Category Archives: Transport

Swapping out a Cruise Ship Crankshaft

Engineers can be SO cool! This is a fascinating video of a company called ALE*, who specialised in moving/lifting/sliding heavy stuff, swapping out a 7.5 ton crankshaft from an engine on the cruise liner MS Zaandam. This is small-scale, bread & butter stuff (they did two cruise...

New Tourist Train in Japan

A new, specially designed, luxury tourist train was launched yesterday in Japan. The Royal Express will operate from Yokohama station in Yokohama and Itokyu Shimoda station in Shimoda City at the southern tip of the Izu Peninsula with its full of hot springs and picturesque coastlines. Around...

Paddle under the Pennines

Foulridge Tunnel, on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal, is to become the longest canal tunnel in the UK to open to canoes. The mile-long, the 200 year old tunnel, looked after by the Canal & River Trust, is regularly used by canal boats, but from Saturday 03...

Train Geeks’ Heaven

This weekend, Virgin Trains set up a photo-opportunity event for rail enthusiasts – four generations of trains travelling side by side on the East Coast Line. Of course, it was also a marketing opportunity to show off Virgin Trains’ new Azuma, alongside two present-day trains, and the...

XTI Hybrid VTOL aircraft under development

This looks like an interesting project, if it ever gets off the ground – see what I did there? This is a new concept ducted-fan vertical take-off (VTOL) aircraft that could be commonplace if it works as billed. The six-seat XTI TriFan 600, say the designers, “will...

A peak behind the scenes at Gatwick Airport

Last May, London Gatwick Airport opened its new ‘Pier 1’ at the South Terminal, replacing the old Pier 1 originally opened by the Queen in 1958. The new pier, costing £186 million, has 5 efficient dual-boarding gates with state-of-the-art passenger gate rooms and a premium lounge with...

Gotthard Base Tunnel Opens

The massive 57-kilometre Gotthard Base Tunnel (GBT) in the Swiss Alps is finally opening this weekend after 17 years of construction. From Sunday 11 December, train passengers will be able to speed between northern & southern Switzerland in 17 minutes, cutting the overall cross-border journey time from...

Supersonic is back!

One of the key travel trends identified in this year’s World Travel Market – Global Trends Report, compiled by Euromonitor International is the return of supersonic air travel. Thirteen years after the demise of Concorde, a number of initiatives are underway to re-open the supersonic air travel...