China's megacities alone are home to more than 260 million people. These gigantic conurbations have recently undergone rapid growth of almost two percent per year, and are suffering increasing traffic problems caused by the soaring rate of car use. Hence the correspondingly strong demand for solutions for the further development of urban rail transport. The Nanjing customer has now commissioned Siemens to equip metro Ninghe Line with the CBTC automatic train protection system Trainguard MT. The contract includes the CBTC trackside equipment for the 36 kilometer line as well as the ATC equipment of the 24 trains. In the long term more than ten metro lines will be built in Nanjing – of which five alone will or already been feature Siemens signaling technology.Siemens can look back on a long partnership in China with the Nanjing Metro Corporation. Siemens equipped metro line 1, which started running in 2005 and is now 47 kilometers long, as well as metro line 2 in 2010. Line 2 serves 26 stations and forms the east-west tangent of the city of Nanjing in eastern China. Following the extension of the city's metro with line 2, the rail network now covers 85 kilometers. Line 10, Nangjing's first cross-Yangtze river metro line was put into operation on July 1, 2014. Its first phase runs 23.6 kilometers with 14 stations. The latest Nanjing metro line fitted with signaling technology from Siemens is Nanjing Metro Line 3, which went on public operation on April 1, 2015.
The Dresser-Rand business, part of Siemens Power and Gas, has commissioned its first micro-scale natural gas liquefaction system at the Ten Man liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in Pennsylvania, U.S. The modular, portable LNGo technology enables distributed production of LNG and can be installed in a short period of time to meet local demand for LNG. This cost-effective solution, developed by the Dresser-Rand business, allows the operator, Frontier Natural Resources, to monetize stranded gas assets at Tenaska Resources LLC's Mainesburg field, located in the Marcellus shale play. Frontier Natural Resources is an independent natural gas producer focused on developing conventional and unconventional resources.
The scope of supply included a standardized LNGo solution consisting of four different modules, each handling one step of the liquefaction process. The whole LNGo system can be transported on eight trucks. It is deployed directly at the gas field and has a footprint of approximately 508 square meters, roughly the size of a basketball court. The Ten Man facility commenced production just four months from contract signing, and has produced approximately half a million liters of LNG in the first 20 days.
"This project demonstrates our unique capabilities to deliver innovative solutions for oil and gas applications that help our clients maximize the value of their assets," said Michael Walhof, sales director Distributed LNG Solutions for the Dresser-Rand business. "We are proud to provide Frontier Natural Resources with a reliable, robust solution to liquefy natural gas and cost-effectively move it to market."
The LNGo technology makes it possible to monetize stranded gas deposits due to its relatively low capital and operating costs. The micro-scale LNGo solution can be deployed in rough terrain or remote regions, eliminating the need to establish an expensive gas pipeline infrastructure or arrange for long-distance trucking of LNG from centralized plants to point of use. It can function as a decentralized solution where the requisite pipeline infrastructure is lacking, or as an onsite transformation solution to reduce or eliminate flaring of petroleum gas at, for example, oil rigs or producing gas fields.
The Velaro D is the fourth generation of high-speed trains that Siemens has developed on the basis of the Velaro platform. Deutsche Bahn AG (DB) classifies the train as the new Series 407 ICE 3 (predecessors: Series 403 and Series 406 ICE 3). In December 2013, Germany's Federal Railway Authority (EBA) approved the trains' operation – also in multiple-unit or so-called double-traction mode – on the Deutsche Bahn rail network. Passenger operation started on December 21, 2013.
Authorization for operation in single-traction mode in France was granted in April 2015. Since June 2015 the trains have been travelling to Paris in regular passenger operation. In addition to Germany and France, the Velaro D is also intended for cross-border operation in Belgium.
Since 2007, trains based on the Velaro platform have operated with high reliability for more than one billion kilometers in China, Russia, Spain and Turkey – equal to roughly 25,000 times around the globe.
This year something very special is brewing: 2016 marks the 500th jubilee of the world's oldest food law. In 1516, the Bavarian co-rulers Duke Wilhelm IV and Ludwig X issued a decree in Ingolstadt to the effect that henceforth, only barley, hops and water could be used in the brewing of beer. The "Reinheitsgebot" was born, and its fame has since spread around the world. German beer is one of the country's most popular exports, with around 1.5 billion liters shipped to foreign shores every year. A high proportion of brewers rely on technology from Siemens to prevent any disruptions to production and keep the golden liquid flowing freely. The first electronic control-based automation solutions came into existence in the 1970s. The "Braumat" process control system has since taken care of reliable production and quality consistency in countless breweries the world over. Today, competition for market share in the beer industry is tough. Efficiency and flexibility are vital to success. What remains to be seen: What will the brewery of the future look like? From July 22-24, Siemens is taking part in the "500 Years of the German Purity Law 2016" Festival in Munich as a partner to the brewery industry with its own booth.
Siemens will deliver 1,140 commuter rail carriages to the British capital. This is the largest order that Siemens has ever won in Great Britain and one of the biggest orders for Siemens' global rolling stock business. The first Desiro City train for the Thameslink network in Greater London was delivered and entered service in June 2016. By the end of 2018, a total of 115 trains will have been delivered. Siemens will take over the complete long-term servicing and maintenance for this new fleet of trains. The Thameslink north-south commuter route runs through London, connecting Bedford, located to the north east of the capital, with Brighton, on the south coast.
Introducing a high capacity, high frequency service of longer trains, extended platforms and new stations, the project is regarded as one of the largest rail infrastructure projects in the UK.
The first passenger train will roll through the Gotthard Base Tunnel early June 2016. Siemens has supplied the tunnel control and fire protection systems for the world's longest railway tunnel. The sophisticated safety system has over 200,000 sensors, and places maximum demands on logistics and data processing.The control system controls and monitors all installations completely automatically. The tunnel is fitted with sensors, control electronics and surveillance equipment. This includes video cameras in the multifunction points, which are connected by optical fiber cables to two tunnel control centers located at the north and south entrances. Siemens has installed a tunnel control system in each center, each system acting as a reserve for the other. The movement of each train is recorded, and displayed in the control center. The system controls the entire infrastructure, which has 3,200 kilometers of electrical cables and 2,600 kilometers of data cables. It detects a door that has not been closed properly or a light that has failed. When required, the ventilation system is activated, the light at the next emergency stop point is switched on, and the doors are opened automatically. What is actually happening is seen on screen by the around 60 employees on duty in the centers. "Events" are classified according to five alarm stages. The system provides information and decision-making steps for each stage to help the head of operations. Sensors check the trains for overheated brakes and leaks before they enter the tunnel and without requiring them to stop. However, the main task of the new system is to maintain availability. The maintenance periods, such as close-down times and spare parts requirement, can be efficiently planned with a new tool.It goes without saying that safety is paramount in a tunnel where in the near future more than 200 trains a day will barrel through the tubes at speeds up to 250 km/h. The tubes are connected every 300 meters by crosscuts that allow train passengers to escape to the other tube in case of a fire. Each tube has two emergency-stop stations 600 meters in length which allows the evacuation of up to 1,000 passengers.
Copenhagen's S-tog (commuter rail system) is the backbone of the capital's public mass transit network. It carries around 350,000 passengers a day - and that number is growing all the time. This reflects the growth in the metropolitan area around the Danish capital where more than one fifth of the entire population of Denmark now lives. So, in the space of six years, Siemens will equip Copenhagen's entire commuter rail network with the Trainguard MT train control system which uses Communications-Based Train Control (CBTC) to automate operation. This has made it possible to reduce train headways from 120 seconds to 70 seconds within the inner-city area.
The first phase; the newly opened 25 kilometer section of Line A runs from the suburb of Hillerod in the north to Jaegersborg east of the capital and will be used by more than 70.000 commuters a day. Once the complete network is open, up to 84 trains an hour will travel on the core network - equivalent to more than 1 million passengers per year. The remaining phases will enter passenger service in the coming years.
Siemens announced today that it has started a 15-year technical support and spare parts supply agreement with the U.S. passenger rail operator Amtrak for its 70 new Siemens ACS-64 electric locomotives in operation on the Northeast Corridor. This is Siemens' largest technical support contract for passenger locomotives to-date in the U.S. In 2010, Amtrak ordered 70 Amtrak Cities Sprinter electric locomotives from Siemens. The first locomotives are already in passenger service.
HTM (Haagsche Tramweg-Maatschappij) has ordered 40 trams from Siemens for the network of the city of The Hague. They are intended to replace part of the existing high-floor vehicles of type GTL 8. In March 2014, HTM ordered other 20 Avenio trams.
On November 2, 2015, the Dutch tram operator HTM, started the passenger services with brand new Siemens trams in The Hague, Netherlands. The first Avenio will run on line 2.