Trains
The Metro Bilbao uses presently train types of the series UT-500 and UT-550, built by CAF. The company uses 24 trains of the first series and thirteen of the second. All vehicles are maintained and parked in Sopelana and Ariz.
The first sixteen vehicles which carry the numbers UT 501 to 516 were delivered by CAF and ABB in November 1995. Inside each car 2+2 seats are arranged respectively vis-à-vis in the colors of the Corporate design – red and grey –. A set of four cars is altogether 72.12 meters long, 3.85 meters high and 2.80 meters wide. That's specially wide for a train that uses narrow gauge, for example vehicles of the large profile Berlin metro are only 2.65 meters wide, and they use the normal gauge of 1435 millimeters.
The trains use, like the commuter railroads in the region, the overhead tension of 1500 volts and possess altogether sixteen motors of respectively 180 kilowatts; together that yields 2880 kilowatts per train unit. The maximum speed is 80 kilometers per hour. A train can carry 712 persons. This statement is based upon 144 seats and 568 standing on the average six persons per square meter.
The number of trains was increased after a renewed order in 1996 to a total of 24 trains with the numbers UT 517 until 524. For the higher requirement in the newly constructed line 2, thirteen new trains were ordered to the firms CAF and Adtranz (now mother company of ABB) and they were delivered in October 2001. The last delivery contained now the new trains of the series UT-550. This series differs from its predecessor in a higher efficiency, needed to climb the deep line 2 tunnel under the river, and an improved air-conditioning.
Since 1998 the ATP system is used (automatic train protection), as well as ATO (automatic train operation) installed. The latter implies that the train drivers must press solely a button, and the remainder of the train operation is done through the computer. This is to be seen as an initial stage for a system gone completely controlled by the computer
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Famous quotes containing the word trains:
“Conventions, at the present moment, are really menaced. The most striking sign of this is that people are now making unconventionality a social virtue, instead of an unsocial vice. The switches have been opened, and the laden trains must take their chance of a destination.”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)
“In this country, you never pull the emergency brake, even when there is an emergency. It is imperative that the trains run on schedule.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)
“Every American travelling in England gets his own individual sport out of the toy passenger and freight trains and the tiny locomotives, with their faint, indignant, tiny whistle. Especially in western England one wonders how the business of a nation can possibly be carried on by means so insufficient.”
—Willa Cather (1876–1947)