malta had a railway till 1930s but was abandoned and parts of it built
over when busses were introduced. Today

busses are being caught in rush hour traffic. often one dreams of
having a small urban railway like those in mainland europe.

how difficult would it be to implement a railway/subway into an
existing built up island city like malta?
the area involved is roughly the size of London. Ideally it would be
hidden underground but for practical reasons the project would have to
be done in 3/4 years - could a surface rail system be done in this
amount of time (& how long would an underground take)?

how much do you think it would cost for the track & trains & stations?


also , how much of the area already reached by bus service would you
try to include in the rail service?since the train is bound to pass
near homes is there technology today to keep the inconvenience of noise
to compareable level of road traffic?

thanks
Simon

in case you are not familiar with malta layout,i have provided some
links to background info

http://www.sealairyachts.com/images/maps/malta2.gif
http://www.maltarailway.com/
http://website.lineone.net/~edwardsr/mtrailalb.html
http://ispl.nextgen.net.mt/other/mal...s_in_malta.asp

) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were
saying :

how difficult would it be to implement a railway/subway into an
existing built up island city like malta?
the area involved is roughly the size of London. Ideally it would be
hidden underground but for practical reasons the project would have to
be done in 3/4 years - could a surface rail system be done in this
amount of time (& how long would an underground take)?

I suspect you want to be asking the Greeks about their experiences with the
Athens Metro.

"Adrian" wrote in message
. 244.170...
) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were
saying :

how difficult would it be to implement a railway/subway into an
existing built up island city like malta?
the area involved is roughly the size of London. Ideally it would be
hidden underground but for practical reasons the project would have to
be done in 3/4 years - could a surface rail system be done in this
amount of time (& how long would an underground take)?

I suspect you want to be asking the Greeks about their experiences with
the
Athens Metro.
I would be inclined to look at the example of Mallorca, which has recently
upgraded their network. There was an article in a recent magazine (Today's
Railways?) about it.
Brian

BH Williams wrote:
I would be inclined to look at the example of Mallorca, which has recently
upgraded their network. There was an article in a recent magazine (Today's
Railways?) about it.

The network isn't particularly expansive, is it?

----------
From:
Newsgroups: uk.railway,uk.transport.london
Subject: how expensive would it be to create a Malta urban railway?
Date: Sat, Oct 8, 2005, 11:16 AM




malta had a railway till 1930s but was abandoned and parts of it built over
when busses were introduced. Today busses are being caught in rush hour
traffic. often one dreams of having a small urban railway like those in
mainland europe.

how difficult would it be to implement a railway/subway into an existing built
up island city like malta? the area involved is roughly the size of London.
Ideally it would be hidden underground but for practical reasons the project
would have to be done in 3/4 years - could a surface rail system be done in
this amount of time (& how long would an underground take)?

how much do you think it would cost for the track & trains & stations?


also , how much of the area already reached by bus service would you try to
include in the rail service?since the train is bound to pass near homes is
there technology today to keep the inconvenience of noise to compareable level
of road traffic?

thanks Simon

in case you are not familiar with malta layout,i have provided some links to
background info

http://www.sealairyachts.com/images/maps/malta2.gif
http://www.maltarailway.com/
http://website.lineone.net/~edwardsr/mtrailalb.html
http://ispl.nextgen.net.mt/other/mal...s_in_malta.asp





What routes were you thinking of?

Would a link to Gozo be a part of it?


Another site:

http://www.loveplums.co.uk/Tube/Malta1.html

"BH Williams" wrote:
Possibly even more apposite is the recently upgraded system on Mallorca

something like this would be a good start.
http://www.urbanrail.net/eu/plm/palma.htm


subterraneo wrote:
What routes were you thinking of?
Would a link to Gozo be a part of it?


Harbour Line (Valletta,Marsa,Cospicua,Zabbar,Marsascala)
Old Line (Valletta,hamrun,Bkara,Qormi,Attard,Zebbug,Rabat,M dina)
University Line (Msida,University,Hospital, Birkirkara,Mosta )
Sliema Line (Valletta,Sliema, St Julians)

i dont know if it would be cost effective to include the far
nothern/southern (20 km away) tips of the island. apart from certain
holidays they are not badly affected by traffic at all.


are running/maintenance costs mainly linked to distance or number of
stops?


i think connecting gozo would be comparable in complexity to the
channel tunnel.


So far these are what will be needed so far


trains 4 short trains (3 cars) x 2 for both directions + 4 backup
trains
laying track 100km x both directions
leveling ground 50km
spanning bridges 2km
tunnels 10km
1 train yard
1 train HQ
20 stations


any guesstimates on how much this will cost?

wrote:
malta had a railway till 1930s but was abandoned and parts of it
built over when busses were introduced. Today

busses are being caught in rush hour traffic. often one dreams of
having a small urban railway like those in mainland europe.

how difficult would it be to implement a railway/subway into an
existing built up island city like malta?
the area involved is roughly the size of London.

But with a population of about 400,000. I was amazed to learn that the
population of Valletta is only 7000. Presumably that's only the central
part of the city. What's the population of "Greater Valletta", i.e.
Valletta and suburbs?
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

Richard J. wrote:

But with a population of about 400,000. I was amazed to learn that the
population of Valletta is only 7000.

thats the residential population which is in decline.

each weekday morning thousands of office workers and salespeople
'migrate' to this city, creating traffic jams and parking problems.

wrote:
Richard J. wrote:

But with a population of about 400,000. I was amazed to learn
that the population of Valletta is only 7000.

thats the residential population which is in decline.

each weekday morning thousands of office workers and salespeople
'migrate' to this city, creating traffic jams and parking problems.

Yes, which is why I asked for the population of the catchment area, to
give some idea of the scale of demand for your solution.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

In message , Richard
J. writes

Yes, which is why I asked for the population of the catchment area, to
give some idea of the scale of demand for your solution.

My rather old "Guinness Book of Answers" gives a 1985 population of
213,600 for the Valetta conurbation.

--
Paul Terry