Railways in Cattala

The rail transport system in Cattala consists of 2,957 km of railway lines, of which 65% is electrified. Most traffic is passenger trains, although there is considerable freight goods traffic between Jennai and the ports of Calora and Celeste.

The railway network and a majority of passenger trains are operated by Cattala Rail,its subsidiaries and its private affiliates. Goods transport is performed by competing railway companies, including DB Schenker.

Cattala is a member of the International Union of Railways (UIC). The UIC Country Code for Cattala is 77.

Railways
Cattala Rail is in charge of all 2,957km of rail way lines in the country, as there are no private railways in operation in Cattala. All are of standard gauge; narrow gauge lines disappeared during the post-war reconstruction of the railways.

Cattala has three types of railway lines, as distinguished in the 1990 restructuring. The main urban to urban route that makes up the InterCity network connects Jennai, Calora and Celeste in a triangular basin home to more than 50% of the island's population. Trains on this line can travel at a maximum of 200 km/h, compared to speed limits of 160km/h on most other lines.

Future projects


The government announced in its March 2011 Railway Review its plans to develop the Cattalian rail network over the coming ten years. Included in the policy were future train tender plans and programmes for modernisation throughout the country.

By 2018, all of the railways will be electrified, including all minor branch lines. The Ministry of Transport announced a general £90 million of extra investment for maintenance upgrades and efficiency programmes up to 2016. All rural lines will be safeguarded and the government committed to an increase in services and more improvements to services over the next five years, up to 2016.

A further three trains for the Albert Line were ordered, all of which will be introduced to service in August 2013. They will be used to relieve capacity on longer distance services from Albert Hall to Jennai. It was also announced that a tender process for the next generation of InterCity trains would begin in 2012. A $540 million contract was agreed in February 2013 with CarterRAIL, which can be seen in the InterCity section.

High Speed Rail
Plans for 300 km/h high speed railway in Cattala have been afoot since Italy began building its dedicated network in the 1970s. Currently only the Intercity lines qualify as classic high speed lines, but no lines qualify as modern high speed routes.

In 2011, the government announced that planning for a dedicated High Speed connection between Jennai and Calora, separate from the InterCity line, would begin in 2015 and the possibility of a further bridge extension to Sicily, thereby connecting Cattala to the European High Speed network, would be studied after 2016.

Pendolino Network


Northern and Eastern Cattala have not benefited from advancements in train speeds and technology since the restructuring of the railways in 1990. Whilst the urbanised south-east now has 200 km/h Intercity trains, the north and east still has non-electric stretches of track and relies on diesel powered trains that are more expensive to run and maintain.

In the 2011 Railway Review the Ministry of Transport announced plans to create an entirely new railway network linking the Intercity lines in Jennai and Calora to the north and north-eastern towns of Seina, Almae and Cape Point. The new division, to be called Pendolino, will utilise high-speed tilting trains to provide quick intercity services to the north and east of Cattala, bypassing the slower commuter services on the Lessito Link and the long-distance Southern services. It will mean that all of Cattala's major towns will be within one hour of Jennai by train.

Phase one of the project, known as Pendolino 1, will be built between 2014 and 2018 and will link an upgraded line from Jennai Harbour with Almae and Cape Point. A new terminal station will be constructed in Tyrhus, providing a direct connection between the Pendolino network and the Intercity network, and overground services between Jennai Victoria and Jennai Harbour for the first time. Journey times between Cape Point and Jennai will be reduced from 1 hour 35 minutes to under 1 hour.

Phase two will begin construction in 2020, after the completion of phase one. Pendolino 2 will be an upgrade of the existing Northern Railway, with an additional double track built alongside existing lines between Tamer Junction in Calora, Seina and the Rosebrenne Junction with Pendolino 1 and Lessito Link lines. Construction is due to be completed by 2029.

Calora Central, Almae and Cape Point stations will all have additional platforms constructed to serve the new high speed trains whilst an expanded non-terminus northern concourse for Seina Station will open in 2028. The station was only finished in 2007 and is already being added to again.

Both projects have been highly criticised by commuters and rail analysts alike. Travellers on the Northern Railway, InterCity, Transmonte Eastern, Southern and Lessito Link lines will all be affected during construction of the expensive project. Rail groups have accused the government of wasting money on expanding fast services and not protecting or improving stopping services, and groups working with customers of the Southern and Lessito Link routes have condemned the government for affecting their journeys without them getting any of the benefits.

The Ministry of Transport has responded to these criticisms by arguing that increasing rail services between the major cities and north-eastern towns can only be a good thing for the local economies, that Tyrhus will benefit significantly from becoming a railway hub and passengers using affected routes will eventually benefit as congestion will fall and stopping services will increase when trains currently used for fast routes are relocated to other lines.

Albert Line


The Albert Line (ABTL) is a former branch line between the southern Amosseri town of Albert Hall and the city of Celeste that was upgraded in 1995 into a secondary main line. It is the only national railway that starts and ends in Amosseri province, serving villages around the Bay of Celeste and the south-western suburbs of Celeste.

First constructed in the war by prisoners of the German occupying forces to serve a supply port, the line was heavily bombed by the Allied invasion forces in 1943. It was reconstructed in 1956 by Ferrovie Cattala as a minor rail route serving the south west of Amosseri. The line saw limited usage despite growing suburbanisation, and the western part of the line to Faulea was abandoned in 1971, making Albert Hall the terminus as well as the central station along the route. Passenger numbers have risen steadily since the 1980s and recent investment in new trains and more frequent services to Celeste, and now Jennai, have further increased this.

Albert Trains operates one of the newest fleet of trains in the country, with 12 Electrostar delivered from from Bombardier Transportation and put into service between 2011 and 2013. The final three trains will be introduced to service in August 2013. All of the trains operate at 130 km/h on the Albert Line, and after the introduction of a Jennai service in January 2012, the speed increases to 160 km/h along the InterCity South Coast stretch. The line is two track only until it joins Alder Court, where it extends to four tracks heading into Celeste Central.

InterCity Rail


The InterCity Rail franchise began in 1990 and is today a total length of 598km of upgraded high-speed rail between Calora, Jennai and Celeste. The line is the fastest in Cattala at 200 km/h and is also the most congested and most expensive to travel on.

In 1988, Cattala Rail decided to combine its urban routes into one comprehensive city-to-city network that would enable for easier travel between all three major cities, their suburbs and key interchanges. It was announced that the West Coast Main Line, Transmonte Express and part of the South Coast Main Line would be unified to form an InterCity line between Calora, Celeste and Jennai. In January 1990, the rebranded line officially opened and the first nine new Rapido 1 trainsets joined the current low-speed fleet, which were transferred to stopping services. After the privatisation of British Rail in 1994, a further six Rapido 1 trains were bought in to Cattala from BREL.

The InterCity franchise is split into six main divisions. Between Celeste and Jennai, Damego is the main stop. Between Jennai and Calora, either Celeste or Elloria act as main stops and between Celeste and Calora, Vittoria is the main stop. All services on the InterCity line are from the designated Jennai Victoria station. Monday to Saturday routes, with frequencies in off-peak trains per hour, are below. There is a marked difference in regular service between peak and off-peak hours; Celeste Central can see up to 40 trains per hour in weekday peaks, whilst it serves as few as 10 on Saturday afternoons.

Branch lines that also form part of the InterCity network include the Southport Line from Southport, Jennai, to Jennai Victoria and Celeste. This route was once an independent line but it was absorbed into the InterCity franchise in 1990.

InterCity currently uses 20-year-old Rapido 1 trains bought in from British Rail, but there are plans to introduce new high speed trains to the line by 2020. In February 2013, it was announced that a $540 million contract had been signed with CarterRAIL to produce 70 new Rapido II trainsets based on the Velaro T tilting train, with the first trains coming into service in 2018. Following the announcement, the Ministry of Transport confirmed that it planned to raise the speed limit on the InterCity lines to 250 km/h within ten years. All of the Rapido 1 trains will be moved to the Northern Railway for long-distance routes.

Jennai Metro
The Jennai Metropolitan Railway, formed in 1962, was the centrepiece of the post-war regeneration of the city and its drive to become a regional hub city for industry and finance. Once derelict areas of the city were opened up to redevelopment and urbanisation. The first line to open was the Jennai Victoria to Jennai Harbour route, connecting the two central railway stations.

Jennai Railair


Jennai Airport Station was opened in 1972 and operated railway services between Jennai Victoria and Celeste's central station three times an hour, with 60 minute journey's between both main cities cutting journey times compared to the congested main roads. However the service was underused and passengers complained about the large number of suburban stations stopped at by the trains; Jennai Station was regarded as a "small town station on a slow line" according to a Ministry of Transport inquiry, commissioned in the 1980s to investigate why there was so little usage of the railway service.

In 1990, the railway station was closed for a major upgrade, and a spur was built connecting it to the InterCity line between Celeste and Jennai Victoria. A dedicated connection between two major cities and the airport was made and regular services increased. The station was extended underground, with two platforms and two tracks created to reduce delay and congestion on the line.

By 2005, the station had seen its passenger numbers rise above 7 million from just 1 million a year six years earlier. The station had reached capacity and required a major expansion to limit congestion and encourage more passengers to stop using cars to travel to the airport. The following year the new government announced its intentions to close the station for six months to build a further two railway tracks and an extra platform to resolve the capacity problem. Controversially, the station was closed and a replacement bus service set up to take passengers to the nearby town of Ovarco, which had become the de facto terminus for the services from Jennai International to the city itself. The upgrade meant new 10-car trains could run on the spur and services could for the first time terminate at the airport station.

Upon the opening of the new station, the Managing Director of Jennai Airport announced that the station was being renamed from "Jennai Airport Station" to "Jennai International", and the new terminal routes on platforms 1 and 3 would be referred to as "Jennai Railair" services. This branding was later rolled out across the line. Despite the recent upgrade and expansion of the railway service, there are already proposals to construct a fourth platform above ground to the north of Terminal Two, for dedicated suburban services and potentially direct services to Calora and the North. In 2013, the replacements for the 1982 train sets were delivered. The Hitachi-built British Rail Class 395 trains travel at considerably higher speeds than the older trains, but not at full speed, and cut direct journey times from Jennai to just 8 minutes. Stopping services take up to 26 minutes.

Lessito Link


The Lessito Link (LSTL) forms part of the Cattala Rail short-distance network, operating suburban services from Jennai Harbour to Almae. It is classified as a feeder line, as it connects directly to the InterCity, Jennai Metropolitan, Southern, Transmonte and Northern Railway main lines.

Lessito Link services terminate at Jennai Harbour in the central concourse, on platforms 8 and 9 exclusively and alongside Southern services on platforms 10 and 11. They terminate at Almae station's southern concourse, on platforms 4,5 and 6.

A fleet of Juniper trains operate on all Lessito Link services. The three-coach services are amongst the slowest in Cattala, with a top speed of 145 km/h, but do not need to go faster due to the frequency of the stops on most services and the short distance of the overall journey. They operate on 25 kV 50 Hz AC overhead cables from Jennai to Almae, and cannot operate further than Almae until at least 2018 when electrification of eastern Lessito's railways is due to be completed. There are currently no plans to extend the Lessito Link beyond Almae.

Construction of the first Pendolino Line will commence in 2014 alongside the Lessito Link, between Jennai Harbour and Cape Point. Users of the railway have criticised the construction plans, which will mean at least four years of interrupted services along the route. No stations in the Lessito Link will be served by the new 250 km/h railway as there will be no additional stopping trains on the line.

Northern Railway


The Northern Railway (NTNR) is the main railway line in the north of Cattala, connecting Calora, Seina, Almae and Cape Point. Crossing Fieranti, Monte Calida and Lessito provinces, it is the longest railway line in the country and is classed as a classic high speed line along some straight sections between Calora and Seina.

The line was first developed as a private rival to the South Coast Main Line, which connected Celeste, Jennai and Almae. It was built by the Northern Rail Company in 1903 and cut journey times between Calora and the main towns of the east dramatically, as well as providing a better connection to Jennai via Seina. The Northern Rail Company also built a brand new rail terminus in Seina in 1907, to deal with extra passenger numbers in the city.

During the First World War, significant numbers of troops were shipped to various military ports using the Northern Railway. This happened again in the Second World War, when the line became a key battleground between guerilla fighters and the occupying fascist forces. Sporadic gun fights, the bombing of supply trains and even assaults on fascist-occupied railway villages were commonplace between 1940 and 1943, until the anti-fascists seized the railway line during the German-Italian retreat after Allied invasions in the south of the island. It was the only line captured by the resistance before the Axis powers could destroy it.

After many decades of steam-driven services, diesel trains were introduced along the line in 1970. The combined Seina terminals for both the Northern Railway and TransMonte routes reached capacity in 1988, and plans began for a new larger station. In 1997, it was proposed that a large three-way station be constructed - one, a non-terminus section with four platforms serving direct services between Calora and the Cape, one acting as the terminal for Transmonte Eastern services and a larger terminal for Northern Railway trains serving both eastbound and westbound routes. Seina Station was completed in 2007, with four non-terminus platforms and six terminus platforms operated by Northern Railway.

The Northern Railway uses Meridian trainsets, developed by Bombardier. Due to the lack of electrification between Almae and Cape Point, a diesel powered train was needed when the tender was put out in 2001. They are the fastest diesel trains in operation in Cattala, and can match the speed of the InterCity services along straights, around 200 km/h.

After 2021, the five-car sets will be accompanied by Rapido 1 trains that are being replaced on the InterCity routes. It is hoped that the refurbished Rapido 1's will be used on long-distance routes connecting Calora to Cape Point non-stop. They will be the longest services in the history of Cattalian rail travel and will ensure that the Meridian trains can increase frequency on shorter routes between Calora, Seina, Almae and Cape Point. Because the Rapido 1's are powered electrically only, the electrification of the Almae to Cape Point section of the railway will be required before services can commence. This is scheduled for completion in 2018, three years before the Rapido 1's begin active service on the route.

South Coast Main Line


The South Coast Main Line (SCML) is the central railway line in the south-east of Cattala, serving eastern Jennai, Santa Cecilia and much of Lessito province. It connects Jennai and the Intercity network with the island of Ontano and the towns and villages of southern and coastal Lessito. Railway services on this line are branded as Southern.

The oldest railway line still in operation, the South Coast Main Line was first built in 1858 by the Cattalian Railway Commission. The railway extended from Celeste to Jennai by 1860 and construction ended in 1871 with the completion of the Almae terminal. The complete route would, if still in operation today, be the longest railway line in the country. Villages across southern Lessito were for the first time connected to two of the major cities in the west but the line was initially most successful because of freight traffic. Harvests from the agricultural breadbasket of Cattala were now shipped to the cities within a day of being grown, and train after train of food was bought down the South Coast Main Line for many decades after its creation.

Passenger numbers rose significantly after better services were introduced by the Southern Railway Company in 1912 after the government sold off the railway. Construction of a new terminal in Jennai Harbour began in 1913 but was delayed during the First World War and the Cattalian Revolution. It was finally opened in 1923 by King Charles III. The disjointed nature of railway creation meant that the South Coast Main Line actually stopped in Jennai, with the eastern stretch ending in the new Harbour station and the western stretch terminating at Jennai Victoria. During the Second World War, the line was almost decimated by Allied bombing during the invasion of the southern coast, in an effort to stop Axis forces from escaping with heavy weaponry and tanks.

After the nationalisation of the railways, the South Coast Main Line was reconstructed and regular services to towns and villages in eastern and southern Cattala were restored. The restructuring of the railways in 1990 led to a significant upgrade in service along the underinvested line, which still used steam trains until the 1970s. The western line between Jennai Victoria and Celeste was transferred to the new InterCity brand, whilst the South Coast Main Line services became known as Southern, despite going as far north as Almae.

Southern services operate from Jennai Harbour's eastern concourse, where it has five exclusive platforms and two shared platforms with the Lessito Link services. The South Coast Main Line use Electrostar sets built by Bombardier Transportation in the UK. They operate a dual voltage system and utilise an overhead pantograph along the route as far north as Almae, where long-distance services that go to Cape Point change to third rail. After electrification is complete in 2018, the route will be entirely overhead powered.

Transmonte Eastern


The Transmonte Mainline (TMML) is the major railway route between Jennai and Seina, that traverses the eastern borders of Monte Calida province, hence its name as the eastern side of the former Transmonte route. It serves towns and villages between Jennai Harbour Station and the capital of Monte Calida, including the towns of Confini and Cressa. It is the shortest main line in the country.

The line was built in the 1870s during railway expansion northwards. The mountainous region of Monte Calida had proven problematic for transport for centuries, with inadequate mountain roads the only form of travel to the towns and villages of the north. A rail link towards the Hellenic islands and Italy was also needed to improve trade with the European mainland. The Jennai - Calora line, built in 1859, opened up the southern plateaus of Monte Calida to rail travel but the north remained poorly connected to the south. The Central Main Line was built by British construction companies and opened in 1878. Within a decade, trade between Jennai and Seina had quadrupled and the northern town became a key freight terminal, despite the Italian occupation beginning just three years after the line opened.

During World War Two, the line was used predominantly to ship military goods from Italy to the south coast. The track was repeatedly bombed by the resistance movement and after the war, was unusable for any form of transport until it was rebuilt in 1954. Under the new state-owned national rail company, it became part of the TransMonte network, which included the Jennai - Calora line. Passenger numbers continued to rise annually as the railway became more popular; by 1989, it was the only major railway line not directly rivalled by a major arterial road.

In early drafts of the Railways Bill, which would be released in 1990, Ferrovie Cattala planned to separate the TransMonte network into two, with the Jennai - Calora line becoming the Transmonte Western, and the Jennai - Seina line becoming the Transmonte Eastern. Rebranding of the lines began in earnest, to prevent passenger confusion when the bill was approved. However, it soon became clear that the intercity lines would form one central network in a grander proposal that made it into the final bill. Despite the branding already having been put on display for passengers, the Transmonte Eastern was to be the only Transmonte railway line. However, when Cattala Rail took over management of the rail network they decided not to alter the branding back, and to this day it remains the Eastern line.

In 2006, the new northern terminus for the Transmonte Eastern routes opened, with the combined Seina Station serving both Transmonte and Northern Railway services. Transmonte Eastern operates four terminus platforms at the station's southern concourse. In Jennai Harbour station, Transmonte Eastern operates from five western platforms.

Cattala Rail's Transmonte Eastern division use a British Rail Class 444 trainset, purchased in a joint order alongside Britain's South West Trains from Siemens AG. Transmonte Eastern is the only main line service not operating Bombardier-developed trains because of its partnership with Stagecoach Group. Some Class 444s have also been used on the Lessito Link in the past.

Much of the line is relatively high-speed, with large stretches cleared for 160 km/h running. The Jennai end of the line has eight tracks, but this narrows to four after the South Coast Main Line branches off. After Confini station, the rest of the line is two tracks only.