2017 in rail transport

This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 2017.

Years in rail transport

2016 in rail transport 2017 in rail transport 2018 in rail transport

Events

January

• January 1 – Phase I of New York City's Second Avenue Subway is opened for revenue service after almost a century of planning.[1]
• January 1–18 – First scheduled through railborne intermodal container freight service from Yiwu (China) to London via the New Eurasian Land Bridge and Channel Tunnel.[2]
• January 10 – Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway inaugurated throughout.[3][4][5]
• January 11 – Sale of English train operating company c2c by National Express to Trenitalia is agreed.[6]
• January 14 – A Serbian Railways train decorated with Serbian propaganda intended to run from Belgrade to North Mitrovica is turned back at Raška by order of the Serbian Prime Minister, amidst claims that the authorities in Kosovo would prevent it from crossing their border.[7]

February

• February 23 – High Speed 2 phase one gets parliamentary approval in the High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Act 2017, enabling construction to start in 2017.[8]
• February 24
  • – The R Line and H Line extensions open as part of the FasTracks project in Denver, Colorado.[9]
  • – withdrawal of SL X10 trainsets.
• February 26 – Saudi Railway Company opens the SAR Riyadh-Qurayyat Line to passengers from King Khalid International Airport, Riyadh, to the Al-Qassim Region in Saudi Arabia.[10]

March

• March 2 – Taoyuan International Airport MRT opened.
• March 25 – The Warm Springs station opens as part of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system in the San Francisco Bay Area, California.[11]
• – Tokyo Metro (former Eidan Electric Railway) phases out 01 series. Some trains are preserved or sent to Kumamoto Electric Railway.

April

• April 3 – 2017 Saint Petersburg Metro bombing.
• April 28 – The Strasbourg tramway is extended over a new bridge across the Rhine to Kehl.[12]

May

• May 12 – Opening of Detroit's QLINE.[13]
• May 19 – End of Slam-door era in the UK. The British Rail Class 121 is withdrawn from Aylesbury to Princes Risborough line after 57 years of service.
• May 22 – Opening of the MBTA Commuter Rail's Boston Landing station on the Framingham/Worcester Line in Massachusetts.[14]
• May 26
  • 2017 Portland train attack.
  • Last Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus circus train runs.
• May 31 – Official opening of Mombasa–Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway in Kenya, 485 km (301 mi) of standard gauge track built with Chinese finance and expertise, cutting the Mombasa–Nairobi passenger journey time to 4½ hours, compared to 12 hours on the previous line.[15]

June

• June 18 – Tuas West extension, a 7.5-kilometre (4.7 mi) extension of the East West MRT Line in Singapore, opens.[16]
• June 20 – June 2017 Brussels attack.
• June 29 – Sonoma–Marin Area Rail Transit begins preview service.[17]

July

• July 2 – Completion of LGV Sud Europe Atlantique from Tours to Bordeaux[18] and of LGV Bretagne-Pays de la Loire from Le Mans to Rennes[19] with consequent major reshaping of Transport express régional services.[12]
• July 10 – Opening of Stockholm City Line.[20]
• July 17 – Full opening of MRT Sungai Buloh-Kajang Line.[21][22][23]

August

• August 20 – South Western franchise (including Island Line) passenger train operating company franchise in England, previously operated by South West Trains,[24] passes to South Western Railway, a joint venture between FirstGroup (70%) and MTR Corporation of Hong Kong (30%).[25]
• August 23 – Auraiya train derailment.
• August 25 – Opening of Sonoma–Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) commuter system in the North Bay area of San Francisco between northern Santa Rosa and downtown San Rafael, California.[26]

September

• September 15 – Parsons Green bombing.
• September 21 – Granada Metro opens to passenger service.[27]
• September 23 – The grand opening of the Aarhus Letbane is cancelled several hours prior to the event due to missing security clearances from the Danish Transport Authority.[28]
• September 26 – Kaohsiung Circular Line (First Section) completed.

October

• October 21 – Downtown MRT Line Phase 3 opened.

November

• November 1 – Russian Railway Museum is opened to the public adjacent to Baltiysky railway station in Saint Petersburg.
• November 18 – Länsimetro extension to Helsinki Metro is opened.
• November 28 – First section (30 km) of Hyderabad Metro inaugurated.

December

• December 4 – After being suspended for 4 years since 2013 due to technical problems, the Melaka Monorail service resumes.[29]
• December 10 – Opening of Nuremberg–Erfurt high-speed railway.[12] Berlin-Munich corridor is completed.
• December 14 – Perpignan crash: A local train crashes into a school bus at a level crossing near Millas in the arrondissement of Perpignan in France, killing four pupils on the bus.[30]
• December 15 – Stoosbahn, the world's steepest mass transit funicular, officially opens, connecting Schlattli with Stoos.[31]
• December 17 – Opening of the Toronto subway Line 1 Yonge–University extension to Vaughan, Ontario.
• December 18 – 2017 Washington train derailment: Amtrak Cascades passenger train 501 derails near DuPont, Washington, on its inaugural southbound run on the Point Defiance Bypass with three fatalities.
• December 26 – Soekarno–Hatta Airport Rail Link in Jakarta started operations.[32]

Unknown date

• – Extension of DSB railway electrification system to Esbjerg was expected to open.[12]
• – The new Tithorea–Leianokladi line, replacing the route via Bralos was expected to open.[12]
• – China re-launches 350 km/h train operations after 6 year break, now with standard-class Fuxing trainsets.

Deaths

• August 28 – Steven Marshall, chief executive of Railtrack (born 1957).[33]
• December 16 – E. Hunter Harrison, president of Illinois Central Railroad 1993-1998, president of Canadian National Railway 2003-2009, president and CEO of Canadian Pacific Railway 2012-2017 and CEO of CSX Transportation in 2017 (born 1944).[34]

References

1. McCowan, Candace (2016-12-31). "Decades in the making, Second Avenue Subway set to open to the public". ABC7 New York. Retrieved 2017-01-01.
2. "China to London rail freight service launched". Railway Gazette. 2017-01-04. Retrieved 2017-01-14.
3. "China-built railway linking Ethiopia and Djibouti officially opens for business". Shanghaiist. 2017-01-12.
4. "Ethiopia: Portion of Ethio-Djibouti Railway to Be Inaugurated Tomorrow". 2merkato.com. 2017-01-09.
5. Sridharan, Vasudevan (2017-01-11). "China-built rail network in African heartland inaugurated". International Business Times.
6. "National Express to sell c2c to Italian railways". Railnews. 2017-01-11. Retrieved 2017-01-11.
7. "Serbian train sparks escalation in tensions with Kosovo". BBC News. BBC. 2017-01-14. Retrieved 2017-01-15.
8. "Full speed ahead as HS2 gets Royal Assent". GOV.UK. 23 February 2017. Retrieved 24 November 2017.
9. "R Line from Aurora to Lone Tree to open in February". FOX 31 Denver. 2017-01-30. Retrieved 2017-02-13.
10. "SAR launches Riyadh-Qassim railway line". Arab News. 2017-02-28. Retrieved 2017-06-08.
11. "All Aboard: Warm Springs BART Station Kicks Off Service". NBC Bay Area. 25 March 2017. Retrieved 25 March 2017.
12. "What to do, Where to go in 2017". Today's Railways Europe (253): 42–3. January 2017.
13. Fleming, Leonard (March 9, 2017). "QLine to begin offering rides on May 12". Detroit News. Retrieved March 14, 2017.
14. "Brighton Commuter Rail Station Set To Open In May". www.wbur.org. Retrieved 2017-03-22.
15. "Kenya opens Nairobi-Mombasa Madaraka Express railway". BBC News. 2017-05-31. Retrieved 2017-05-31.
16. "Four New Stations on Tuas West Extension on Track for Completion by 2016". Factsheet. Singapore: Land Transport Authority. 2015-10-29. Retrieved 2016-05-15.
17. Prado, Mark (26 June 2017). "SMART offers free 'preview' service starting Thursday". Marin Independent Journal. Retrieved 28 June 2017.
18. "Euroduplex Atlantique sets to serve Bordeaux". Railway Gazette. 2016-04-12. Retrieved 2016-12-24.
19. "LGV Bretagne–Pays de la Loire. Calendrier tenu!". Le Télégramme. 2016-06-13. Retrieved 2016-12-24.
20. "Stockholm City Line set for July 2017 opening". International Railway Journal. 2016-11-03. Retrieved 2017-01-04.
21. "Najib launches Phase 2 of Sungai Buloh-Kajang MRT line". The Star Online. Retrieved 17 July 2017.
22. "PM picks '17-7-2017' start date for MRT phase two". The Malay Mail. Retrieved 9 June 2017.
23. "Phase 2 of Sg Buloh-Kajang MRT to be launched on July 17". Free Malaysia Today. Retrieved 9 June 2017.
24. "SouthWestern Franchise Agreement" (PDF). gov.uk. Government of The United Kingdom. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-02-04. Retrieved 2017-02-04.
25. "First.MTR joint venture wins South Western franchise". Railway Gazette. 2017-03-27. Retrieved 2017-04-04.
26. Metropolitan Transportation Commission (2017-08-22). "SMART ready to roll". Mass Transit. Retrieved 2017-09-01.
27. "El metro de Granada entrará en funcionamiento en marzo de 2017 y costará menos de un euro | Vídeo". Granada Digital (in Spanish). Retrieved 2017-09-21.
28. "After embarrassing setback, Aarhus light rail gets new opening date… maybe". The Local. 27 September 2017. Retrieved 27 September 2017.
29. "Monorail service in Melaka to resume after four-year break". www.thestar.com.my. 3 December 2017.
30. "France Millas train crash: Children killed as bus cut in two". BBC News. 2017-12-14. Retrieved 2017-12-14.
31. Willsher, Kim (2017-12-15). "World's steepest funicular rail line to open in Switzerland". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2017-12-16.
32. "Ini Panduan ke Bandara Soekarno-Hatta Naik Kereta Bandara". Kompas (in Indonesian). Retrieved June 10, 2018.
33. "Steve Marshall, chief executive of Railtrack – obituary". The Telegraph. October 10, 2017.
34. Ducharme, Jamie (December 16, 2017). "CSX CEO Hunter Harrison Dies at 73, Company Confirms". Forbes. Retrieved December 22, 2017.