How does the train go through volkmarode??

adminonNovember 9, 2021February 19, 2022Leave a Comment

How does the train go through volkmarode??

Many people in Volkmarode were caught cold by the route plans of the city administration. Because opposition to a rail line seemed successful in 2013. A citizens' initiative had formed against the construction of the line. A little later it was said: Trams are not worth it there. And now this: streetcar is well worth it. In Volkmarode, the construction of the track is even to begin.

This more than irritated many citizens. Finally, only recently there was a study based on the model of standardized assessment. It determines whether federal or state grants are to be expected. Important allowances. Because they drop construction costs by at least 50 percent and make a streetcar line affordable for a community in the first place.

Because the federal government and the state ame: If a route does not pay off economically, and the municipality still wants to build it – then the municipality should build quietly – but without subsidies.

To receive any subsidies at all, the cost-benefit ratio must be greater than a factor of 1. The first study for Volkmarode came to the result: clearly below the factor 1, only 0.22. No prospect of funding. The latest study: Factor 1.3 – fully eligible for funding.

Between the two studies lies a change in leadership at the helm of today's Verkehrs-GmbH. Jorg Reincke – unlike his predecessor Georg Hohmann – is considered a transportation expert with roots in the streetcar industry. As head of the streetcar division in Rostock, he was once instrumental in expanding the streetcar network there.

"We did it the way it's done!"He had said Monday in the city hall about the calculation methodology: cycles were recalculated to make streetcar driving more attractive in the whole city area. A reversing loop will be built at Querumer Strabe in Gliesmarode. More trains will then run up to the turning loop than today.

The plan there is not only to better connect the eastern ring area, but also to give passengers at Gliesmarode station a better connection to the city center. This will increase passenger numbers on the line. Added new passengers from Volkmarode-Nord.

The trams, however, will not run every 10 minutes as today, but then every 15 minutes. Thus the first plan. But Verkehrs-GmbH will change the frequency in any case, even if no new route is built. Because that is a central part of the new timetable.

At the same time, the construction administration wants to take the top off the protest in Volkmarode. Because previous plans called for: To accommodate the streetcar on Berliner Heerstrabe, more space is needed. Residents would have had to give up land. There was even fear of expropriation.

Today, the building authority prefers to talk about it: "We will perhaps still need areas in some places, but by no means to the extent that was once envisaged," says city building officer Heinz-Georg Leuer. There is nothing concrete, because the route has not yet been determined in detail.

And there's a bonus for residents, if the streetcar does come. Leuer: "Berliner Heerstrabe is dilapidated and must be renovated in any case. Regardless of whether the streetcar comes or not."This will not be something that can be done overnight, because the sewers will also have to be renewed. Civil engineering takes time.

The honorary city planners of MoveBS have already thought about how the Berliner Heerstrabe could look like with a tramway. MoveBS is of the opinion that the streets should not become wider and wider, but should remain as narrow as possible. Aerial photos of Volkmarode were therefore evaluated and the question was asked: What fits into Volkmarode at all??

Leonhard Prottel says: It is not necessary that the streetcar runs in both directions on its own track. It would need its own lane only where there is congestion – i.e. towards the city center. Out of town, the streetcar should run on the roadway.

This saves a lot of space and ensures that two bike lanes can now also be created, separated from the roadway by a solid line. Prottel says: "You can look at that on Leonhardstrasse."

Stops can be distributed intelligently: "And in such a way that no one has to wait behind streetcars. Because that is possible," says Prottel. But he also says: "That's just one way it could go through Volkmarode with the streetcar. This is only our proposal. We do not claim that this would actually be the best solution."

It happened on Thursday, 3. January, around six in the morning. The container freighter "Yantian Express" of the shipping line Hapag-Lloyd plowed under German flag course northwest through the heavy seas of the churned up North Atlantic, when from a container suddenly fire clouds came out.

Flames spread to neighboring containers, and within a very short time, the crew faced a dangerous container fire that threatened to spread to the entire ship. In the middle of dark nowhere. More than 1000 kilometers away from the rescuing country, a near-fatal inferno.

The crew was evacuated by tugboats, and the freighter was left burning on the high seas for days. It was not until six days after the outbreak, when two salvage ships had continuously cooled down the freighter with extinguishing guns, that Hapag-Lloyd was able to report that the fire on the "Yantian Express" had been largely extinguished.

Fires on container ships can also be fatal

Container fires do not always end so smoothly. Five seamen died last year in a devastating fire on the container freighter Maersk Honam in the Indian Ocean. Only ten days later, a fire broke out in the hold of another container ship belonging to the Danish shipping company, the Maersk Kensington. The "MSC Flaminia" also had little luck, drifting for days on the open sea after a fire broke out and several containers exploded. Three sailors died, two were seriously injured.

"Container fires at sea are a major problem," says Uwe-Peter Schieder, shipping expert at the German Insurance Association. Between 2000 and 2015, just under 60 fires on container ships were reported worldwide.

The number of unreported incidents in which fires were prevented at the last moment because pockets of embers were detected in time is much higher. "It's already commonplace in maritime shipping for containers to heat up uncontrollably," Schieder says. How can something like this happen? What is the secret of the burning freighters?

Shippers want to save on surcharge for dangerous goods

The cause of spontaneous combustion is usually not at sea, but on land, says fire expert Schieder. If biogenic materials are loaded too moist, there is a fundamental risk that decomposition processes will lead to heating, and if this heat builds up in the container, a fire will break out. Biogenic materials are constantly being shipped across the world's oceans. These are nuts, oil seeds, coconut fiber, cocoa beans, coal and wood.

"Even a large pack of waste paper, if it has become damp, can start a fire," says Schieder. The problem could be prevented if the goods were sufficiently dried before they were placed in a container. "But drying costs money. In addition, cargo is often sold by weight. Dry cargo is lighter. That's why it happens time and again that cargo that is too moist gets into containers for cost reasons," says Schieder.

The danger is even greater when highly flammable or explosive hazardous goods are stored in the vicinity of such goods. One of the biggest disasters was the fire of the "MSC Flaminia" eight years ago on a voyage from Charleston to Antwerp, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. A chemical substance had probably caught fire. Finally, there was a huge explosion that threw several containers into the sea. Three crew members died. The rest of the firefighting crew, including two seriously injured, was cut off from the rest of the crew in the forecastle.

A lifeboat that had been launched was fortunately able to rescue the isolated firefighters. For five and a half weeks, fire-fighting vessels poured water incessantly on the burning freighter until the fire was finally extinguished. Even today, the cause has not been fully clarified, but it is certain that the accident began in a hazardous goods container.

Goods are often falsely declared?

Hazardous goods are not always labeled as such by shippers. "The most common causes of container fires at sea are incorrect declaration or storage in the wrong place," says Volker Dierks, who is responsible for insuring ships at Allianz Global Corporate Specialty SE in Central and Eastern Europe. There are uniform rules worldwide for the labeling of hazardous goods.

However, shippers often falsely declare goods in order to save on the transport surcharge for dangerous goods. "You can of course open the container. Then they see bags of non-hazardous stuff at the front, but they don't know what's stored behind them. I don't think you can completely rule out false declaration with today's methods," says the expert.

The situation is somewhat different in the case of incorrect stowage, explains Dierks. There are a number of substances that are known to react to heat and therefore should not be stored too close to the bulkhead to the engine room or to the bottoms of the bunker tanks, he said. Explosive goods should also be stored far away from the deck structures. Here, too, mistakes often occur, he said.

Lack of security on board

The Allianz expert also finds it not unusual that more and more fire incidents are becoming known on the high seas. "The global economy is growing and with it maritime trade. Compared with the number of goods transported every day, the number of accidents is still rather small."The shipping industry is keen to clear up such incidents, he said, because apart from the loss of image, such ship fires are also very costly. 13 percent of all shipping losses last year were due to fires and explosions, according to Allianz data. Only the total loss of ships, such as from serious collisions, caused higher damage costs in 2018, according to these calculations.

Dierks sees the increasing size of container ships, on which more and more cargo is being stowed on board, as a problem. "You can have the latest and greatest firefighting system on board and still not be 100 percent protected from such accidents."This is because a certain percentage of containers cannot be accessed by the crew in the event of an accident – for example, containers stored in the middle or under the hatch covers.

It's not just the exceptionally large container ships with 10.000 standard containers and more on board. "Even on a ship with 3500 to 4000 containers, numerous boxes are inaccessible at sea." It's even harder to tell if a box poses a danger in the first place, Schieder says. "Especially on the big container ships, that's not possible at the moment. These actually required infrared detectors that can be used to determine when an unexpected heat buildup appears at a location." However, the ships are not equipped with this.

Thirty years ago, ships were better protected against fires than they are today, Schieder complains. There were no sprinkler systems below deck, it said, and fire extinguishing cannons were missing. The lack of protection should not be blamed on the shipowners or the shipyards, which comply with the specifications. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) would set the regulations for securing sea transports. "Stricter standards would have to be demanded of her," Schieder says.

Meanwhile, the "Yantian Express" is still swimming on the Atlantic Ocean. Two tugs are on site, pulling the ship at a slow pace toward the Canadian coastline. The fire is largely contained. Part of the crew is back on board with the captain and with other salvage experts. Hapag-Lloyd does not yet want to comment on the extent of the damage.

In the Corona crisis, there seems to be only one cure: vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate. But even if Europe has four times as many Vaccine would have been as at present, the pandemic would not have been defeated. For the poorer countries lack the preparations.

Between Paris and Warsaw, the vaccination train is moving slowly. The locomotive sputters, the wagons jolt. Just twelve percent of German citizens have received the first dose. But even if Germany, with a vaccination rate of 60 to 70 percent If the WHO were to achieve herd immunity – a dream so far – the pandemic would not have lost its horror. Because poor countries are currently hopelessly lagging behind.

Corona: Aid organizations criticize vaccination nationalism

There is a lack of vaccine, tests and masks there. The virus can spread indefinitely. With the risk that Mutants develop viruses that are resistant to the vaccine. This increases the risk that even more aggressive pathogens will reach Europe via vacation and business trips or via trade.

Aid organizations warn against focusing only on one's own country. "Nationalistic vaccination strategies will not help contain the pandemic quickly," said Elisabeth Mate, policy officer at Doctors Without Borders, our editorial team. "The crucial question must be: How can we save and protect people worldwide? Precisely because we also have the risk of mutations that can come back to the rich countries."

So far, three mutations are causing concern: B.1.1.7 (British variant), B.1.351 (South African variant) and P.1 (Brazilian version). The British mutant in particular is said to be not only more contagious but also more deadly than the original pathogen. According to the Robert Koch Institute, it now accounts for around 90 percent of all new infections in Germany from.

Few rich countries get bulk of available vaccine

"It will certainly not remain with the three mutations now under discussion, in NY develops z. B. just another dangerous variant. It is therefore surprising how slowly vaccination is being pushed in the poorest countries," warns the SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach On Twitter. Epidemiologists are already sounding the alarm: after the third, a fourth, fifth or sixth wave of corona could roll out.

Exacerbating the risks is a global imbalance between developed and developing countries. More than 70 percent of the world's available Corona vaccine have gone to only ten rich countries, criticized the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Covax, an international alliance co-founded by WHO, wants to distribute vaccines to poorer countries at low prices or for free. But it's not getting off the ground because the Market bought empty is. In many regions, little or no work has been started.

Africa – herd immunity not for 15 years at current vaccination rate

The online publication "Our World in Data" paints a sobering picture. The map of the continent consists of many white spots with no or very low vaccination activity. In South Africa, where the dangerous mutant B.1.351 rages, just 0.5 percent of the population received at least one dose. Currently, an average of slightly more than 7000 doses are distributed per day.

"If vaccination continued at this rate, South Africa would not have herd immunity for 15.5 years," points out Mate. The vacation destination Tunisia only achieves a rate of 0.7 percent. In safari country Kenya, 0.3 percent of the population has received a first vaccination dose so far, in Uganda 0.2 percent. Many African countries are vaccinating the British-Swedish drug Astrazeneca.

Latin America – Variant P.1 threatens to spread

Especially in Brazil, with more than 3,000 people dying from covid on any given day, the crisis is taking on more dramatic proportions. Virologists already warn Brazil is "a threat to global health". Especially since the most highly contagious variant, P.1 spreads, threatening to spread to neighboring countries as well.

Corona Monitor – The figures from Germany, Europe and the world

Latin America's largest country distributes Astrazeneca and the Chinese vaccine Sinovac. So far, 7.8 percent of the population has received the first dose. In Mexico the Russian Sputnik V vaccine as well as Astrazeneca, Pfizer/Biontech and Sinovac. But so far, only 6.2 percent of the population has received the first dose.

Vaccination rate in Southeast Asia in some countries below 1 percent

Here, too, the pace of vaccination leaves much to be desired. On the Philippines 0.7 percent of the population have received the first dose so far. In Cambodia, the figure is 1.4 percent. Aid agencies make case for rich countries to temporarily suspend patents on Corona vaccines.

South Africa and India have introduced a resolution to this effect, which is supported by around 100 countries, before the World Trade Organization (WTO). But so far, countries like the U.S., the U.K., Japan and Switzerland have blocked the move.

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