Future
The Oslo Tunnel is the largest bottle-neck in the railway system in Norway, and delays caused around the tunnel can spread throughout the whole network. The National Rail Administration has stated that until at the earliest 2040, it is unnecessary with more capacity through the West Corridor, i.e. running west of Oslo. This includes possible ungraded to the railway lines around Oslo, such as high-speed lines along the Østfold and Vestfold Lines, and to Lillehammer. In 2012, after the completion of the Asker Line, a new schedule plan has been proposed. NSB, the Airport Express Train and CargoNet have all asked for more slots through the tunnel than is available. One possible solution is to decrease the reserve capacity, thus increasing the capacity from 24 to 30 trains per hour per direction. However, the tunnel is already characterized as "critically overloaded".
Should a new tunnel be built, it would not necessarily run next to the Oslo Tunnel. One proposal from the National Rail Administration calls for a separate commuter train station to be built underground, at the location of Oslo Bus Terminal, within walking distance of Oslo S. This proposal involves the line connecting to the existing route before reaching Nationaltheatret. Norsk Bane have called for a line to run further north, and serve Majorstuen, where there is a major metro and tramway hub. Norsk Bane also call for the tunnel to be built for higher speeds, and state that it is necessary to build high-speed rail to Bergen and Stavanger. Combined with a new line from Drammen to the tunnel, it would allow travel time from Drammen and Oslo to be reduced to 18 minutes.
Read more about this topic: Oslo Tunnel
Famous quotes containing the word future:
“The person who does not worry about the future will shortly have worries about the present.”
—Chinese proverb.
Confucian Analects.
“For a parent, it’s hard to recognize the significance of your work when you’re immersed in the mundane details. Few of us, as we run the bath water or spread the peanut butter on the bread, proclaim proudly, “I’m making my contribution to the future of the planet.” But with the exception of global hunger, few jobs in the world of paychecks and promotions compare in significance to the job of parent.”
—Joyce Maynard (20th century)
“Perfect present has no existence in our consciousness. As I said years ago in Erewhon, it lives but upon the sufferance of past and future. We are like men standing on a narrow footbridge over a railway. We can watch the future hurrying like an express train towards us, and then hurrying into the past, but in the narrow strip of present we cannot see it. Strange that that which is the most essential to our consciousness should be exactly that of which we are least definitely conscious.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)