Welcome to the old editorials page! While the editorial changes most of the time frequently, the old ones still are current articles on todays railways. We will even make some corrections, once things change.   

 From the Editors - Time for Electric Trains  
The overhead wire, after more than a century of use, seems now to be better investment than ever for different rr infrastructure organizations. With fuel prices surging up again after the latest recession several infrastructure managers are either starting to build the wire or considering seriously on buying one.
   
Great Britain where the whole industry started 2 centuries ago has only now realized the potential of electric trains against fuel propelled ones. China is rapidly expanding its electric railway network and building new lines. Russia has expansion projects going on. Even the U.S. is considering on joining the electricity club. Continental Europe? It always was the premium student of the club, and the main attention is on manufacturing enough electric locomotives that can utilize all 4 common electrical overhead wire systems of the main land! This involves use of 4 different pantographs because of different design requirements and electrical systems for 1500V DC, 3000V DC, 15kV 16,7Hz AC and 25kV 50 Hz AC, the last one being the alternative most modern systems are built to use. 
   
Advantages of using electricity:
- Power: current electrical trains use Megawatts of electricity, enabling all kinds of solutions from super high speed trains to truly powerfull freight transports.
- Energy efficiency: AC electrics of today can often feed much of the consumed electricity back when slowing down on "dynamic regenerative braking". Often the savings can be 50% of the power consumed.
- Environmental issues: the electric trains, when well designed, are both silent and cause less pollution than their typical diesel conterparts.
- For the nonelectirified sections you still need another solution like a hybrid electric/diesel EMUs which have debuted in the local and regional traffic.
- 25kV 50Hz has proven its reliability and the rolling stock seems to have a working second hand markets.
- Electrical trains might require a lot less maintenance. 
- Electric trains truly have an incredibly long life span.
      
Disanvantages:
- If there is no electric infrastructure, the cost of getting started can be quite high. However, in countries like Sweden and Finland where distances are great and traffic might be only a few trains per day on some lines even these are electrified, and the cost does NOT seem to be the issue. This is a cultural issue, once you can build the electricity it becomes "business as usual" mode relatively cheap commodity structure.
- If you are running hundreds of diesels, it takes time before they come to the end of their life cycle. However, if you are running diesel electric locomotives, these might be effectively converted to hybrid use, adding electrical equipment might not need too much space on them or add much weight. These hybrids would again provide more time to gradually build the electrical lines.
     
If you would like to share your electric railroading pictures and thoughts with the railfan and railpro community reading 4rail.net, please contact us by the form!
   
- John McKey, November - December 2009 -
   
For railroad related discussions, did you know there is a great forum available at trainorders.com. See for yourself!  
   

 Picture taking Safaris on different cultures - summer 2009  
The summer vacation period is here again and many railfans are travelling on picture taking "safaris" around the railroads. Many of our frequent contributors are also out there enjoying taking railroad pictures while travelling. Some of the newer still cameras also shoot videos, so expect to see these on 4rail.net too. 
 
When taking pictures, it always pays to be polite and careful! You can newer be too careful: just on example from the modern times, It is easy to forget to watch what is behind your back. With the newest super high speed trains in use can travel 100 meters (330 feet) per second. Most of the experienced railfans are extra careful, but hope the beginners keep this in mind while taking pictures.    
Picture taking may also be forbidden in a number of places (for some curious reason), but at least two groups emerge from those:
1) Old East European countries and U.S.A. In the old East European countries the railroad picture taking was for long seen as spying the military secrets. This attitude has now been relaxed with these countries progressing and integrating with the rest of the world. However, you can still find some civil guards in places like Latvia (the most corrupted country in the EU) see that the tourists may not take pictures. These guards most likely are looking for bribes, and as our friends are against bribing, the results have been a clash of two cultures.  
For some reason the U.S.A. belongs partly to this picture taking forbidden class (but without bribes). While all railfans seem to be welcomed at least in the West, it is worrying to read about Amtrak forbidding picture taking at its stations. For European it always looks the same, when picture taking is limited: there is something to hide, something is not to be seen in the broad daylight!  
2) Many other EU members have also banned picture taking in some limited places, but in practise welcome all railfans. You can even be offered a local cabride as happened to author of the article one day. Anyway, its always a good rule, that when you are polite, most people reflect this and are polite back, giving you a chance to take the pictures you wanted and definitely to hear a great number of interesting railroading stories! 
 
If you would like to share your railroading pictures with the railfan and railpro community reading 4rail.net, please contact us by the form!
   
- John McKey, June - September 2009 -
   
For railroad related discussions, did you know there is a great forum available at trainorders.com. See for yourself!    


 Goog News From the Editors - March -April 2009 
While there have been a lot of gloomy news about economies spiraling downwards, there are also a lot of good news for the railroading community, both professionals and railfans. This month we look at the good news in Europe.

The European Union opened its members countries railroads freight for competition in 2007. While the Union members take care of all the nonmoving infrastructure, basically anyone can operate on the networks. This has already led to emergence of dozens of new operators, mainly small. Market expansion has also led to real competition between the existing old operators, some like Deutsche Bahn gaining substantial market shares abroad and others like Trenitalia and Fret SNCF loosing their market share rapidly. The good news: market share of the railroads against roads has been going up first time in decades!       
   
The passenger market in E.U. is opening too from the beginning of the year 2010. Already there is a lot of interesting regrouping going on with the old players and some new ones are emerging: Deutsche Bahn and SNCF have decided that they will not loose the lucrative super high speed travelling abroad and both are investigating new routes, SNCF even buying 20% share in the new Italian player NTV. While both have hundreds of super high speed trains in their ownership and more are being prepared on the production lines of Siemens and Alstom, a rapid expansion is expected to neighboring countries like Italy, Switzerland, Austria, United Kingdom and Spain. There are also new high speed players starting their businesses: Air France - Velolia who have found synergy in their interests and NTV in Italy starting with 25 units of AGV trainsets. Railjet in Austria is already operating with conventional stocks trimmed for high speed operations. Again it can be expected that both the European railmarket and railroads total share of the total passenger market will grow substantially. Another positive sign is that many of the existing super high speed train sets are being refurbished for even higher standards of comforts for passengers.  
 
More good news next month!       

- John McKey 2009 -

 November 2008 - Renessaissance of the Railways! 

The railroading seems to be living a huge renessaince again, like the golden years before the WW2. New lines are being built, new operators emerge every month, tracks are congested almost in every nation, and it's been finally noticed, that the railroads are the very energy efficient form of transportation (even at the super high speeds), preserving more of our globe for the future generations. Even the conservative U.S. seems to be considering electirifying some of it's routes to allow high speed passenger transportation in addition to it's thriving freight train business.
 
Maybe the biggest success for the railroads is however the hugely spreading inspiration for the super high speed connections between the bigger cities and between the urban areas of the more developed nations. 4rail.net is currently making upgrades on the whole super high speed section, including articles on all types of trains, technology, corridors and as newest the Super High Speed News (as you requested). We wish to bring you more and better high speed information on the swift developments around the world. Join us on the journey to the high tech super fast railroading and click one of our super fast links!    
   
- John McKey -