Fyra

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Logo of the Fyra
High-speed lines HSL Zuid and HSL 4

Fyra was a short-lived brand of the Dutch High Speed ​​Alliance - a cooperation between the Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS) and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines - for rail connections on the high-speed lines HSL Zuid in the Netherlands and HSL 4 in Belgium.

The brand was presented in July 2009, along with a prototype of the AnsaldoBreda V250 high-speed train , which was ordered in 2004 for use on the new line. As long as the high-speed train was not operational, the Fyra brand was used for locomotive-hauled trains that ran within the Netherlands via HSL Zuid from September 2009. The domestic connection to Belgium was not expanded until the end of 2012 together with the Belgian NMBS / SNCB .

On December 9, 2012, the high-speed service operated with the V250 trains under the Fyra brand began between the cities of Amsterdam , Rotterdam , Antwerp and Brussels . Due to persistent problems with the V250 trains in use, operations were stopped again on January 18, 2013. With the timetable change in December 2013, the name Fyra was given up due to the meanwhile negative image and the domestic Fyra replacement service has since been marketed under the name Intercity Direct . The trains to Brussels are offered on the market as Intercity Brussel .

designation

Fyra is a made-up word created by the same naming agency as the term Thalys . The name was chosen because it is short and easy to pronounce internationally. It should evoke associations with “pride” and “self-confidence” in Dutch and French speakers (Dutch: fierheid , self-confidence; Netherlandish and French: fier , proud). In addition, fyra is the Swedish word for four , which has been associated with the four major cities the train was supposed to travel between: Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Antwerp and Brussels.

Line network

Planned connections for HSL Zuid, both Thalys (light red) and Fyra (other colors)

The heart of the Fyra network was the high-speed line from Schiphol to Antwerp . The Amsterdam Central Station was connected via a Altstrecke with its northern end at Schiphol. The railway stations of Schiphol, Rotterdam and Antwerp are on the high-speed line . From Antwerp route 25 leads to Bruxelles-Midi / Brussel-Zuid station .

Although the high-speed line passes The Hague , its main station should be connected to the network via the Den Haag - Rotterdam - Breda - Antwerp - Brussels-Midi line. The train station in Breda is also not directly on the route, but in the immediate vicinity, which is why the city had a connection to the Fyra. No stop in Breda was planned for direct trains between Amsterdam and Brussels.

With the commissioning of the AnsaldoBreda V250 vehicles, the following lines should be used according to the original - and since 2013, obsolete - planning:

  • Amsterdam - Schiphol - Rotterdam (every half hour, with the trains Amsterdam - Breda every 15 minutes)
  • Amsterdam - Schiphol - Rotterdam - Breda (every half hour)
  • Amsterdam - Schiphol - Rotterdam - Antwerp - Bruxelles-Midi / Brussel-Zuid (every hour)
  • The Hague - Rotterdam - Breda - Noorderkempen / Brecht - Antwerp - Mechelen - Bruxelles-Central / Brussel-Centraal - Bruxelles-Midi / Brussel-Zuid (every two hours)
A train of the lead or replacement operation

business

As long as the high-speed train was not operational, the Fyra brand was used for locomotive-hauled trains that ran within the Netherlands via HSL Zuid. Initially, since September 2009, Fyra trains with Traxx locomotives and “classic” Intercity cars have been running every hour between Amsterdam and Rotterdam with a stop in Schiphol. This offer has been gradually expanded to a half-hourly service between Amsterdam and Breda via Rotterdam.

At the timetable change on December 9, 2012, the Fyra connection from Amsterdam to Brussels was put into operation with the V250, initially with 10 (of 16 planned) round trips. This replaced the “classic” Benelux Intercity over the old routes. At the same time, the domestic trains from Amsterdam to Breda continued with locomotive-hauled trains. In addition, the Thalys continued to run nine times a day from Amsterdam to Paris . In Belgium there was also an hourly shuttle service on the new HSL 4 line between the Antwerpen-Centraal train stations and the Noorderkempen train station via Antwerpen-Luchtbal . With the start of the offer, the travel time between Amsterdam and Brussels was reduced by one hour.

When the V250 vehicles began to be used in December 2012, there were frequent delays and failures. After 85% of the connections had failed on January 17, 2013 and three Fyra trains had to be taken out of service because they had technical problems with ice on the rails, the Belgian railway safety authority DVIS prohibited all commercial journeys with the V250 with immediate effect. Trains in Belgium.

As a result, from mid-January 2013 to the end of 2013, the Fyra timetable was limited to the domestic connection every half hour between Amsterdam, Schiphol, Rotterdam and Breda. After the Belgian and Dutch railway companies subsequently revoked their train orders, operations with V250 vehicles were not resumed. As of the timetable change in December 2013, the Fyra brand was no longer used. The cross-border intercity connections offered are now offered as Intercity Brussels (as of 2015).

vehicles

An AnsaldoBreda V250 in action as Fyra

The NS had ordered 16 trains with the designation V250 from AnsaldoBreda , the NMBS three more. The trains consist of eight cars and the maximum speed is 250 km / h. As described above, the vehicles used were withdrawn from traffic after a short period of time. In spring 2014, the trains delivered to NS were returned to the manufacturer for a refund of € 125 million. In 2014, the manufacturer agreed to terminate the purchase agreement with the Belgian railways, whose three trains had not been delivered.

Trains hauled by a locomotive

As long as the V250 trains were not available, the domestic connection from Amsterdam to Breda was served by locomotive-hauled trains from September 2009. For this purpose twelve TRAXX multi-system locomotives were rented from Alpha Trains . NS passenger coaches of the class ICRm were converted as wagons . The trains ran at 160 km / h. Since spring 2011, these trains have also been able to operate with ETCS Level 2 , which is used on the high-speed line to enable the high-speed trains running there to operate at over 200 km / h.

The following Intercity Direct train service is again operated with TRAXX locomotives of the type F140 MS , of which the NS purchased an additional 19 units in 2014.

Work-up

In December 2013, the second chamber of the Dutch parliament set up a five-member commission to investigate what was going on. On October 28, 2015, the final report was presented under the title De Reiziger in de kou (“The traveler in the cold”). The report comes to the conclusion that the parties involved pursued their own interests instead of a functioning overall system. Among other things, the allocation of the V250 trains was not carried out properly. In addition to the delivery delays, it was decided to use the trains without sufficient operational testing. Over a billion euros in tax money were wasted. The operator consortium of NS and KLM incurred losses of 790 million euros, the NS had escaped bookings amounting to 703 million euros. As a result of the report, Infrastructure Minister Wilma Mansveld resigned.

Web links

Commons : Fyra  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Gernot Zielonka: Fyra - high-speed network from KLM and NS Hispeed. (No longer available online.) In: dmm.travel. The Mobility Manager, July 8, 2009, archived from the original on August 12, 2014 ; accessed on August 11, 2014 .
  2. ^ Fyra brand for Amsterdam - Brussels high speed. Railway Gazette, July 7, 2009, accessed August 11, 2014 .
  3. ↑ eurailpress.de - Netherlands: Fyra becomes “Intercity Direct” November 15, 2013
  4. ^ A b Intercity Brussels , NS International
  5. ↑ Fyra - het Pittige zusje van de Thalys . (German: "Fyra - the lively little sister of Thalys"), Globrands naming & strategy agency, Amsterdam
  6. ↑ a b What′s in a name? , Time to B (PDF; 7.2 MB), NBMS customer magazine (Dutch), issue December 17, 2012, page 26
  7. ^ Peter Badcock: Dutch wait for HSL South to bloom . In: International Railway Journal, Volume 49, Issue 2, February 2009, ISSN  0744-5326 , pp. 16-19.
  8. ↑ Brussels – Amsterdam at 250 km / h . In: mobile . September 2009, ISSN  0949-586X , p. 61 .
  9. ↑ Geen Fyra tussen Amsterdam en Brussels for winterweer. In: treinreiziger.nl. January 17, 2013, accessed March 14, 2013 (Dutch).
  10. ↑ VRT : That too! Driving ban for Fyra. In: deredactie.be. January 19, 2013, accessed March 14, 2013 .
  11. ↑ Michael Stabenow: Fyra breakdown train. A bullet train on the siding. FAZ.net, June 3, 2013, accessed on July 24, 2013 ("Now the Fyra breakdown train is apparently finally about to end.").
  12. ↑ Quintus Vosman: Amsterdam - Brussels: life after Fyra. In: IRJ - International Railway Journal. Simmons-Boardman Publishing, January 7, 2014, accessed January 28, 2016 .
  13. ↑ NS stuurt Fyra terug naar Italië en krijgt 125 miljoen. de Volkskrant , March 17, 2014, accessed August 11, 2014 (Dutch).
  14. ^ The Belgian Railways NMBS / SNCB, AnsaldoBreda and Finmeccanica conclude V250 case. May 5, 2014, accessed August 11, 2014 .
  15. ↑ What about the traffic on the HSL Zuid? In: Eisenbahn-Revue International . No. 5 , 2010, ISSN  1421-2811 , p. 226 f .
  16. ^ Fyra launch delayed again. In: railwaygazette.com. July 1, 2010, accessed March 14, 2013 .
  17. ↑ Fyra shuttles run through to Breda. In: railwaygazette.com. April 4, 2011, accessed March 14, 2013 .
  18. ↑ English-language Wikipedia: NS Class 186
  19. ↑ Quintus Vosman: NS takes delivery of first Traxx locomotive ( en ) In: IRJ - International Railway Journal . Simmons-Boardman Publishing. August 22, 2014. Retrieved January 28, 2016.
  20. ^ A fiasco all round . In: Railway Gazette International . tape 171 , no. 12 , 2015, ISSN  0373-5346 , p. 23 .