The TGV high-speed train began commercial service between Paris and Strasbourg yesterday, nearly halving the travel time between the two cities to 2 hours 20 minutes and linking the TGV network with Germany.
The train made its maiden voyage with 360 passengers on board early yesterday, arriving on time and continuing on to the German city of Stuttgart, said Anne Premel, spokeswoman for the Strasbourg municipality. Passengers who got off in the Alsatian capital were greeted with local music and bretzels -- pretzels the size of a pizza, a local specialty.
The line, on which the TGV broke its own world speed record for conventional rail trains in April when the bullet train reached 574.8kph, was inaugurated by Prime Minister Francois Fillon on Saturday.
"Strasbourg just over two hours from Paris, that was a dream. The dream is now fulfilled," he said. The previous fastest connection between the two cities took 4 hours.
Trains on the new 406km line reaching Strasbourg via Reims, Metz and Nancy -- with the first 300km on dedicated high-speed tracks -- will travel at speeds of up to 320kph, compared to a maximum of 300kph for current TGV trains.
Different branches of the line will also cut travel time from Paris to several other European cities. The train to Frankfurt, Germany, takes 3 hours 50 minutes and to Stuttgart, Germany, 3 hours 40 minutes. A trip to the Swiss city of Zurich takes 4 hours 30 minutes.
For Strasbourg, the TGV will mean more tourists, better business opportunities and the possibility of a real estate boom. But Mayor Fabienne Keller noted it was largely the municipality, not the central government, that had secured the extension of the nation's high-speed rail network.
"Alsace largely fought it out itself. The TGV wasn't offered to it," she said, referring to the 20-year battle over the financing of the project worth 3.2 billion euros (US$4.3 billion) -- or a total of 5.5 billion euros with trains included -- which eventually found backing from 22 partners including the EU, the French and Luxembourg central governments, train operators and other French regional governments.
Planners now foresee a network of high-speed lines stretching from Barcelona, Spain, to Budapest, Hungary. The plans are to create two axes that meet in Strasbourg: one running between Paris, Munich, Vienna and Budapest; the other running from Hamburg to Frankfurt, Lyon and Barcelona.
The EU has earmarked 20.35 billion euros to finance European networks, much of it to five priority transcontinental rail links, which are due to be completed by 2015.
A new rail bridge over the Rhein River to Germany is expected to be open in 2011.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in server chips, expects revenue to decline this year due to sagging demand for 5-nanometer artificial intelligence (AI) chips from a North America-based major customer, a company executive said yesterday. That would be the first contraction in revenue for Alchip as it has been enjoying strong revenue growth over the past few years, benefiting from cloud-service providers’ moves to reduce dependence on Nvidia Corp’s expensive AI chips by building their own AI accelerator by outsourcing chip design. The 5-nanometer chip was supposed to be a new growth engine as the lifecycle
RSS