Referendum on the Transrapid planned for 13.Apr.08

Pay attention at the back there!

only 810 euros per centimeter of track? Build two.

Sorry, if I had a Transrapid I could go back and read the old posts and be back in time to enjoy the shock of this revelation.

It is now official, stop-press item:


Prestigious Project Has Failed
Transrapid will not be built
The prestigious project worth several billion Euro has failed: Federal government, Bavarian state government and industry partners have decided not to build the Transrapid route from Munich Central Station to the airport.
This was leaked on Thursday after an emergency conference in the Federal Ministry for Transport in Berlin.
(AP/gba)
more to follow shortly at sueddeutsche.de

I DID give specific examples, the Gatwick or Heathrow options. I am just wary of a new high speed Sbahn being the same clunky carriages with no toilets and nowhere to put luggage. Sbahn trains are not of the required standard to serve an international airport.

Now if they were proposing a redesigned Sbahn that DID have luggage space and toilets then fair enough. But that does not appear to be the case.

why would you need a toilet if the journey is only 20 minutes long?

A quickie?
Pardon my high spirits, but this train would have run about 500m from my front door and bedroom window 12 times an hour.

if, like me, you have just returned from India with dysentery . . .

well, I am kind of glad they have shelved Trasrapid but they had better come up with a viable alternative that is not just another Sbahn pretty quick

So I wasted 55 cents on posting my request for a postal vote?
Can I claim that back in my 2008 tax return?

They have, the Express S-Bahn. 20 minutes from the centre of the city to the airport, with special trains only for that line, i.e. with proper luggage storage and who knows maybe loos for the infirm. The big advantage of the Express S-Bahn is that you can board it from more than one station, which wouldn't have been the case with the Transrapid. The planning for the current S-Bahn was hopeless, using commuter trains for airport work is useless, but that doesn't we have to spend billions on a white elephant.

Donate it to the Express-S-Bahn Cause.

Your tax bill will be less due to the cancellation, you can afford to lose it!

Noooooo! I was looking forward to swish shinny journeys to the airport - and peeping into sarabyrd's bedroom window at 300 kmh. Now it'll be another 6 million years of referendums and planning and discussion and replanning and silly meetings and more discussions and blah blah before we get a decent fast reliable connection with proper luggage facilities to the airport. I actual drove to Zurich a couple of weeks ago because it was quicker than flying. If Beckstein announce the cancelation I hope he also says what they are going to do.

no.

Looks like the transrapid project will be scrapped: http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7415477

While I agree that it would have been a waste of money, at 500m away you wouldn't have noticed it. Stop being such a drama queen!

er, that's still a bloody Sbahn though

and quick

yeah but an S-bahn with different rolling stock. S-bahn just means Schnellbahn. It doesn't dictate what type of rolling stock you must use.

what a shame... who wants an SBahn??? boring. why would someone take an ICE to Munich Hbf and then change onto an SBahn for the airport... (this airport link is not abount munich people getting to the airport but people leaving further away)
my theory: the sudden doubling of the costs seems fishy to me. i wouldn't be surprised if that was Siemens' secret exit strategy.

It's just a name, as far as I know it will use different trains which can be tailored to the airports needs. Anything else and we're back to a non stop direct link to the airport from the Hauptbahnhof, which is as bad as the Trandrapid, only slower.

but presumably still using the same Sbahn tracks with all the likely problems of scheduling that would entail.

wouldnn't it be better with a new dedicated line instead?

So does this mean I shouldn't bother to mail in my gf's vote? was going to do that today...

Have you already purchased the stamp?

It's hardly sudden, the initial estimate was made in 2002, like everything else since then the price has gone up.

No.

This is great news if it's true...but if it's not certain, then I need that vote to count...

The idea is that it leapfrogs the current S-Bahn, in a similar manner as the Mainline trains do on the S1 from Freising. This obviously involves laying some new track to allow the train to overtake. I must admit I have no idea how they do this but it does work on the S1.

This idea was completely crap from the beginning - I simply cannot see why anyone would support it. It would have been fast, but it would only run from Hauptbahnhof. Even though it only takes 10 minutes from there, you have to get there first. An express S-Bahn will stop a couple of times at convenient locations, and then it takes a mere 10 to 15 minutes longer! For most people it would probably even out.

And I don't know what Bell the cat is on about - the S-Bahns are excellent trains. Fit the express S-Bahns out with somewhere to put your luggage and you're sorted. I'm sure it'll come to a lot less than 3 fecking BILLION euros too.

I know it's all looking kind of irrelevant now, but the Transrapid to Hbf wouldn't do anything for people wanting to get to the Messe at Riem for Conventions, as they'll still have a 30 min or so u-bahn out there. If time is an issue the best option would still have been a taxi direct from the Airport to the Messe, and if there's more than one of you and you're sharing cab it will probably be cheaper than the Transrapid too.

MunichMag is right, as are others about Expreß-Bahn proposals. My ultimate? Newly-built high-speed line from Ingolstadt via MUC to Munich. Between the airport and town it could share right-of-way (but not tracks) with existing S-Bahn lines. Then you'd have through-service at 300 km/h from Nürnberg to the airport and Munich. Add that to the proposed Brenner Base Tunnel and the still-coming-along-in-fits-and-starts Berlin-Nürnberg high-speed line and you have a semi-high- to high-speed main line from Berlin to (eventually) Italy, which would intersect almost at 90 degrees with the conceptual Paris-Strasbourg-Stuttgart-Munich-Vienna-Bratislava main line (which already has TGV service from Paris to Munich and beginning in December of this year will have ÖBB RailJet service from Munich to Vienna). Adding that in with fast (Köln-) Frankfurt-Munich service and suddenly Munich becomes the central nexus of the European rail systems.

And yet people still insist that going 400 km/h for 10 minutes to the airport is "visionary". Please: it's peanuts in the big picture.

(At least when the trains have good old-fashioned flanged steel wheels they can run through on the older lines; what's "fast" about transferring where the fancy magnets end?)

Bayern3 radio news is already discussing this as an almost sure-fire project.

well I agree with that. If it could also have a stop at the Messe on the way out towards Austria that would be superb too

Not to sidetrack too far away from this. What were the reasons for the Heathrow Express? Its a 10-15min train ride from Paddington to the airport. For those living a ways east or even in Soho, it makes sense just to take the Picadilly line out. It looks like the Transrapid is similar in nature in that it is really convienent for those looking to go directly where the end terminal is...here Hauptbahnhof.

well I lived far out east and though I prefered City Airport for that reason I would NEVER consider getting the Picadilly line to Heathrow. In the days before the Express I missed a flight to Los Angeles because the indorinately slow Picadilly Line broke down at Turnham Green. The HE was brought in precisely because the Picadilly Line was a disgrace as a transport option for the world's biggest airport.

Fair enough. At least the S-bahn is quite reliable on its own in that aspect.

Why don't they just re-schedule the S1 and S8 lines so that they leave within 10 minutes of each other from the airport, rather than almost leaving at the same time, forcing ppl travelling to the centre to wait ca. 20 minutes for the next S-Bahn?

Because then people traveling to the airport would not have staggered trains. Since presumably they are trying to catch a flight, they should get priority.

Tis official, oder?

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,32191...ger-eng-573-rdf

So people who want to get off the plane and head straight to the strip joints near Hbf.

Seriously, I just don't see how many people would actually use it. People who don't live live near Hbf or have a hotel near there won't get much benefit from the time saving as they'll have to trek into Hbf anyway to connect. I doubt companies would pay for their employees to use it on business trips under normal circumstances, they'd tell them use the much cheaper s-bahn, and as i said before, it doesn't help people going to the Messe. Your average family going on holiday aint going to use it due to the cost. And for companies/individuals where the cost isn't an issue I'd bet most would rather spend the money on a taxi which will take them door to door, especially when you factor in that most would have to take an s/u-bahn to get there anyway. I know I would.

They do already. The S1 leaves the airport at 11, 31, 51 mins past the hour and the S8 at 2, 22, 44 past.

And depending on where you want to go, it's often quicker to not get the one that leaves next, but get the one after.

Example: if you're at the airport at 18:10 and you want to go to Ostbahnhof, it's quicker to skip the S1 that leaves at 18:11 and wait for the S8 at 18:22.

Can we have a limited stop service then please?
Please please please?

Well that's good news. For the first time ever I was all fired up to cast my vote on this issue.

Incidentally, I have nothing to back this up, but I am inclined to believe that this cost increase announcement was carefully engineered by the CSU to give Beckstein a way of getting out of the project whilst saving face. We all know that the CSU and the industry has long been sitting on the real costs in order to keep this thing moving, but finally releasing them was the only way for them to get out of the project before the referendum (which they most certainly were going to lose) without slapping Stoiber in the face.

No! Next thing you'll be telling us that the world is round!
I work around the corner from both the Staatskanzlei and the State of Bavaria government offices and if you listen closely you can hear the champagne corks popping whilst the crocodile tears are still dripping on the floor.

Not sure that's true. At the moment most business people on corporate business use taxis in preference (myself included) so a high speed train would actually be a saving. My employer expects me to use the Heathrow Express in London (gets me in to the office faster) so I don't see why they would feel any different about Munich.

Crikey, you don't work for an American company do you? We're expected to travel the cheapest way possible and if it takes longer then the cheapskate bastards expect us to use our own time.

I totally agree with you. Like Hellesangel, this was the first time I was really fired up to vote on an issue. I've spoke to many other people with the same view. They would have been severely beaten at the polls I reckon. I simply do not personally know one person that is for this stupid idea.

Everyone I know who travels for business has to use the cheapest way possible and that applies to planes, trains and automobiles - whatever is the cheapest. Do you know anyone that travels business class anymore?

Yes.