Future
There have been proposals to reduce or eliminate passenger transport on the line. A report by the Institute of Transport Economics in 2004 concluded that the low population density, the lack of termination in a city and the nature of being a branch line with correspondence at Dombås made it impossible to attract sufficient ridership to make operations profitable.
Norsk Bane and Deutsche Bahn have made a proposal to construct a high-speed railway between Ålesund and Oslo, which would run through Romsdalen. The line would connect to a proposed high-speed line between Oslo and Trondheim at Dombås, but would avoid going through Åndalsnes and instead pass through Bjorli and Valldal before reaching Sunnmøre. The branch would be 193 kilometers (120 mi) long, of which 89 kilometers (55 mi) would run in tunnel and 13 kilometers (8 mi) be on bridges and viaducts. It is estimated to cost NOK 30 billion and give a travel time of 2 hours and 33 minutes from Ålesund to Oslo. Because of 1.25 percent gradients, the line is suitable for freight trains. During daytime, freight trains would operate on the line in 160 kilometres per hour (99 mph), while they could operate slower during the night. The proposal calls for twelve trains per direction per day between Ålesund and Oslo, and six trains per day between Ålesund and Trondheim.
Read more about this topic: Rauma Line
Famous quotes containing the word future:
“We live in an age when to be young and to be indifferent can be no longer synonymous. We must prepare for the coming hour. The claims of the Future are represented by suffering millions; and the Youth of a Nation are the trustees of Posterity.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)
“Our system of government, in spite of Vietnam, Cambodia, CIA, Watergate, is still the best system of government on earth. And the greatest resource of all are the 215 million Americans who still have within us the strength, the character, the intelligence, the experience, the patriotism, the idealism, the compassion, the sense of brotherhood on which we can rely in the future to restore the greatness to our country.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“It is marvelous indeed to watch on television the rings of Saturn close; and to speculate on what we may yet find at galaxy’s edge. But in the process, we have lost the human element; not to mention the high hope of those quaint days when flight would create “one world.” Instead of one world, we have “star wars,” and a future in which dumb dented human toys will drift mindlessly about the cosmos long after our small planet’s dead.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)