The new
Line 4 metro announced this week extended opening hours (04:40 to 00:00) plus a weekend
service as well as some additional stations. Here are some interesting facts
about the newest metro line in São Paulo:
The trains are
not Brazilian
It was
built by Rotem which is a South Korean company owned by the Hyundai Group. Believe
it or not the trains were built in South Korea and transported by sea to Santos
where they were towed to São Paulo. So whilst they are now confined to
travelling 12km East or West across São Paulo ad back again they are actually
well travelled trains.
It has
taken over 7 years to get this far
Building
had been in progress since 2004 and although operational operational there are
still stations yet to be opened.
Maximum capacity
is staggeringly high
It is
expected to carry up to 970,000 different passengers daily once it is running
at full capacity. The trains carry 25% more passengers than any of the other trains
on the other metro lines.
Engineering
accidents have characterized the building work
There were
no less than 10 major engineering accidents during construction, the most
severe being the collapse of the site at Pinheiros causing an 80m crater. The
consortium in charge denied there were any casualties and this is why despite
the insistence of the families whose houses and cars fell into the crater it
took 4 days to find the first victim and 13 days the last one. 7 people died. The
Consortium later denied any engineering malpractice and attributed the accident
to “fortes chuvas” (heavy rainfall)
The trains have
no drivers
Line 4
users driverless technology meaning the trains are operated remotely from a
control station and there is no human being onboard the train who can control
its movement. These are the first driverless trains in Latin America.
And here is the official ad for the new line:
2 comments:
Despite unemployment rate could rise (at least in the driving division...) that´s future maaaan!
I think someone still needs to be employed in the control centre, otherwise we would very soon be looking at accident number 11!
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