia ),  China's take on the next generation transportation system.  Ever since the completion of the prototype in 2017 and the subsequent construction of a trial line in the very city it was born —— Zhuzhou to be exact —— the project aims to serve as an exemplar to alleviate traffic congestions within a city with a population of roughly 4.5 million. Free trial service had commenced as early as June this year and successfully attracted considerable amounts of passengers. Imagine trolling thorough the city riding one of these "trains". Brief route map. The shadowed areas represent major hubs or residential/financial centres. The ART line, currently operated as T1 and its branch line, starts at the High Speed Railway station on the west, heads straight to t