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Touchdown to the endpoint of Route 11 Westbound! This is my ride from Ortigas Ave. Ext., Rosario, Pasig City to Gilmore
De Guia Enterprises, Inc./G Liner | 5031 | Hino FG8J Grandmetro II fleet by Hino Motor Philippines, Inc.
Rationalized Route Assigned in Route 11: Gilmore - Taytay (under Mega Manila Consortium Corporation)
🕙 Date Taken on December 5, 2020 - 2:45 PM
📍 Photo Shot Location @Gilmore Ave. cor 1st St., New Manila, Quezon City
#MacBusEnthusiast #BehindTheBusSpottingPhotography @macbusenthusiastph
#BusesInThePhilippines #ProudlyPinoyMade #LoveLocals #HinoBus #PilipinasHino #HMPC #HinoFG #Grandmetro #GLiner
Fil-Korean Trifecta Low Floor to the Endpoint! 🚏🐎
Phil. Touristers, Inc. | 570 | SR Daewoo BS120S 1st Generation fleet by CMANC/Santarosa Motor Works, Inc. (SRWMI - Philippines)
🚏 Original / Authorized Franchise Route: Navotas Terminal - Pacita Complex via EDSA
🚏 Rationalized Route Assigned in Route E: EDSA Carousel (under Mega Manila Consortium Corporation - MMCC)
🚏 Now Re-classified as New Route 1
🕚 Date Taken on June 2022
📍 Photo Shot Location @ Diosdado Macapagal Blvd. cor Panay St., Tambo, Parañaque City
️ Landmark: Near Parañaque Integrated Terminal Exchange (PITX)
#MacBusEnthusiast #BehindTheBusSpottingPhotography #BusesInThePhilippines #BusPhotography #ProudlyPinoyMade #LoveLocals #KoreanStandards #KoreanTechnology #DaewooBus #DaewooLowFloorBus #DaewooBS120S #BS120S #Euro5 #SRDaewooBS120S #CMANC #Santarosa #SantarosaMotorWorksInc #SRWMI #PhilTouristersInc #PTI #EDSACarousel
Sarimanok 35th Route Southbound Endpoint!
Dela Rosa Transit | 8870 | Guilin Daewoo GDW6119H2 fleet by Guilin Daewoo Bus Co., Ltd. (China)
🚏 Original / Authorized Franchise Route: Pacita - Nova via EDSA
🚏 Rationalized Route Assigned in Route 35: Ayala - Balibago (under Mega Manila Consortium Corporation - MMCC)
🕚 Date Taken on June 2022
📍 Photo Shot Location @ EDSA-Ayala, Makati City
️️️ Landmark: Near SM Makati, Ayala Malls Glorietta / Greenbelt, The Landmark
#MacBusEnthusiast #BehindTheBusSpottingPhotography #BusPhotography @macbusenthusiastph
#DelaRosaTransit
Portland's newest bridge is officially opening this week. This is an unusual bridge in that it is used for mass transit, bicycles and pedestrians. AT first I questioned it endpoints but the area where I stood for this shot has been transformed, I don't know aboutthe weat end, but I'll check it out soon.
115 Pictures in 2015 #96 Town
This image is excerpted from a U.S. GAO report:
www.gao.gov/products/GAO-23-105466
Cybersecurity: Secret Service Has Made Progress Toward Zero Trust Architecture, but Work Remains
From Wikipedia: Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA), formerly known as Highway 54, is the main circumferential road and highway of Metro Manila in the Philippines. It is an important commuting artery between the northern and southern parts of the metropolitan area. EDSA is a partially-controlled access, mostly 10-lane divided highway (expressway) with interchanges along its length that eliminate the need for traffic lights, though traffic lights exist where there is insufficient space or funds for a complete interchange. EDSA handles 316,345 cars per section on average every day.[1] Stretching some 24 kilometers, it is one of the longest avenues in the Philippines.
EDSA forms the majority portion of the Circumferential Road 4 (C-4) in Metro Manila. It runs in a rough semicircle around Metropolitan Manila and, from the south, passes through the cities of Pasay, Makati, Mandaluyong, Quezon City, and Caloocan. Its southern endpoint is at a roundabout near the SM Mall of Asia in Pasay and its northern terminus is at Monumento, a monument to Andrés Bonifacio, in Caloocan. When the avenue was constructed during the presidency of Manuel L. Quezon, it was named Junio 19 (June 19), after the birthday of national hero José Rizal. It was later renamed Highway 54, and under Republic Act in 1959 was further renamed in honor of Epifanio de los Santos, a noted Filipino historian.
The Metro Rail Transit (MRT), Line 3 of the metropolis' railway system, runs along most of EDSA, from Taft Avenue in the south to North Avenue near the SM City North Edsa Mall in northern EDSA. Future expansion of the MRT will extend it all the way to Monumento. EDSA also figures prominently in the recent history of the Philippines for being the site of two peaceful demonstrations that toppled the administration of two Filipino presidents—the People Power Revolution of 1986 against Ferdinand Marcos and the EDSA Revolution of 2001 against Joseph Estrada.
Illinois Central operated an interlocking plant at Edgewood, IL (a few miles south of Effingham) that controlled IC's crossing with the B&O Southwestern line from Flora to Springfield and Beardstown, IL. During the 1920s, IC built an all-new main line to avoid the heavy grades and curves of IC's original main line through the southern Illinois hills, as well as avoiding the heavy traffic to and from southern Illinois coal mines. This new line would be connected to the Paducah & Illinois bridge over the Ohio at Metropolis, IL. This bridge was jointly owned (by IC, CB&Q, and NC&StL)
Edgewood was selected as the new line's northernmost endpoint, and accordingly, the interlocking plant was modified to include the junction with the line that became known as the Edgewood Cutoff.
The machine situated in the depot at Edgewood was a 24-space General Railway Signal Co. Model 2 unit lever machine. The depot was destroyed by a freight train derailment during the early Forties, and a small cabin was relocated o Edgewood as a replacement. The portions of the interlocking machine damaged in the derailment were replaced or repaired, and the machine was relocated into the new depot. The damaged original GRS oak case for the machine was replaced by a veneer case built by IC carpenters.
This machine outlasted the B&OSW, which was retired during the Eighties. and even survived IC's single-tracking project that began in the late Eighties. After that project concluded in 1991, IC's signal department began to retire its sizable number of round-the-clock manned interlocking towers in central Illinois. One by one, these towers were removed from service, and Edgewood's service lifetime came to an end on July 28, 1992.
This view of the mechanical locking at the upper end of the 24-lever machine was taken after the veneer case was removed in preparation for the machine to be disassembled and removed.
People dispersed to various directions and dance parties. I followed some folks to Marine Park at end of Harris Ave. where a few painted cyclists "crashed" a friend's graduation party. It was a welcome addition.
The Fonte Gaia ("Fountain of Joy") was set up in 1419 as an endpoint of the system of conduits bringing water to the city's centre. The present fountain is in the shape of a rectangular basin that is adorned on three sides with many bas-reliefs with the Madonna surrounded by the Classical and the Christian Virtues. The white marble Fonte Gaia was originally designed and built by Jacopo della Quercia. The former sculptures were replaced in 1866 by free copies by Tito Sarocchi, who omitted Jacopo della Quercia's two nude statues of Rhea Silvia and Acca Larentia, which the nineteenth-century city fathers found too pagan or too nude. When they were set up in 1419, Jacopo della Quercia's nude figures were the first two female nudes, who were neither Eve nor a repentant saint, to stand in a public place since Antiquity. ( wikipedia )
Piazza del Campo, Siena, Italy.Taken with Zenit TTL.
I thought that this was a hilarious mashup as I could easily see 45 as "Agent Orange." Caveat: I can get as political as anybody else, I just try to not delve into it. But I thought that whoever did this put some time, effort, and thought into this.
For my followers who aren't into comic books, in the DC Comics universe, colors represent emotions (green = will [Green Lantern Corps for example], red = rage, yellow = fear, etc.). Orange represents avarice and greed in this emotional light spectrum. Yet there is only one "Orange Lantern" (a.k.a. Agent Orange) as he is too greedy to share anything: Larfleeze. A very powerful and ancient entity fueled only by his own hunger and greed with little regard towards other living creatures (he even captures their essences to make them into orange energy constructs to carry out his orders - slavery after death, if you will).
So mashing Larfleeze with 45 with the "MINE!!! MINE!!! MINE!!!" poster (Larfleeze says this a lot and has revisionist memory issues; again some great common characteristics for a mash-up) was quite clever and perhaps a bit brilliant.
To add my own artistic spin to the image, the light behind "Agent Orange" is the actual light (not edited on my part) coming from the Mens room (bathroom, toilet); all I did was tone down any other background colors in the image. This could state that bodily wastes could be taken as a source or endpoint of greed. Gross yet makes you think and be somewhat amused. ;-)
Do you like roller-coaster hikes? The Rockwall Trail runs along these cliffs for 30 kilometers. Each campsite takes you down from these plateaus to a valley 600 to 800 meters lower, so you if you enjoy lots of up and down then this trail is for you! Helmet Creek, Tumbling Creek, Numa Creek and Floe Creek are the four main camp areas along this 30 km stretch. You can see one of the endpoints of the trail in the distance. A bit beyond that cliff-face is the Helmet Falls campsite.
Since the campsites are at a much lower elevation, it's hard to be on the plateaus for sunrise or sunset. Sunrise will come from the right in this view, so might be the more desirable option for photography if you get going early enough. At this time of year you might have to leave camp by 4 am to see this view lit up with alpenglow. For the meantime, this cheery midday shot will have to do.
The larger view is always better... B l a c k M a g i c or as a Slideshow
Fonte Avatar official FB Page:
A dark, twisted circus sideshow that’s built around bombastically grooving melodic death n’ roll is swinging forward with captivating glee, mesmerizing merriment and the plundering power of lethal pirates toward those brave souls who hand over a ticket to be torn by Avatar and their Black Waltz, the fourth album and first proper American release from the Swedish masters of mayhem.
Within Avatar’s diverse songs, a steady focus on the fluid and organic power of the riff (recalling the thunderous foresight of heavy metal’s original wizards, Black Sabbath) takes flight combined with an adventurous sprit veering off into the astral planes of the psychedelic atmosphere conjured by pioneers like Pink Floyd back in the day.
Avatar has found a footing that combines the best of rock n’ roll, hard rock and heavy metal’s past, present and future into an overall artistic presentation that is thought-provoking, challenging and altogether enchantingly electric. With the grandiose showmanship of American professional wrestling, the snake oil salesmanship of early 20th century vaudevillian troubadours and the kinetically superheroic power of early Kiss, Avatar lays waste to lesser mortals with ease. Whether somebody gets their rocks off listening to Satyricon or System of a Down, they’ll find something suitably deranged here.
“We’re in this weird field, caught in a triangle between extreme metal, rock n’ roll and what can be described as Avant-garde,” confesses Avatar vocalist Johannes Eckerström. The all-enveloping theme park vibe of the band’s music and visual counterpart means that, naturally, “it’s turning into something bigger.”
“I have been in this band for ten years. I grew up in this band,” Eckerström explains. “We’re somewhat veterans on the one hand. But we’re the new kids in the neighborhood in America at the same time.”
Avatar came of age as “little brothers” of sorts of the famed Gothenburg scene that spawned the celebrated New Wave Of Swedish Death Metal. The band’s debut album, 2006’s Thoughts of No Tomorrow, was filled with brutal, technical melodic death metal to be sure but already, “We tried to put our own stamp on it,” the singer assures. While the following year’s Schlacht still contained flourishes of melody, the unrelenting metallic fury reached an extreme peak. “Intensity was very important,” he says, with some degree of understatement.
Where to go for album number three? “We basically rebelled against ourselves,” Eckerström says of 2009’s self-titled collection. “We figured, ‘We can play faster and make even weirder, more technical riffs,’ because Schlacht was cool. But to take that another step would have turned us into something we didn’t want to be.”
Instead Avatar rediscovered their inherent passion for traditional heavy metal and classic rock n’ roll. “We decided to remove some unnecessary ‘look at me, I can play!’ parts and added more groove. We added a whole new kind of melody. It was awesome to be this ‘rock n’ roll band’ for a while. It was refreshing and liberating.”
Black Waltz sees Avatar coming completely full circle, returning to a more aggressive form of heavy metal but incorporating the lessons they learned while jamming on big riffs with album number three. “We finally came to understand what a good groove is all about and what a great fit it was for our sound,” notes Eckerström.
Tracks like the appropriately titled “Ready for the Ride,” the rollicking “Let it Burn” (which dips into some delicious stonerifficness), the anthemic “Smells Like a Freakshow” (a modern day twist of Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie) and “Torn Apart” are supercharged with a dynamic range of artistic showmanship on a near cinematic scale and it’s all stitched together by a driving bottom end.
While most European metal acts who dare attempt this level of musicianship, showmanship and attention to detail seem content to toil away in the studio and lock themselves away from the crowds, Avatar have excelled beyond their peers thanks in large part to their continued focus on road work. Careening to and fro on tour busses and airplanes around the world like a marauding troupe of circus performers, Eckerström and his mates (guitarists Jonas Jarlsby and Tim Öhrström, bassist Henrik Sandelin and drummer John Alfredsson) have forged the type of musical bond that can only be brought forth from massive amounts of time spent together on the stage, in hotel rooms, in airports and partying at the venue’s bar.
Whether on tour with bands like In Flames, Dark Tranquility or Helloween, playing gigantic festivals like Storsjöyra and Sweden Rock Festival or demolishing South by Southwest, playing live is what it all comes down to for this band. “That is the final manifestation of our art,” Eckerström insists. “Of course an album is a piece of art in itself, but mainly it's a means to reach the higher goal, which is doing these awesome shows. Touring is of the greatest importance.”
“We all just love the pirate’s life,” he admits freely. “Sailing into the city on this tour bus thingy, going to kick some ass, have that party and all the while meeting all of these people, entertaining them, encountering a culture that's not your own. We love that.”
The want for this type of lifestyle goes back to early childhood fascinations for the good-humored singer. Reading about superheroes, watching Hulk Hogan on TV, getting exposed to Kiss – these were the first ingredients for what Eckerström would go on to create with the guys in Avatar and what has culminated now in Black Waltz.
The frontman promises that Avatar will continue to create, to captivate and to experiment. There’s no definitive endpoint in sight. It’s always about the horizon, the journey itself. “As long as you're hungry as an artist, there are higher and higher artistic achievements. I love AC/DC and Motorhead and what they’ve established is amazing, but we don’t want to write albums that are kind of like the album before. We want to travel to a new galaxy, so to speak, every time.”
The goal is always to conquer what came before. “That is what stays with you as a mentally healthy musician. Or maybe a mentally deranged one, I’m not sure,” the singer laughs. And part and parcel to that continued evolution will be the ever broadening expansion of the scope of Avatar’s worldwide presentation: Black Waltz and beyond.
“We have great visions of what we want to do and the things we want to give to people on a stage,” Eckerström promises. “These ideas, these visions, they require a huge audience. They require a lot of legroom to be done, so I want to get into those arenas, basically. I know we would do something really magical if we got the chance. This idea is one of those things that really, really keeps us going.”
Tashi Gongphel Tours (Bhutan Travel Agents and Bhutan Tour Operators) have been operating a variety of activity-based tours for our Groups and Individual tourists and have been able to mastermind them with great deal of efficiency.The company specializes in inbound tours and offers wide range of tours on Bhutan Culture Tours, Bhutan Treks and adventure, Bhutan Textiles Tours, Bhutan Festival Tours, Bhutan Travel, Bhutan Tours, Bhutan Flora & Fauna, Bhutan Rafting, Meditation Tour, Business Tour, Honey moon Tour, Botanical Tour, Bhutan Bird watching, Bhutan Religious Tours, Bhutan Mountain Biking, Bhutan Excursion, Bhutan Fishing Tours, and other adventures.
Druk Path Trek(The Short Trek in Bhutan),Trip to Bhutan,Bhutan Adventure,Bhutan Travel,Bhutan Tour
This is possibly the most spectacular and popular trekking route in Bhutan, which leads from Paro to Thimphu or vice versa, Traversing mountain passes, through lush green valleys and passing several small high altitude lakes. You are likely to spot the rare blue poppy besides other exotic flora. The duration of the trek ranges between four and six days and it is a moderate difficult one with the maximum altitude reached being 13,776ft/4200m. the area is famous for its spectacular rhododendron forests, which bloom in May. In the clear weather of late autumn and winter there are great views of the Himalayas.
TRIP LENGHT: 10 Days
SEASONS: March to May & September to November
Day 01: Arrive at Paro
Your Guides from Tashi Gongphel Tours will receive you at the airport with Tashi Khadar and drive you the short distance to the hotel.
Day 2: Paro Sightseeing
After breakfast visit to the watch tower of Paro Dzong which now houses the National Museum. The museum is an important center for the preservation of Bhutanese artifacts, culture and history. Then, we continue to Rinpung Dzong (or Paro Dzong), which means “the fortress of the heap of jewels.” This complex houses the administrative and religious headquarters for the Paro district. A part of Bernardo Bertolucci’s movie, “Little Buddha,” was filmed inside this Dzong. From the Dzong, we will enjoy a short and easy walk to the Pachu river and cross to the other side over a traditional cantilever (wooden covered) bridge after lunch Drive to Drukgyal Dzong, a ruined fortress which is 16 km away from Paro Town. Although in ruins, this Dzong is of great historical importance. It was here that the Bhutanese finally defeated the invading Tibetans and drove them back. From here, the peak of Jumolhari ‘Mountain of the Goddess’ can be seen on a clear day (Alt. 7,329 m /24,029 ft.). And on the way back visit Kichu Lhakhang is the oldest and the most sacred shrine of Bhutan built in 8th century by the Tibetan King Songtsen Gampo. In the evening take a leisurely stroll in Paro town.
Day 3: Trek Starts from Ta Dzong- Jele Dzong(10km-3-4 hours.Atitude:3450M)
Start early so that you can escape the scorching heat on the up hill where trees are less. The trail starts above the Ta Dzong (Museum). Today is a 3/4 hours trek. Starts gradually up hill, through mixed temperate forests and occasional farmhouses. By lunch time the trails goes through thick coniferous belt. Look out for wild animals & birds. By evening you reach the Jelela Pass 2600m from here, which the campsite is just hundred meters down hill. It is a great campsite with fairly wide meadow – a place where yak herder camps here. When they migrated the herds.
Day 4: Continue Trek Starts from Jele Dzong- Jangchuk Lakha (10km-4-5 hours.Atitude:3780M)
Today you are heading to Jangchuk Lhakha camp. It is 4/5 hours trek and campsite is at 3780 meters at the maximum. You are gaining around three hundred meters high. The trails starts 200 meters uphill to Jeli Dzong, which served as the rest house during the 2nd King ‘s time and now a monastic institute. The trail is mostly up and down with good views of Paro valley on your left side as you walk on the ridges. Forests that with high temperate and some alpine meadows.
Day 5: Continue Trek Starts from Jangchuk Lakha – Jimi Langtsho(11km-5-6 hours.Atitude:3880M)
Today we are heading to Jimi Langtso Lake, which is maximum 3880 meters high (the highest camp side on your trip), trek of 6/7 hours. Starts with 500 meters uphill through coniferous forests and barren hillsides dotted with rhododendron flowers if it in spring and beside this you will see lot of other flora and faunas. A great scenic walks. Lot of wild onions grows on this trail. After the first Pass it’s mostly up and down if some one is riding pony have to take extra cautious. Before you cross the last Pass you walk by a ridge. Which offers a great scenic view on clear days you can view Mt.Kanchenjunga and Bhutan’s Chomolhari; Jichu Drakey & Tsrim gang – all on the left side (towards northwest). After the last Pass the Lake can be seen on your left side, so all down hill till campsite by the Lakeside.
Day 6: Continue Trek Starts from Jimi Langtsho- Phajoding (20 km-5-6 hours.Atitude:3870M)
Start early in order to reach Phajoding. You are gradually going uphill today. The trek 6/7 hours and campsite at Phajoding is 3870 metes. There are numerous Passes and some are as high as 4000 meters. You will come across the Yak herder’s camp & yaks grazing all around near by Lake and so. In this route some time we see the carven of Blue Sheep. Although, it would not be like Chomolhari trek as we see many.
In this last day to Phajoding camp we will come across the Lake Janetso and semkotatso. All the lake in this trek has trout. Great scenic view can be seen on clear days most of the Bhutan’s snow capped mountains. When you look at northeast. After reaching the Phajoding Pass, enjoy a great view of Thimphu capital valley and down hill till campsite.
Day 7: Continue Trek Starts from Phajoding-Thimphu (5 km-3 hours.Altitude:2350M)
Last day of the trip and if you want to reach Thimphu early. You can start in morning
Otherwise you can start late and visit some old temples there. The sunrise view from Phajoding is great with Thimphu valley just below you. Many pheasants can be seen if you take a little morning walk around the hillside.
Always carry a walking stick with you at Phajoding, as sometimes the Monastery dogs can be a menace. The walk down is through mixed temperate forests and takes Maximum 2 hours. Your car awaits you at the trek endpoint then a Tashi Delek & Farewell to your trekking crews.
Day 08:Thimphu Sight seeing
After breakfast drive to Thimphu and visit the National Memorial Chorten (1974) built in honour of our late King Jigme Dorji Wangchuk, “The Father of Modern Bhutan”. Built in a typical Tibetan style, there are numerous religious paintings and the complex tantric statues reflecting both the peaceful and wrathful aspects of Buddhist deities. This Chorten is also a center of worship for the people living in Thimphu. Then visit to Dupthop Lhakhang one of the few surviving nunneries in Bhutan. Visit Changkha Monastery (This monastery was built in 15th century by the lama Phajo Drugom Zhipo) where the new born child of Thimphu valley are taken to receive 1st blessing from a High Lama. Drive to Mini Zoo where Takin, the national animal of Bhutan can be seen. This particular animal is found only in the Himalayan region and the head of this animal looks like that of a goat and body of a cow/yak and before sun set drive to Sangay gang view point (2685 meters) to have view of whole Thimphu valley and walk through hundreds of colourful prayer flags that dot the hill over looking the Thimphu valley. Dinner and Overnight in Hotel at Thimphu.
Day 09: Continue sight seeing in Thimphu and after lunch drive to paro
Day 10: Departure
After breakfast, bid farewell to your guide and be transferred to the airport for flight
Ternate Double 8 & 6 Roaring PKB Reached to the Endpoint!
Saint Anthony of Padua Transport System Inc. / Erjohn & Almark Transit Corp. | 88066 | Santarosa UD PKB212N fleet by CMC/Santarosa Motor Works, Inc. (SRWMI - Philippines)
🚏 Original / Authorized Franchise Route: Ternate, Cavite - Baclaran via V. Cruz, Maragondon, Naic
🚏 Modified Route Currently Served in PITX - Ternate, Cavite
🕚 Date Taken on July 2022
📍 Photo Shot Location @ Diosdado Macapagal Blvd. cor Panay St., Tambo, Parañaque City
️ Landmark: Near Parañaque Integrated Terminal Exchange (PITX)
#MacBusEnthusiast #BehindTheBusSpottingPhotography #BusesInThePhilippines #BusPhotography #ProudlyPinoyMade #LoveLocals #JapaneseTechnology #JapaneseStandards #UD #UDBus #PKB212N #UDPKB212N #SantarosaPKB #SantarosaPKB212N #CMC #Santarosa #SantarosaMotorWorksInc #SRWMI #SaintAnthonyOfPaduaBus #SaintAnthonyOfPaduaTransport #SaintAnthonyOfPaduaTransportSystemInc #ErjohnAndAlmark #ErjohnAndAlmarkTransit #ErjohnAndAlmarkTransitCorp
Starship's 10th test flight, which launched on August 26, 2025, is considered the first fully successful flight, achieving all major objectives including a controlled splashdown of the Starship upper stage in the Indian Ocean and the first-ever deployment of its payload. This flight marked a significant comeback after several past missions ended in vehicle loss and failure to reach the intended mission endpoints.
Fonte Avatar official FB Page:
A dark, twisted circus sideshow that’s built around bombastically grooving melodic death n’ roll is swinging forward with captivating glee, mesmerizing merriment and the plundering power of lethal pirates toward those brave souls who hand over a ticket to be torn by Avatar and their Black Waltz, the fourth album and first proper American release from the Swedish masters of mayhem.
Within Avatar’s diverse songs, a steady focus on the fluid and organic power of the riff (recalling the thunderous foresight of heavy metal’s original wizards, Black Sabbath) takes flight combined with an adventurous sprit veering off into the astral planes of the psychedelic atmosphere conjured by pioneers like Pink Floyd back in the day.
Avatar has found a footing that combines the best of rock n’ roll, hard rock and heavy metal’s past, present and future into an overall artistic presentation that is thought-provoking, challenging and altogether enchantingly electric. With the grandiose showmanship of American professional wrestling, the snake oil salesmanship of early 20th century vaudevillian troubadours and the kinetically superheroic power of early Kiss, Avatar lays waste to lesser mortals with ease. Whether somebody gets their rocks off listening to Satyricon or System of a Down, they’ll find something suitably deranged here.
“We’re in this weird field, caught in a triangle between extreme metal, rock n’ roll and what can be described as Avant-garde,” confesses Avatar vocalist Johannes Eckerström. The all-enveloping theme park vibe of the band’s music and visual counterpart means that, naturally, “it’s turning into something bigger.”
“I have been in this band for ten years. I grew up in this band,” Eckerström explains. “We’re somewhat veterans on the one hand. But we’re the new kids in the neighborhood in America at the same time.”
Avatar came of age as “little brothers” of sorts of the famed Gothenburg scene that spawned the celebrated New Wave Of Swedish Death Metal. The band’s debut album, 2006’s Thoughts of No Tomorrow, was filled with brutal, technical melodic death metal to be sure but already, “We tried to put our own stamp on it,” the singer assures. While the following year’s Schlacht still contained flourishes of melody, the unrelenting metallic fury reached an extreme peak. “Intensity was very important,” he says, with some degree of understatement.
Where to go for album number three? “We basically rebelled against ourselves,” Eckerström says of 2009’s self-titled collection. “We figured, ‘We can play faster and make even weirder, more technical riffs,’ because Schlacht was cool. But to take that another step would have turned us into something we didn’t want to be.”
Instead Avatar rediscovered their inherent passion for traditional heavy metal and classic rock n’ roll. “We decided to remove some unnecessary ‘look at me, I can play!’ parts and added more groove. We added a whole new kind of melody. It was awesome to be this ‘rock n’ roll band’ for a while. It was refreshing and liberating.”
Black Waltz sees Avatar coming completely full circle, returning to a more aggressive form of heavy metal but incorporating the lessons they learned while jamming on big riffs with album number three. “We finally came to understand what a good groove is all about and what a great fit it was for our sound,” notes Eckerström.
Tracks like the appropriately titled “Ready for the Ride,” the rollicking “Let it Burn” (which dips into some delicious stonerifficness), the anthemic “Smells Like a Freakshow” (a modern day twist of Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie) and “Torn Apart” are supercharged with a dynamic range of artistic showmanship on a near cinematic scale and it’s all stitched together by a driving bottom end.
While most European metal acts who dare attempt this level of musicianship, showmanship and attention to detail seem content to toil away in the studio and lock themselves away from the crowds, Avatar have excelled beyond their peers thanks in large part to their continued focus on road work. Careening to and fro on tour busses and airplanes around the world like a marauding troupe of circus performers, Eckerström and his mates (guitarists Jonas Jarlsby and Tim Öhrström, bassist Henrik Sandelin and drummer John Alfredsson) have forged the type of musical bond that can only be brought forth from massive amounts of time spent together on the stage, in hotel rooms, in airports and partying at the venue’s bar.
Whether on tour with bands like In Flames, Dark Tranquility or Helloween, playing gigantic festivals like Storsjöyra and Sweden Rock Festival or demolishing South by Southwest, playing live is what it all comes down to for this band. “That is the final manifestation of our art,” Eckerström insists. “Of course an album is a piece of art in itself, but mainly it's a means to reach the higher goal, which is doing these awesome shows. Touring is of the greatest importance.”
“We all just love the pirate’s life,” he admits freely. “Sailing into the city on this tour bus thingy, going to kick some ass, have that party and all the while meeting all of these people, entertaining them, encountering a culture that's not your own. We love that.”
The want for this type of lifestyle goes back to early childhood fascinations for the good-humored singer. Reading about superheroes, watching Hulk Hogan on TV, getting exposed to Kiss – these were the first ingredients for what Eckerström would go on to create with the guys in Avatar and what has culminated now in Black Waltz.
The frontman promises that Avatar will continue to create, to captivate and to experiment. There’s no definitive endpoint in sight. It’s always about the horizon, the journey itself. “As long as you're hungry as an artist, there are higher and higher artistic achievements. I love AC/DC and Motorhead and what they’ve established is amazing, but we don’t want to write albums that are kind of like the album before. We want to travel to a new galaxy, so to speak, every time.”
The goal is always to conquer what came before. “That is what stays with you as a mentally healthy musician. Or maybe a mentally deranged one, I’m not sure,” the singer laughs. And part and parcel to that continued evolution will be the ever broadening expansion of the scope of Avatar’s worldwide presentation: Black Waltz and beyond.
“We have great visions of what we want to do and the things we want to give to people on a stage,” Eckerström promises. “These ideas, these visions, they require a huge audience. They require a lot of legroom to be done, so I want to get into those arenas, basically. I know we would do something really magical if we got the chance. This idea is one of those things that really, really keeps us going.”
Under streetlight shadow and skeleton branches still naked of leaves, Arminella Smith is lying. She had just one year to remember, nothing but the present, but somehow saw the shift of three calendars changing. Born in 1844 and living to the early moments of 1846, can you really imagine with it all so far away from the moment? The shadows seem like fire, but warmth is nowhere near when you want it. There's all the things they said about starting over, ending up, and hoping hard to survive. Now there's a certainty settled in, an absolute endpoint of existence. No visitors who knew who was, no photographs to spot a face, no memories but those long since slipped away. So I'm here at the strangest time, sitting in the grass and deadfall twigs all scattered, halfway between dusk and dawn coming. I'm here for reasons more about me than her, looking to find where I'm going from all that's been and gone. It's like a song that's been surrendered, melody still coming in the back of my mind. It's hope that hums along.
April 23, 2022
Wiswall Cemetery
Wilmot, Nova Scotia
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A dark, twisted circus sideshow that’s built around bombastically grooving melodic death n’ roll is swinging forward with captivating glee, mesmerizing merriment and the plundering power of lethal pirates toward those brave souls who hand over a ticket to be torn by Avatar and their Black Waltz, the fourth album and first proper American release from the Swedish masters of mayhem.
Within Avatar’s diverse songs, a steady focus on the fluid and organic power of the riff (recalling the thunderous foresight of heavy metal’s original wizards, Black Sabbath) takes flight combined with an adventurous sprit veering off into the astral planes of the psychedelic atmosphere conjured by pioneers like Pink Floyd back in the day.
Avatar has found a footing that combines the best of rock n’ roll, hard rock and heavy metal’s past, present and future into an overall artistic presentation that is thought-provoking, challenging and altogether enchantingly electric. With the grandiose showmanship of American professional wrestling, the snake oil salesmanship of early 20th century vaudevillian troubadours and the kinetically superheroic power of early Kiss, Avatar lays waste to lesser mortals with ease. Whether somebody gets their rocks off listening to Satyricon or System of a Down, they’ll find something suitably deranged here.
“We’re in this weird field, caught in a triangle between extreme metal, rock n’ roll and what can be described as Avant-garde,” confesses Avatar vocalist Johannes Eckerström. The all-enveloping theme park vibe of the band’s music and visual counterpart means that, naturally, “it’s turning into something bigger.”
“I have been in this band for ten years. I grew up in this band,” Eckerström explains. “We’re somewhat veterans on the one hand. But we’re the new kids in the neighborhood in America at the same time.”
Avatar came of age as “little brothers” of sorts of the famed Gothenburg scene that spawned the celebrated New Wave Of Swedish Death Metal. The band’s debut album, 2006’s Thoughts of No Tomorrow, was filled with brutal, technical melodic death metal to be sure but already, “We tried to put our own stamp on it,” the singer assures. While the following year’s Schlacht still contained flourishes of melody, the unrelenting metallic fury reached an extreme peak. “Intensity was very important,” he says, with some degree of understatement.
Where to go for album number three? “We basically rebelled against ourselves,” Eckerström says of 2009’s self-titled collection. “We figured, ‘We can play faster and make even weirder, more technical riffs,’ because Schlacht was cool. But to take that another step would have turned us into something we didn’t want to be.”
Instead Avatar rediscovered their inherent passion for traditional heavy metal and classic rock n’ roll. “We decided to remove some unnecessary ‘look at me, I can play!’ parts and added more groove. We added a whole new kind of melody. It was awesome to be this ‘rock n’ roll band’ for a while. It was refreshing and liberating.”
Black Waltz sees Avatar coming completely full circle, returning to a more aggressive form of heavy metal but incorporating the lessons they learned while jamming on big riffs with album number three. “We finally came to understand what a good groove is all about and what a great fit it was for our sound,” notes Eckerström.
Tracks like the appropriately titled “Ready for the Ride,” the rollicking “Let it Burn” (which dips into some delicious stonerifficness), the anthemic “Smells Like a Freakshow” (a modern day twist of Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie) and “Torn Apart” are supercharged with a dynamic range of artistic showmanship on a near cinematic scale and it’s all stitched together by a driving bottom end.
While most European metal acts who dare attempt this level of musicianship, showmanship and attention to detail seem content to toil away in the studio and lock themselves away from the crowds, Avatar have excelled beyond their peers thanks in large part to their continued focus on road work. Careening to and fro on tour busses and airplanes around the world like a marauding troupe of circus performers, Eckerström and his mates (guitarists Jonas Jarlsby and Tim Öhrström, bassist Henrik Sandelin and drummer John Alfredsson) have forged the type of musical bond that can only be brought forth from massive amounts of time spent together on the stage, in hotel rooms, in airports and partying at the venue’s bar.
Whether on tour with bands like In Flames, Dark Tranquility or Helloween, playing gigantic festivals like Storsjöyra and Sweden Rock Festival or demolishing South by Southwest, playing live is what it all comes down to for this band. “That is the final manifestation of our art,” Eckerström insists. “Of course an album is a piece of art in itself, but mainly it's a means to reach the higher goal, which is doing these awesome shows. Touring is of the greatest importance.”
“We all just love the pirate’s life,” he admits freely. “Sailing into the city on this tour bus thingy, going to kick some ass, have that party and all the while meeting all of these people, entertaining them, encountering a culture that's not your own. We love that.”
The want for this type of lifestyle goes back to early childhood fascinations for the good-humored singer. Reading about superheroes, watching Hulk Hogan on TV, getting exposed to Kiss – these were the first ingredients for what Eckerström would go on to create with the guys in Avatar and what has culminated now in Black Waltz.
The frontman promises that Avatar will continue to create, to captivate and to experiment. There’s no definitive endpoint in sight. It’s always about the horizon, the journey itself. “As long as you're hungry as an artist, there are higher and higher artistic achievements. I love AC/DC and Motorhead and what they’ve established is amazing, but we don’t want to write albums that are kind of like the album before. We want to travel to a new galaxy, so to speak, every time.”
The goal is always to conquer what came before. “That is what stays with you as a mentally healthy musician. Or maybe a mentally deranged one, I’m not sure,” the singer laughs. And part and parcel to that continued evolution will be the ever broadening expansion of the scope of Avatar’s worldwide presentation: Black Waltz and beyond.
“We have great visions of what we want to do and the things we want to give to people on a stage,” Eckerström promises. “These ideas, these visions, they require a huge audience. They require a lot of legroom to be done, so I want to get into those arenas, basically. I know we would do something really magical if we got the chance. This idea is one of those things that really, really keeps us going.”
Fontana di Trevi
Um texto, em português, da Wikipédia, a Enciclopédia livre:
A Fontana di Trevi (Fonte dos trevos, em português) é a maior (cerca de 26 metros de altura e 20 metros de largura) e mais ambiciosa construção de fontes barrocas da Itália e está localizada na rione Trevi, em Roma.
A fonte situava-se no cruzamento de três estradas (tre vie), marcando o ponto final do Acqua Vergine, um dos mais antigos aquedutos que abasteciam a cidade de Roma. No ano 19 a.C., supostamente ajudados por uma virgem, técnicos romanos localizaram uma fonte de água pura a pouco mais de 22 quilômetros da cidade (cena representada em escultura na própria fonte, atualmente). A água desta fonte foi levada pelo menor aqueduto de Roma, diretamente para os banheiros de Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa e serviu a cidade por mais de 400 anos.
O "golpe de misericórdia" desferido pelos invasores godos em Roma foi dado com a destruição dos aquedutos, durante as Guerras Góticas. Os romanos durante a Idade Média tinham de abastecer-se da água de poços poluídos, e da pouco límpida água do rio Tibre, que também recebia os esgotos da cidade.
O antigo costume romano de erguer uma bela fonte ao final de um aqueduto que conduzia a água para a cidade foi reavivado no século XV, com a Renascença. Em 1453, o Papa Nicolau V determinou fosse consertado o aqueduto de Acqua Vergine, construindo ao seu final um simples receptáculo para receber a água, num projeto feito pelo arquiteto humanista Leon Battista Alberti.
Em 1629, o Papa Urbano VIII achou que a velha fonte era insuficientemente dramática e encomendou a Bernini alguns desenhos, mas quando o Papa faleceu o projeto foi abandonado. A última contribuição de Bernini foi reposicionar a fonte para o outro lado da praça a fim de que esta ficasse defronte ao Palácio do Quirinal (assim o Papa poderia vê-la e admirá-la de sua janela). Ainda que o projeto de Bernini tenha sido abandonado, existem na fonte muitos detalhes de sua idéia original.
Muitas competições entre artistas e arquitetos tiveram lugar durante o Renascimento e o período Barroco para se redesenhar os edifícios, as fontes, e até mesmo a Scalinata di Piazza di Spagna (as escadarias da Praça de Espanha). Em 1730, o Papa Clemente XII organizou uma nova competição na qual Nicola Salvi foi derrotado, mas efetivamente terminou por realizar seu projeto. Este começou em 1732 e foi concluído em 1762, logo depois da morte de Clemente, quando o Netuno de Pietro Bracci foi afixado no nicho central da fonte.
Salvi morrera alguns anos antes, em 1751, com seu trabalho ainda pela metade, que manteve oculto por um grande biombo. A fonte foi concluída por Giuseppe Pannini, que substituiu as alegorias insossas que eram planejadas, representando Agrippa e Trivia, as virgens romanas, pelas belas esculturas de Netuno e seu séquito.
A fonte foi restaurada em 1998; as esculturas foram limpas e polidas, e a fonte foi provida de bombas para circulação da água e sua oxigenação.
A text, in english, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
The fountain at the junction of three roads (tre vie) marks the terminal point of the "modern" Acqua Vergine, the revivified Aqua Virgo, one of the ancient aqueducts that supplied water to ancient Rome. In 19 BC, supposedly with the help of a virgin, Roman technicians located a source of pure water some 13 km (8 miles) from the city. (This scene is presented on the present fountain's façade.) However, the eventual indirect route of the aqueduct made its length some 22 km (14 miles). This Aqua Virgo led the water into the Baths of Agrippa. It served Rome for more than four hundred years. The coup de grâce for the urban life of late classical Rome came when the Goth besiegers in 537/38 broke the aqueducts. Medieval Romans were reduced to drawing water from polluted wells and the Tiber River, which was also used as a sewer.
The Roman custom of building a handsome fountain at the endpoint of an aqueduct that brought water to Rome was revived in the 15th century, with the Renaissance. In 1453, Pope Nicholas V finished mending the Acqua Vergine aqueduct and built a simple basin, designed by the humanist architect Leon Battista Alberti, to herald the water's arrival.
In 1629 Pope Urban VIII, finding the earlier fountain insufficiently dramatic, asked Bernini to sketch possible renovations, but when the Pope died, the project was abandoned. Bernini's lasting contribution was to resite the fountain from the other side of the square to face the Quirinal Palace (so the Pope could look down and enjoy it). Though Bernini's project was torn down for Salvi's fountain, there are many Bernini touches in the fountain as it was built. An early, striking and influential model by Pietro da Cortona, preserved in the Albertina, Vienna, also exists, as do various early 18th century sketches, most unsigned, as well as a project attributed to Nicola Michetti, one attributed to Ferdinando Fuga and a French design by Edme Bouchardon.
Competitions had become the rage during the Baroque era to design buildings, fountains, and even the Spanish Steps. In 1730 Pope Clement XII organized a contest in which Nicola Salvi initially lost to Alessandro Galilei — but due to the outcry in Rome over the fact that a Florentine won, Salvi was awarded the commission anyway. Work began in 1732, and the fountain was completed in 1762, long after Clement's death, when Pietro Bracci's Oceanus (god of all water) was set in the central niche.
Salvi died in 1751, with his work half-finished, but before he went he made sure a stubborn barber's unsightly sign would not spoil the ensemble, hiding it behind a sculpted vase, called by Romans the asso di coppe, "the "Ace of Cups".
The Trevi Fountain was finished in 1762 by Giuseppe Pannini, who substituted the present allegories for planned sculptures of Agrippa and "Trivia", the Roman virgin.
The fountain was refurbished in 1998; the stonework was scrubbed and the fountain provided with recirculating pumps.
The backdrop for the fountain is the Palazzo Poli, given a new facade with a giant order of Corinthian pilasters that link the two main stories. Taming of the waters is the theme of the gigantic scheme that tumbles forward, mixing water and rockwork, and filling the small square. Tritons guide Oceanus' shell chariot, taming seahorses (hippocamps).
In the center is superimposed a robustly modelled triumphal arch. The center niche or exedra framing Oceanus has free-standing columns for maximal light-and-shade. In the niches flanking Oceanus, Abundance spills water from her urn and Salubrity holds a cup from which a snake drinks. Above, bas reliefs illustrate the Roman origin of the aqueducts.
The tritons and horses provide symmetrical balance, with the maximum contrast in their mood and poses (by 1730, rococo was already in full bloom in France and Germany).
A traditional legend holds that if visitors throw a coin into the fountain, they are ensured a return to Rome. Among those who are unaware that the "three coins" of Three Coins in the Fountain were thrown by three different individuals, a reported current interpretation is that two coins will lead to a new romance and three will ensure either a marriage or divorce. A reported current version of this legend is that it is lucky to throw three coins with one's right hand over one's left shoulder into the Trevi Fountain.
Approximately 3,000 Euros are thrown into the fountain each day and are collected at night. The money has been used to subsidize a supermarket for Rome's needy. However, there are regular attempts to steal coins from the fountain.
Phase II of the development of the "Ryu" Class Space Superiority Fighter was the introduction of a variant including FTL capabilities using the previously-developed (and, subsequently stolen) StarDrive module.
Tanuki Corp. was behind the 8-ball, developing new prototype StarDrive modules from schematics and raw data alone, since the original physical prototype was commandeered by Blacktron agents.
After a short development and shake-down period, the newly-christened "Gen 2 StarDrive" modules were unveiled. Lessons learned in the development of the first version led to breakthroughs in energy conservation leading to a 50% gain in FTL speed. Coupled with the extra power output generated by the extended fuselage on the "Ryu" Class SSF, this meant for an over-all 75% increase in top-speed.
Other than the addition of these four Gen-2 StarDrive modules, the configuration remains the same as the "Ryu" Class. The new configuration, dubbed the "Ryu/Tokkan" Class Pursuit Special has already had success in defeating it's primary target: The Blacktron "Transgressor".
Since the "Transgressor" relies on StarDrive modules for both conventional and FTL spaceflight, it is no match for the velocity and handling capabilities of the "Ryu/Tokkan's" "Firedemon" engine modules during conventional spaceflight, and the "Transgressor's" first-gen, barely tested, glitch-prone StarDrive modules are not nearly as powerful as the more durable and efficient gen-two StarDrive modules mated to the "Ryu/Tokkan".
SOP for the Pursuit Specials is to arrive at the scene of any "Transgressor" engagement through the use of FTL flight. Once there, they can out-maneuver the attackers during the primary engagement until such time as the "Transgressor" activates its StarDrive. Once the "Transgressor" has jumped, the "Ryu/Tokkan" will plot out the trajectory and projected endpoint of the jump, activate its own StarDrive, and beat the "Transgressor" to its final destination, where it can re-engage and disable it. In the short time it has been in service, this tactic has led to the "Ryu/Tokkan" brining no less than twelve "Transgressors" and their pilots to justice.
LDD Files
Fonte Avatar official FB Page:
A dark, twisted circus sideshow that’s built around bombastically grooving melodic death n’ roll is swinging forward with captivating glee, mesmerizing merriment and the plundering power of lethal pirates toward those brave souls who hand over a ticket to be torn by Avatar and their Black Waltz, the fourth album and first proper American release from the Swedish masters of mayhem.
Within Avatar’s diverse songs, a steady focus on the fluid and organic power of the riff (recalling the thunderous foresight of heavy metal’s original wizards, Black Sabbath) takes flight combined with an adventurous sprit veering off into the astral planes of the psychedelic atmosphere conjured by pioneers like Pink Floyd back in the day.
Avatar has found a footing that combines the best of rock n’ roll, hard rock and heavy metal’s past, present and future into an overall artistic presentation that is thought-provoking, challenging and altogether enchantingly electric. With the grandiose showmanship of American professional wrestling, the snake oil salesmanship of early 20th century vaudevillian troubadours and the kinetically superheroic power of early Kiss, Avatar lays waste to lesser mortals with ease. Whether somebody gets their rocks off listening to Satyricon or System of a Down, they’ll find something suitably deranged here.
“We’re in this weird field, caught in a triangle between extreme metal, rock n’ roll and what can be described as Avant-garde,” confesses Avatar vocalist Johannes Eckerström. The all-enveloping theme park vibe of the band’s music and visual counterpart means that, naturally, “it’s turning into something bigger.”
“I have been in this band for ten years. I grew up in this band,” Eckerström explains. “We’re somewhat veterans on the one hand. But we’re the new kids in the neighborhood in America at the same time.”
Avatar came of age as “little brothers” of sorts of the famed Gothenburg scene that spawned the celebrated New Wave Of Swedish Death Metal. The band’s debut album, 2006’s Thoughts of No Tomorrow, was filled with brutal, technical melodic death metal to be sure but already, “We tried to put our own stamp on it,” the singer assures. While the following year’s Schlacht still contained flourishes of melody, the unrelenting metallic fury reached an extreme peak. “Intensity was very important,” he says, with some degree of understatement.
Where to go for album number three? “We basically rebelled against ourselves,” Eckerström says of 2009’s self-titled collection. “We figured, ‘We can play faster and make even weirder, more technical riffs,’ because Schlacht was cool. But to take that another step would have turned us into something we didn’t want to be.”
Instead Avatar rediscovered their inherent passion for traditional heavy metal and classic rock n’ roll. “We decided to remove some unnecessary ‘look at me, I can play!’ parts and added more groove. We added a whole new kind of melody. It was awesome to be this ‘rock n’ roll band’ for a while. It was refreshing and liberating.”
Black Waltz sees Avatar coming completely full circle, returning to a more aggressive form of heavy metal but incorporating the lessons they learned while jamming on big riffs with album number three. “We finally came to understand what a good groove is all about and what a great fit it was for our sound,” notes Eckerström.
Tracks like the appropriately titled “Ready for the Ride,” the rollicking “Let it Burn” (which dips into some delicious stonerifficness), the anthemic “Smells Like a Freakshow” (a modern day twist of Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie) and “Torn Apart” are supercharged with a dynamic range of artistic showmanship on a near cinematic scale and it’s all stitched together by a driving bottom end.
While most European metal acts who dare attempt this level of musicianship, showmanship and attention to detail seem content to toil away in the studio and lock themselves away from the crowds, Avatar have excelled beyond their peers thanks in large part to their continued focus on road work. Careening to and fro on tour busses and airplanes around the world like a marauding troupe of circus performers, Eckerström and his mates (guitarists Jonas Jarlsby and Tim Öhrström, bassist Henrik Sandelin and drummer John Alfredsson) have forged the type of musical bond that can only be brought forth from massive amounts of time spent together on the stage, in hotel rooms, in airports and partying at the venue’s bar.
Whether on tour with bands like In Flames, Dark Tranquility or Helloween, playing gigantic festivals like Storsjöyra and Sweden Rock Festival or demolishing South by Southwest, playing live is what it all comes down to for this band. “That is the final manifestation of our art,” Eckerström insists. “Of course an album is a piece of art in itself, but mainly it's a means to reach the higher goal, which is doing these awesome shows. Touring is of the greatest importance.”
“We all just love the pirate’s life,” he admits freely. “Sailing into the city on this tour bus thingy, going to kick some ass, have that party and all the while meeting all of these people, entertaining them, encountering a culture that's not your own. We love that.”
The want for this type of lifestyle goes back to early childhood fascinations for the good-humored singer. Reading about superheroes, watching Hulk Hogan on TV, getting exposed to Kiss – these were the first ingredients for what Eckerström would go on to create with the guys in Avatar and what has culminated now in Black Waltz.
The frontman promises that Avatar will continue to create, to captivate and to experiment. There’s no definitive endpoint in sight. It’s always about the horizon, the journey itself. “As long as you're hungry as an artist, there are higher and higher artistic achievements. I love AC/DC and Motorhead and what they’ve established is amazing, but we don’t want to write albums that are kind of like the album before. We want to travel to a new galaxy, so to speak, every time.”
The goal is always to conquer what came before. “That is what stays with you as a mentally healthy musician. Or maybe a mentally deranged one, I’m not sure,” the singer laughs. And part and parcel to that continued evolution will be the ever broadening expansion of the scope of Avatar’s worldwide presentation: Black Waltz and beyond.
“We have great visions of what we want to do and the things we want to give to people on a stage,” Eckerström promises. “These ideas, these visions, they require a huge audience. They require a lot of legroom to be done, so I want to get into those arenas, basically. I know we would do something really magical if we got the chance. This idea is one of those things that really, really keeps us going.”
Scandinavian HID Zambaleños Victorious Endpoint!
Victory Liner, Inc. | 504 | Volvo B7R | DM16 Series 2 fleet by Del Monte Motor Works, Inc. (DMMWI)
🚏 Authorized Franchise Route: Iba, Zambales - Cubao, Quezon City
🕚 Date Taken on October 2022
📍 Photo Shot Location @ Victory Liner Cubao Terminal, Denver St., Cubao, Quezon City
#MacBusEnthusiast #BehindTheBusSpottingPhotography
#BusesInThePhilippines #BusPhotography #ProudlyPinoyMade #LoveLocals #EuropeanStandards #EuropeanTechnology #SwedishTechnology #VolvoBuses #VolvoB7R #B7R #Euro5 #DM16 #DM16S2 #DM16HID #VolvoB7RDM16Series2 #DelMonteMotors #DelMonteMotorWorks #DelMonteMotorWorksInc #DMMW #DMMWI
#VictoryLiner #VictoryLinerInc #VLI
Mint Avocado Economy Endpoint 🚏
Celyrosa Express | 88322 | Daewoo BH115E Royal Economy fleet by Zyle Daewoo Bus (Korea)
🚏 Original / Authorized Franchise Route: Indang, Cavite - Pasay Rotonda via Trece Martires City
🚏 Rationalized Route Assigned in Route 27: PITX - Trece Martires (under Don Aldrin Transport Group)
🚏 Now Re-classified as New Route 31
🕚 Date Taken on June 2022
📍 Photo Shot Location @ Parañaque Integrated Terminal Exchange (PITX), Parañaque City
#MacBusEnthusiast #BehindTheBusSpottingPhotography #BusesInThePhilippines #BusPhotography #FeelTheRhythmOfKoreanBus #KoreanBus #KoreanStandards #KoreanTechnology #DaewooBus #DaewooBH115E #BH115E #DaewooRoyalEconomy #DaewooBH115ERoyalEconomy #KDM #ZyleDaewooBus #ZyleDaewooCommercialVehicle #CelyrosaExpress
Bulacan Swedish Premium Traversing in Trinoma before heading the main endpoint!
Precious Grace Transport (Premium Point-to-Point Bus) | 830674 | Volvo B7R Coach Bus fleet by Autodelta Coach Builders, Inc.
🚏 P2P Route: Bocaue / Sta. Maria - North EDSA
🕚 Date Taken on June 2022
📍 Photo Shot Location @ Ayala Malls TriNoma, Mindanao Ave. cor. North Ave., Bagong Pag-asa, Quezon City
#MacBusEnthusiast #BehindTheBusSpottingPhotography @macbusenthusiastph
#BusesInThePhilippines #BusPhotography #ProudlyPinoyMade #LoveLocals #EuropeanStandards #EuropeanTechnology #SwedishTechnology #VolvoBuses #VolvoB7R #Euro5 #Autodelta
#PreciousGraceTransport #PreciousGraceTransportP2P #PGT #PremiumPointToPointBus #P2P
Taking short break with the stoplight 🚦 before reached to the endpoint! 📍 This is my ride from Pasig to the endpoint on this time.
RRCG Transport System Co., Inc. | 364 | BAR GD Marcopolo Replica Volvo B7R fleet by Bataan Automotive Remanufacturing
Rationalized Route Assigned in Route 12: Kalentong - Pasig (under Mega Manila Consortium Corporation)
🕚 Date Taken on June 27, 2021 - 1:27 PM
📍Photo Shot Location @ Shaw Blvd, Kalentong, Mandaluyong City
#MacBusEnthusiast #BehindTheBusSpottingPhotography @macbusenthusiastph
#ProudlyPinoyMade #VolvoBuses #VolvoB7R #RRCGTransport
Route 66 Kingman - Oatman 04/12/2009 16h04
The stretch between Kingman and Oatman is still the old Route 66 and the views are fantastic. No idea which mountain this is which remained at our right hand side for quite a lot miles.
Route 66
U.S. Route 66 (also known as the Will Rogers Highway after the humorist, and colloquially known as the "Main Street of America" or the "Mother Road") was a highway in the U.S. Highway System. One of the original U.S. highways, Route 66, US Highway 66, was established on November 11, 1926. However, road signs did not go up until the following year.
The famous highway originally ran from Chicago, Illinois, through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, before ending at Los Angeles, encompassing a total of 2,448 miles (3,940 km). It was recognized in popular culture by both a hit song (written by Bobby Troup and performed by the Nat King Cole Trio and The Rolling Stones, among others) and the Route 66 television show in the 1960s. More recently, the 2006 Disney/Pixar film Cars featured U.S. 66.
Route 66 underwent many improvements and realignments over its lifetime, changing its path and overall length. Many of the realignments gave travelers faster or safer routes, or detoured around city congestion. One realignment moved the western endpoint farther west from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica.
Route 66 was a major path of the migrants who went west, especially during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, and supported the economies of the communities through which the road passed. People doing business along the route became prosperous due to the growing popularity of the highway, and those same people later fought to keep the highway alive even with the growing threat of being bypassed by the new Interstate Highway System.
US 66 was officially removed from the United States Highway System on June 27, 1985 after it was decided the route was no longer relevant and had been replaced by the Interstate Highway System. Portions of the road that passed through Illinois, Missouri, New Mexico, and Arizona have been designated a National Scenic Byway of the name "Historic Route 66". It has begun to return to maps in this form. Some portions of the road in southern California have been redesignated "State Route 66", and others bear "Historic Route 66" signs and relevant historic information.
[ Source and more information: Wikipedia - Route 66 ]
Focus on a Dictionary entry for focus (intentionally very shallow depth of field)
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The Berlin tramway (German: Straßenbahn Berlin) is the main tram system in Berlin, Germany. It is one of the oldest tram networks in the world having its origins in 1865 and is operated by Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG), which was founded in 1929. It is notable for being the third-largest tram system in the world, after Melbourne and St. Petersburg. Berlin's streetcar system is made up of 22 lines that operate across a standard gauge network, with almost 800 stops and measuring almost 190 kilometres in route length and 430 kilometres in line length. Nine of the lines, called Metrotram, are operated continuously around the clock, and are identified with the letter "M" before their number; the other thirteen lines are regular city tram lines and are identified by just a line number.
Most of the recent network is within the confines of the former East Berlin - tram lines within West Berlin having been replaced by buses during the division of Berlin (the first extension into West Berlin opened in 1994 on today's M13). In the eastern vicinity of the city there are also three private tram lines that are not part of the main system, whereas to the south-west of Berlin is the Potsdam tram system with its own network of lines.
HISTORY
In 1865, a horse tramway was established in Berlin. In 1881, the world's first electric tram line opened. Numerous private and municipal operating companies constructed new routes, so by the end of the 19th century the network developed quite rapidly, and the horse trams were changed into electric ones. By 1930, the network had a route length of over 630 km with more than 90 lines. In 1929, all operating companies were unified into the BVG. After World War II, BVG was divided into an eastern and a western company but was once again reunited in 1992, after the fall of East Germany. In West Berlin, by 1967 the last tram lines had been shut down. With the exception of two lines constructed after German reunification, the Berlin tram continues to be limited to the eastern portion of Berlin.
HORSE BUSES
The public transport system of Berlin is the oldest one in Germany. In 1825, the first bus line from Brandenburger Tor to Charlottenburg was opened by Simon Kremser, already with a timetable. The first bus service inside the city has operated since 1840 between Alexanderplatz and Potsdamer Bahnhof. It was run by Israel Moses Henoch, who had organized the cab service since 1815. On 1 January 1847, the Concessionierte Berliner Omnibus Compagnie (Concessionary Berlin Bus Company) started its first horse-bus line. The growing market witnessed the launch of numerous additional companies, with 36 bus companies in Berlin by 1864.
HORSE TRAMS
On 22 June 1865, the opening of Berlin's first horse tramway marked the beginning of the age of trams in Germany, spanning from Brandenburger Tor along today's Straße des 17. Juni (17 June Road) to Charlottenburg. Two months later, on 28 August, it was extended along Dorotheenstraße to Kupfergraben near today's Museumsinsel (Museum Island), a terminal stop which is still in service today. Like the horse-bus, many companies followed the new development and built horse-tram networks in all parts of the today's urban area. In 1873, a route from Rosenthaler Platz to the Gesundbrunnen was opened, to be operated by the new Große Berliner Pferde-Eisenbahn (Great Berlin Horse Railway) which would later become the dominant company in Berlin under the name of Große Berliner Straßenbahn (GBS; Great Berlin Tramway).
ELECTRIFICATION
On 16 May 1881, the region of Berlin again wrote transport history. In the village of Groß-Lichterfelde, which was incorporated into Berlin-Steglitz 39 years later, Werner von Siemens opened the world's first electric tramway. The electric tram in Groß-Lichterfelde was built to 1,000 mm metre gauge and ran from today's suburban station, Lichterfelde Ost, to the cadet school on Zehlendorfer Straße (today Finckensteinallee). Initially, the route was intended merely as a testing facility. Siemens named it an "elevated line taken down from its pillars and girders" because he wanted to build a network of electric elevated lines in Berlin. But the skeptical town council did not allow him to do this until 1902, when the first elevated line opened.
The first tests of electric traction on Berlin's standard gauge began on 1 May 1882, with overhead supply and in 1886 with chemical accumulators, were not very successful. Definitively, electric traction of standard-gauge trams in Berlin was established in 1895. The first tram line with an overhead track supply ran in an industrial area near Berlin-
Gesundbrunnen station. The first line in more a representative area took place with accumulators for its first year, but got a catenary, too, four years later. In 1902, the electrification with overhead wiring had been completed, except for very few lines on the periphery.
The last horse-drawn tram line closed in 1910.
UNDERGROUND TRAMS
On 28 December 1899, it became possible to travel underground, even under the Spree, upon completion of the Spreetunnel between Stralau and Treptow. Owing to structural problems, it was closed on 25 February 1932. From 1916 to 1951, the tram had a second tunnel, the Lindentunnel, passing under the well-known boulevard Unter den Linden.
GREAT VARIETY OF COMPANIES UNTIL THE FORMATION OF THE BVG
The history of tramway companies of the Berlin Strassenbahn is very complicated. Besides the private companies, which often changed because of takeovers, mergers, and bankruptcies, the cities of Berlin, Spandau, Köpenick, Rixdorf; the villages Steglitz, Mariendorf, Britz, Niederschönhausen, Friedrichshagen, Heiligensee and Französisch Buchholz, and the Kreis Teltow (Teltow district) had municipal tramway companies.
The most important private operating company was the Große Berliner Pferde-Eisenbahn (Great Berlin Horse Railway), which called itself Große Berliner Straßenbahn (GBS) (Great Berlin Tramway) after starting the electrification. GBS acquired nearly all of the other companies through the years. In 1920, the GBS merged with the municipal companies BESTAG and SSB to become the Berliner Straßenbahn (Berlin Tramway), which was reorganized in 1929 into the newly formed municipal Berliner Verkehrs-AG (BVG) (Berlin Transport Company). Besides the tramway, the BVG also took over the elevated and underground rail lines and the bus routes which were previously operated primarily by the Allgemeine Berliner Omnibus-Actien-Gesellschaft (ABOAG) (General Berlin Bus Corporation).
The following table includes all companies that operated tramways in today's Berlin before the formation of the BVG. The background color of each line marks the drive method which the respective company used to serve their lines at the time of the formation (blue = horse tram, yellow = steam tram, white = electric tram, red = benzole tram).
On the day of its formation, the BVG had 89 tramway lines: a network of 634 km in length, over 4,000 tramway cars, and more than 14,400 employees. An average tram car ran over 42,500 km per year. The Berlin tramway had more than 929 million passengers in 1929, at which point, the BVG already had increased its service to 93 tramway lines.
In the early 1930s, the Berlin tramway network began to decline; after partial closing of the world's first electric tram in 1930, on 31 October 1934, the oldest tramway of Germany followed. The Charlottenburger Chaussee (today Straße des 17. Juni) was rebuilt by Nazi planners following a monumental East-West-Axis, and the tramway had to leave. In 1938, however, there were still 71 tramway lines, 2,800 tram cars and about 12,500 employees. Consequently, the bus network was extended during this time. Since 1933, Berlin also had trolley buses.
During World War II, some transport tasks were given back to the tramway to save oil. Thus an extensive transport of goods was established. Bombings (from March 1943 on) and the lack of personnel and electricity caused the transportation performance to decline. Due to the final Battle for Berlin, the tramway system collapsed on 23 April 1945.
THE NETWORK SINCE 1945
The BVG was - like most other Berlin institutions—split into two different companies on 1 August 1949. Two separate companies were installed, the BVG West in the three western sections (with 36 tram lines) and the BVG Ost (Berlin Public Transit Authority East) (with 13 lines) in the Soviet sector. The latter became in 1969 the VEB Kombinat Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVB). On 14 October 1950, traffic on the lines from West Berlin to the Brandenburgian suburbs Kleinmachnow and Schönefeld stopped, and on 15 January 1953, traffic over the downtown sector border did, too.
From 1949 to 1955, both companies exchanged the Thomson-Houston type trolley poles of their tramcars line by line for pantographs.
WEST
From 1954 onwards, a shift took place in the public transit plans of West-Berlin. From that moment, plans aimed at discontinuing the tramway service and replacing it with extended underground and bus lines. The tramway was considered old-fashioned and unnecessary since Berlin already had a well-developed underground network. From 1954 to 1962 numerous tram lines were replaced with bus routes and extended underground lines and stops. By 1962, the western part of the city had only 18 tram lines left out of the original 36.
On 2 October 1967 the last tramcar traveled through West-Berlin over the last line, which carried number 55 - from Zoo Station via Ernst-Reuter-Square, the City Hall in Charlottenburg, Jungfernheide S-Bahn station, Siemensdamm, Nonnendammallee,
Falkenseer Platz, and Neuendorfer Allee to Spandau, Hakenfelde.
Today, many MetroBus lines follow the routes of former tram lines.
The separation of the city resulted in many problems and difficulties for the public transportation system. Tram lines could no longer travel through the city's center as usual, and the main tram garage was moved to Uferstraße in Western Berlin.
EAST
Soviet Moscow was, with its tram-free avenues, the role model for East-Berlin's transport planning. The car-oriented mentality of West Berlin also settled in the East since a lot of tram lines closed here as well in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1967, the lines through the city center closed down at the same time as the new city expansion on Alexanderplatz started to grow.
However, complete elimination of the city's tram network was neither planned nor even discussed.
Those lines were built in order to connect the new housing estates Marzahn, Hohenschönhausen, and finally Hellersdorf to the city's tram network from the late 1970s to the early 1990s:
AFTER REUNIFICATION
In 1992, the West Berlin transport company BVG took over the East Berlin's BVB. (In addition to bus and subway lines, the new BVG also ran the trams, which now only circulated in the former East Berlin districts.)
There was an attempt to shut down the tram routes running to Pankow, because the trams in Schönhauser Allee run parallel to the U2 line, which does not run to Rosenthal, however.
In 1995, the first stretch of tram route along Bornholmer Straße was opened to the west in two stages. The Rudolf-Virchow-Klinikum and the metro stations located in Seestraße, Wedding, and Osloer Straße in Gesundbrunnen have since re-connected to the tram network.
Since 1997, the tram stops right at the Friedrichstraße station. Previously, passengers changing between modes of transport here had to take a long walk to get to the restored train station. Since then, the trams terminate along the reversing loop "Am Kupfergraben" near the Humboldt University and the Museum Island.
The following year saw the re-opening of tram facilities at Alexanderplatz. These routes now come directly from the intersection with Otto-Braun-Straße across the square, stopping both at the U2 underground station and the overground station for regional and commuter trains, where there is a direct interchange to the U5 and U8 lines. The increase of tram accident victims in the pedestrian
zone feared by critics has not occurred.
In 2000, the tram tracks were extended from the previous terminus at Revalerstraße past the Warschauer Straße S-Bahn station to the U-Bahn station of the same name. Since there is no room for a return loop, a blunt ending track was established. In order to accomplish this, bi-directional vehicles were procured. However, the tracks, which were further extended in 1995 to the Oberbaumbrücke, have not yet been expanded to Hermannplatz as had been planned long before.
Since 2000, the tram in Pankow runs beyond the previous terminus Pankow Kirche on to Guyotstraße, connecting the local development areas to the network.
On 12 December 2004, BVG introduced the BVG 2005 plus transport concept. The main focus was the introduction of Metro lines on densely traveled routes, which do not have any subway or suburban traffic. In the tram network, therefore, nine MetroTram lines were introduced and the remaining lines were partially rearranged. The numbering scheme is based on that of 1993, but has undergone minor adjustments. MetroTram and MetroBus lines carry a "M" in front of the line number.
Single metro lines operate on the main radial network; As a rule the line number corresponds to that of 1993; The M4 from the lines 2, 3 and 4, the M5 from the 5, and so on. In addition, the two Pankow lines 52 and 53 were included as a line M1 in the scheme. The supplementary lines of these radials continue to carry 10 numbers, unless they have acted as amplifiers of the respective metro service. Metro services of the ring and tangential net received a number in the 10er range, the supplementary lines retained the 20er number. An exception is the subsequently established line 37, which, together with the lines M17 and 27, travels a common route. Of the 50 lines the only remaining was the 50, the 60 lines remained largely unaffected by the measures.
M1: Niederschönhausen, Schillerstraße and Rosenthal to Mitte, Am Kupfergraben replacing 52 and 53
M2: Heinersdorf to Hackescher Markt
M4: Hohenschönhausen, Zingster Straße to Hackescher Markt
M5: Hohenschönhausen, Zingster Straße to Hackescher Markt
M6: Hellersdorf, Riesaer Straße to Schwartzkopffstraße
M8: Ahrensfelde to Schwartzkopffstraße
M10: Prenzlauer Berg, Eberswalder Straße to Warschauer Straße replacing 20
M13: Wedding to Warschauer Straße replacing 23
M17: Falkenberg to Schöneweide
In 2006, the second line was opened in the western part of the city, and the M10 line moved beyond its former terminus Eberswalderstraße along Bernauer Straße in Gesundbrunnen to the Nordbahnhof in the district of Mitte, before it was being extended to Hauptbahnhof in 2015.
In May 2007, a new line from Prenzlauer Tor along Karl-Liebknecht-Straße towards Alexanderplatz was put into operation, where the line M2 leads directly to the urban and regional train station instead of the current circulation through Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz to Hackescher Markt. The previous route along Alt and Neu Schönhauser Straße no longer carries regular services but operates only as a feeder line.
On September 4, 2011, the one and a half kilometer long new line from the S-Bahn station Adlershof was taken by the science and business location Adlershof to the provisional endpoint Karl-Ziegler-Straße at the campus Adlershof, the Humboldt University in operation. The route with three newly built stops cost 13 million euros and was first operated by the lines 60 and 61 in the overlapping 10-minute intervals. Since 13 December 2015, the line 63 runs instead of the line 60 to Karl Ziegler Street. Originally, the connection should already be completed in 1999. However, the plan approval procedure was only completed in 2002. Shortly before the plan approval decision expired after five years, the project was approved on August 9, 2007, and soon after the first masts for the overhead line were set up. It is expected to have 9000 passengers per working day. This is just as similar to the tram line being built along the Upper Changi Road East and the Flora Drive, and the subsequent linking of Flora Estate into the Upper Changi area.
TOWARDS THE HAUPTBAHNHOF
At the timetable change on 14 December 2014, a new tram line was opened from Naturkundemuseum to Hauptbahnhof via Invalidenstraße, with the final stop at Lüneburger Straße in the district of Alt-Moabit. The double-track line is 2.3 kilometers long to the main station, and new stops have been built on the Chausseestraße, the Invalidenpark and the Hauptbahnhof. This is followed by the 1.1 km single track block bypass that has three stops at Lesser-Ury-Weg, Lueneburger Straße and Clara-Jaschke-Straße, as well as the installation area. The planned opening date has already been postponed several times. Originally planned to complete in 2002. However, the plan was caught by the Administrative Court in 2004 and revised to either 2006 and 2007. However, the first 80 metres of the track has already been built during the construction of Berlin Hauptbahnhof.
A new approval procedure was completed on 15 January 2010. In April 2011, the preparatory construction work had begun. The Ministry of Transport revised the 50 metres of the length, a two-meter-wide strip of garden to the state of Berlin to provide enough space for all road users. In the course of the work on the new line sector, the line branch along, Chausseestraße (between Invalidenstraße and Wöhlertstraße), Schwartzkopffstraße, Pflugstraße, Wöhlertstraße was permanently closed on 26 August 2013. The commissioning of the new line was initially only with the line M5. With the restoration of the connection from the Nordbahnhof to the underground station Naturkundemuseum, the new line from 28 August 2015 could also be used by the lines M8 and M10.
The first horse-drawn tramlines did not use any special labeling as they were radially inferior from the respective endpoints in the center and thus had few points of contact with other lines. Only with the expansion of the network into the city center was there a need to distinguish the lines from each other. From the 1880s, most major German cities therefore used colored target signs or signal boards, sometimes both together. In Berlin, these were always kept in the same combination. As identification colors red, yellow, green and white were used, from 1898 additionally blue. The panels were one or two colors, the latter either half / half divided or in thirds with a line in the second color. However, the number of signal panels used was not sufficient to equip each line with its own color code. In addition, crossing or side by side lines should run with different signal panels. This meant that individual lines had to change their color code several times in the course of their existence. As a result of the electrification and the takeover of the New Berlin Horse Ride by the Great Berlin Horse Railways / Great Berlin Tram (GBPfE / GBS) increased their number of lines at the turn of the century abruptly. With a view of the Hamburg tram, where in the summer of 1900 for the first time in German-speaking countries line numbers were introduced, experimented the GBS from 1901 also with the numbers. In the timetables of this time, the lines were numbered, but could change their order every year. The numbering scheme should include not only the GBS but also its secondary lines. At the same time, letter-number combinations as they appeared in the timetable booklet should be avoided.
The scheme introduced on May 6, 1902 was relatively simple: single numbers were reserved for the ring lines, two-digit for the remaining lines. Initially, the tens gave information about where the line was going; 10 lines were to be found in Moabit, 60 lines in Weissensee and 70 lines in Lichtenberg. The lines of the West Berlin suburban railway were assigned the letters A to M, the Berlin-Charlottenburg tram the letters N to Z and the lines of the Southern Berlin suburban railway were numbered with Roman numerals. The 1910 taken over by the GBS northeastern Berliner Vorortbahn received in 1913 the line designation NO. The colored signal panels remained in parallel until about 1904. In addition, the lines created during this period were still colored signal panels with new, sometimes even three-color color combinations.
Insertors were marked separately from the March 1903. They bore the letter E behind the line number of their main line. In later years, these lines increasingly took over the tasks of booster drives and were therefore shown in the timetables as separate lines. On April 15, 1912, the GBS introduced the first line with three-digit number. The 164 was created by extending the 64, which was maintained in parallel. In the following months more lines were provided with 100 numbers or newly set up, usually as a line pair to the existing line.
The surrounding businesses were not affected by the change in May 1902 and set on their own markings. The lines of the urban trams and the meterspurigen lines of the Teltower circular orbits were still marked with signal panels, on the other hand, the BESTAG and in Heiligensee, not the lines, but only the targets were marked with different colored signs. In 1908, the Spandauer Straßenbahn introduced the line identification with letters, which corresponded to the initial letter of the destination (line P to Pichelsdorf, etc.), in 1917 the company switched to numbers. In Cöpenick, the lines were marked from 1906 with numbers, from 1910 additionally with colored signal panels for the individual routes (red lines to Friedrichshagen, etc.). The Berlin Ostbahnen used from 1913 also like the SBV Roman numbers as line numbers. The other companies, including the standard-gauge lines of the Teltower Kreisbahnen, did not use a line marking.
With the merger of companies for the Berlin tram, the GBS's numbering scheme was extended to cover the rest of the network. Usually, those numbers are assigned, whose lines were continued during the World War I. For example, it came about that the lines operating in Köpenick received mainly 80s numbers. Letters were still awarded to the tram lines in the BVG until 1924, after which it was reserved for the suburban tariff buses.
With the outbreak of the Second World War, the Berlin public transport companies had to stop a large part of the bus traffic to save fuel. Tram traffic has been extended accordingly. The newly established amplifier lines contributed to the distinction of the master lines 200 and 300 numbers. From 1941, the night routes of the bus and the tram networks were later classified into the 400-series numbers. The measures were existed until the end of the war. The last 100 numbers were renumbered in May 31, 1949.
After the administrative separation of the BVG initially only changed the numbering scheme. Tram lines running from the east to the west of Berlin kept their number after the grid separation in 1953 and as a result of network thinning, individual lines were disappeared. The BVG-West waived from July 1966, the prefix A on the bus lines, the BVG-Ost waived in 1 January 1968. While in the west tram traffic was stopped 15 months later, the passenger in the east could not tell from the line number whether it was a tram or bus line. The Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe therefore planned to systematise their network in the 1970s. The city center lines of the tram should receive the line numbers 1 to 30, in Köpenick should retain their 80s numbers. The remaining numbers were intended for the bus. Night lines received from 1973 uniformly 100 numbers, for the tram were initially provided only the numbers from 120. The conversion of the daily lines was only partially completed.
After the reunification, in two steps, a uniform numbering scheme was introduced, which included the lines in the state of Brandenburg. The Berlin tram was assigned the line number range from 1 to 86, then followed by the overland operations in Woltersdorf, Schöneiche and Strausberg with the numbers 87 to 89. The Potsdam tram received the 90s line numbers. E-lines were no longer listed separately in the timetable, but the amplifiers continued to operate as such until 2004. Night lines were indicated on both means of transport by a preceding N and the three-digit line numbers were henceforth intended for the bus routes. The first conversion of 2 June 1991 followed the Berlin tram lines on 23 May 1993. The network was reorganized and divided into five number ranges. The main focus was on the focus on the historical center. Single lines formed the radial main network, 10 lines their supplementary network. 20er lines were intended for the ring and Tangentiallinien. There were 50 lines in the district of Pankow, 60 lines in the district of Köpenick analogous to the bus lines there.
BVG had instituted a new line structure, where the BVG has 22 lines since 2004. MetroTram also uses the symbol MetroTram.svg. On 12 December 2004, BVG had introduced the transport concept, BVG 2005+. The main content was the introduction of metro lines on busy routes where there are no S-Bahn or U-Bahn. In the tram network, therefore, nine tram lines under MetroTram were introduced, and the other lines have permanently rearranged. The numbering scheme is that it was similar to the 1993 scheme, but has undergone major adjustments.
Metro lines with a single digit number travel through the radial main network, as a rule, the line number corresponds to that of 1993, so the lines became 2, 3, and 4 into M4, the 5 into M5 and so on. In addition, the two Pankow lines, 52 and 53 were included as line M1 in the main scheme. The supplementary lines of the radials continue to carry 10 numbers, unless they have been merged into the amplifier of the metro line. Metro lines of the ring and tangential network received the numbers in the 10 range, whose supplementary lines retain the 20 range. An example is the retrofitted line, route 37, which together with the lines of M17 and 27 runs a common route. Of the 50 routes remained, the only one of the 50, the 60 lines were remained untouched by these measures.
FLEET
The Berlin tram has three different families of vehicles. In addition to Tatra high-floor vehicles there are low floor six-axle double articulated trams in unidirectional and bidirectional version (GT6N and GT6N-ZR), and since 2008, the new Flexity Berlin. The Tatra KT4 trams were phased out by 2017, and T6A2/B6A2 trams were phased out by 2007, those are Communism-era trams.
The number of trams has shrunk continuously. The BVB had 1,024 vehicles, while currently there are about 600. The reduction is possible because the new low-floor cars on average achieve more than twice the mileage per year (100,000 km), and, being longer, carry more passengers and therefore rarely operate in double header.
In July 2006, the cost of energy per vehicle-kilometer was:
tram €0.33
coupled set €0.45
bus €0.42
underground train €1.18
GT6N
Between 1992 and 2003 45 bidirectional T6N-ZRs and 105 unidirectional GT6Ns were purchased. The cars have a width of 2.30 m and a length of 26.80 m. They can carry 150 passengers and can run as coupled sets.
134 cars were in a risky transaction leased to a US investor and leased back. The SNB has accrued more than €157 million to hedge potential losses from cross-border business.
In the end of 2011 and beginning of 2012 the SNB began the carriage 1006 and 1016 a sample exercise. They were provided with a new drive technology and new software such as the Flexcitys. The only mutually detachable vehicles had to distinguish the new car numbers 1506 and the 1516.
FLEXITY BERLIN
In April 2005, a European tender was issued for low floor trams, half unidirectional, and half bidirectional vehicles. The latter will respond better to the BVG and construction faults and build on certain routes for cost savings. The Vienna tramway tram type ULF was tested in passenger service.
On 12 June 2006, the BVG decided to procure new trams. These are based on the tested Incentro, referred to by Bombardier as Flexity Berlin. In October 2008, for €13 million, four prototypes were ordered and since then extensively tested. There are one- and two-way cars, respectively 30.8 and 40 m in length, carrying about 180 or 240 passengers. Use in coupled sets is not possible.
On 29 June 2009, the Supervisory Board of the BVG decided to buy 99 Flexity cars, 40 of which will be long and 59 short versions, for €305.3 million. In September 2011 the first 13 long cars began to be delivered. To replace all old Tatra cars, a further 33 costing €92.3 million may need to be ordered in 2017. The trams will be manufactured at Bombardier's Bautzen works or Hennigsdorf.
In June 2012 the Supervisory Board approved the BVG 2nd Serial recall of an additional 39 trams of type "Flexity Berlin". Considering the order of over 99 vehicles from 2010, that means a total of 38 vehicles and 47 long bidirectional vehicles, as well as 53 short bidirectional vehicles will be ordered from the manufacturer, Bombardier Transportation. Thus, the SNB responds to both the very positive development of passenger numbers at the tram and allows bidirectional vehicles the eventual abandonment of turning loops and enhancing the design stops. Once this procurement is secured in 2017, then the old Tatra cars can be scrapped. The State of Berlin's funded budget is €439.1 million.
The new cars are equipped with 2.40 m wheel spacing, 10 cm wider than the existing low-floor trams. The track width was chosen so that modifications in the network are not necessary This affects only the routes, which will operate on the Flexity. Köpenick and parts of the Pankow network, the web is unable to drive.
In December 2015, BVG exercised an option for another 47 Flexity trams from Bombardier to handle increased ridership.
TRAM DEPOTS
Depots are required for storage and maintenance purposes. BVG has seven operational tram depots, five of which are used for storage of service trams:
Kniprodestraße, in Friedrichshain on the east side of the junction of Kniprodestraße and Conrad-Blenkle-Straße. This depot is used for track storage and rail-grinding machinery only. It is on bus route 200, and the access tracks connect to tram line M10.
Köpenick, on the west side of Wendenschloßstraße, south of the junction with Müggelheimer Straße. The depot entrance is on tram route 62.
Lichtenberg, on the east side of Siegfriedstraße, north of Lichtenberg U-Bahn station. The depot entrance is on tram routes 21 & 37 and bus routes 240 & 256.
Marzahn, on the south side of Landsberger Allee, east of Blumberger Damm. The depot has a tram stop on the M6 and 18 lines. Bus route 197 also passes the depot.
Nalepastraße, on the east side of Nalepastraße, in Oberschöneweide. It is not on any tram or bus route, but its access line connects with tram routes M17, 21, 37, 63 and 67 at the junction of Wilhelminenhofstraße and Edisonstraße.
Niederschönhausen, on the north-east corner of the junction of Deitzgenstraße and Schillerstraße. The line is on tram line M1. The depot is used for the storage of works machinery and historic, and preserved trams.
Weissensee, on the north side of Bernkasteler Straße near the junction of Berliner Allee and Rennbahnstraße. The depot entrance is not directly passed by any bus or tram route, but tram routes 12 & 27 and bus routes 156, 255 & 259 serve the adjacent Berliner Allee/Rennbahnstraße tram stop.
Out-of-service trams returning to Nalepastraße and Weissensee depot remain in-service until reaching the special tram stop at each depot.
GENERAL VIEW
The Berlin tram network is today the third largest in Germany
Around Berlin there are some additional tram systems that do not belong to the BVG:
the Verkehrsbetrieb Potsdam (operators of the Potsdam Tramway)
the Strausberg Railway (actually, a tram line located in the town of Strausberg)
the Woltersdorf Tramway (line 87, partly in Berlin)
the Schöneiche-Rüdersdorf Tramway (line 88, partly in Berlin)
The last three companies are located in the eastern suburbs at the eastern edge of Berlin. Each of them has only one line.
WIKIPEDIA
The Berlin tramway (German: Straßenbahn Berlin) is the main tram system in Berlin, Germany. It is one of the oldest tram networks in the world having its origins in 1865 and is operated by Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG), which was founded in 1929. It is notable for being the third-largest tram system in the world, after Melbourne and St. Petersburg. Berlin's streetcar system is made up of 22 lines that operate across a standard gauge network, with almost 800 stops and measuring almost 190 kilometres in route length and 430 kilometres in line length. Nine of the lines, called Metrotram, are operated continuously around the clock, and are identified with the letter "M" before their number; the other thirteen lines are regular city tram lines and are identified by just a line number.
Most of the recent network is within the confines of the former East Berlin - tram lines within West Berlin having been replaced by buses during the division of Berlin (the first extension into West Berlin opened in 1994 on today's M13). In the eastern vicinity of the city there are also three private tram lines that are not part of the main system, whereas to the south-west of Berlin is the Potsdam tram system with its own network of lines.
HISTORY
In 1865, a horse tramway was established in Berlin. In 1881, the world's first electric tram line opened. Numerous private and municipal operating companies constructed new routes, so by the end of the 19th century the network developed quite rapidly, and the horse trams were changed into electric ones. By 1930, the network had a route length of over 630 km with more than 90 lines. In 1929, all operating companies were unified into the BVG. After World War II, BVG was divided into an eastern and a western company but was once again reunited in 1992, after the fall of East Germany. In West Berlin, by 1967 the last tram lines had been shut down. With the exception of two lines constructed after German reunification, the Berlin tram continues to be limited to the eastern portion of Berlin.
HORSE BUSES
The public transport system of Berlin is the oldest one in Germany. In 1825, the first bus line from Brandenburger Tor to Charlottenburg was opened by Simon Kremser, already with a timetable. The first bus service inside the city has operated since 1840 between Alexanderplatz and Potsdamer Bahnhof. It was run by Israel Moses Henoch, who had organized the cab service since 1815. On 1 January 1847, the Concessionierte Berliner Omnibus Compagnie (Concessionary Berlin Bus Company) started its first horse-bus line. The growing market witnessed the launch of numerous additional companies, with 36 bus companies in Berlin by 1864.
HORSE TRAMS
On 22 June 1865, the opening of Berlin's first horse tramway marked the beginning of the age of trams in Germany, spanning from Brandenburger Tor along today's Straße des 17. Juni (17 June Road) to Charlottenburg. Two months later, on 28 August, it was extended along Dorotheenstraße to Kupfergraben near today's Museumsinsel (Museum Island), a terminal stop which is still in service today. Like the horse-bus, many companies followed the new development and built horse-tram networks in all parts of the today's urban area. In 1873, a route from Rosenthaler Platz to the Gesundbrunnen was opened, to be operated by the new Große Berliner Pferde-Eisenbahn (Great Berlin Horse Railway) which would later become the dominant company in Berlin under the name of Große Berliner Straßenbahn (GBS; Great Berlin Tramway).
ELECTRIFICATION
On 16 May 1881, the region of Berlin again wrote transport history. In the village of Groß-Lichterfelde, which was incorporated into Berlin-Steglitz 39 years later, Werner von Siemens opened the world's first electric tramway. The electric tram in Groß-Lichterfelde was built to 1,000 mm metre gauge and ran from today's suburban station, Lichterfelde Ost, to the cadet school on Zehlendorfer Straße (today Finckensteinallee). Initially, the route was intended merely as a testing facility. Siemens named it an "elevated line taken down from its pillars and girders" because he wanted to build a network of electric elevated lines in Berlin. But the skeptical town council did not allow him to do this until 1902, when the first elevated line opened.
The first tests of electric traction on Berlin's standard gauge began on 1 May 1882, with overhead supply and in 1886 with chemical accumulators, were not very successful. Definitively, electric traction of standard-gauge trams in Berlin was established in 1895. The first tram line with an overhead track supply ran in an industrial area near Berlin-
Gesundbrunnen station. The first line in more a representative area took place with accumulators for its first year, but got a catenary, too, four years later. In 1902, the electrification with overhead wiring had been completed, except for very few lines on the periphery.
The last horse-drawn tram line closed in 1910.
UNDERGROUND TRAMS
On 28 December 1899, it became possible to travel underground, even under the Spree, upon completion of the Spreetunnel between Stralau and Treptow. Owing to structural problems, it was closed on 25 February 1932. From 1916 to 1951, the tram had a second tunnel, the Lindentunnel, passing under the well-known boulevard Unter den Linden.
GREAT VARIETY OF COMPANIES UNTIL THE FORMATION OF THE BVG
The history of tramway companies of the Berlin Strassenbahn is very complicated. Besides the private companies, which often changed because of takeovers, mergers, and bankruptcies, the cities of Berlin, Spandau, Köpenick, Rixdorf; the villages Steglitz, Mariendorf, Britz, Niederschönhausen, Friedrichshagen, Heiligensee and Französisch Buchholz, and the Kreis Teltow (Teltow district) had municipal tramway companies.
The most important private operating company was the Große Berliner Pferde-Eisenbahn (Great Berlin Horse Railway), which called itself Große Berliner Straßenbahn (GBS) (Great Berlin Tramway) after starting the electrification. GBS acquired nearly all of the other companies through the years. In 1920, the GBS merged with the municipal companies BESTAG and SSB to become the Berliner Straßenbahn (Berlin Tramway), which was reorganized in 1929 into the newly formed municipal Berliner Verkehrs-AG (BVG) (Berlin Transport Company). Besides the tramway, the BVG also took over the elevated and underground rail lines and the bus routes which were previously operated primarily by the Allgemeine Berliner Omnibus-Actien-Gesellschaft (ABOAG) (General Berlin Bus Corporation).
The following table includes all companies that operated tramways in today's Berlin before the formation of the BVG. The background color of each line marks the drive method which the respective company used to serve their lines at the time of the formation (blue = horse tram, yellow = steam tram, white = electric tram, red = benzole tram).
On the day of its formation, the BVG had 89 tramway lines: a network of 634 km in length, over 4,000 tramway cars, and more than 14,400 employees. An average tram car ran over 42,500 km per year. The Berlin tramway had more than 929 million passengers in 1929, at which point, the BVG already had increased its service to 93 tramway lines.
In the early 1930s, the Berlin tramway network began to decline; after partial closing of the world's first electric tram in 1930, on 31 October 1934, the oldest tramway of Germany followed. The Charlottenburger Chaussee (today Straße des 17. Juni) was rebuilt by Nazi planners following a monumental East-West-Axis, and the tramway had to leave. In 1938, however, there were still 71 tramway lines, 2,800 tram cars and about 12,500 employees. Consequently, the bus network was extended during this time. Since 1933, Berlin also had trolley buses.
During World War II, some transport tasks were given back to the tramway to save oil. Thus an extensive transport of goods was established. Bombings (from March 1943 on) and the lack of personnel and electricity caused the transportation performance to decline. Due to the final Battle for Berlin, the tramway system collapsed on 23 April 1945.
THE NETWORK SINCE 1945
The BVG was - like most other Berlin institutions—split into two different companies on 1 August 1949. Two separate companies were installed, the BVG West in the three western sections (with 36 tram lines) and the BVG Ost (Berlin Public Transit Authority East) (with 13 lines) in the Soviet sector. The latter became in 1969 the VEB Kombinat Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVB). On 14 October 1950, traffic on the lines from West Berlin to the Brandenburgian suburbs Kleinmachnow and Schönefeld stopped, and on 15 January 1953, traffic over the downtown sector border did, too.
From 1949 to 1955, both companies exchanged the Thomson-Houston type trolley poles of their tramcars line by line for pantographs.
WEST
From 1954 onwards, a shift took place in the public transit plans of West-Berlin. From that moment, plans aimed at discontinuing the tramway service and replacing it with extended underground and bus lines. The tramway was considered old-fashioned and unnecessary since Berlin already had a well-developed underground network. From 1954 to 1962 numerous tram lines were replaced with bus routes and extended underground lines and stops. By 1962, the western part of the city had only 18 tram lines left out of the original 36.
On 2 October 1967 the last tramcar traveled through West-Berlin over the last line, which carried number 55 - from Zoo Station via Ernst-Reuter-Square, the City Hall in Charlottenburg, Jungfernheide S-Bahn station, Siemensdamm, Nonnendammallee,
Falkenseer Platz, and Neuendorfer Allee to Spandau, Hakenfelde.
Today, many MetroBus lines follow the routes of former tram lines.
The separation of the city resulted in many problems and difficulties for the public transportation system. Tram lines could no longer travel through the city's center as usual, and the main tram garage was moved to Uferstraße in Western Berlin.
EAST
Soviet Moscow was, with its tram-free avenues, the role model for East-Berlin's transport planning. The car-oriented mentality of West Berlin also settled in the East since a lot of tram lines closed here as well in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1967, the lines through the city center closed down at the same time as the new city expansion on Alexanderplatz started to grow.
However, complete elimination of the city's tram network was neither planned nor even discussed.
Those lines were built in order to connect the new housing estates Marzahn, Hohenschönhausen, and finally Hellersdorf to the city's tram network from the late 1970s to the early 1990s:
AFTER REUNIFICATION
In 1992, the West Berlin transport company BVG took over the East Berlin's BVB. (In addition to bus and subway lines, the new BVG also ran the trams, which now only circulated in the former East Berlin districts.)
There was an attempt to shut down the tram routes running to Pankow, because the trams in Schönhauser Allee run parallel to the U2 line, which does not run to Rosenthal, however.
In 1995, the first stretch of tram route along Bornholmer Straße was opened to the west in two stages. The Rudolf-Virchow-Klinikum and the metro stations located in Seestraße, Wedding, and Osloer Straße in Gesundbrunnen have since re-connected to the tram network.
Since 1997, the tram stops right at the Friedrichstraße station. Previously, passengers changing between modes of transport here had to take a long walk to get to the restored train station. Since then, the trams terminate along the reversing loop "Am Kupfergraben" near the Humboldt University and the Museum Island.
The following year saw the re-opening of tram facilities at Alexanderplatz. These routes now come directly from the intersection with Otto-Braun-Straße across the square, stopping both at the U2 underground station and the overground station for regional and commuter trains, where there is a direct interchange to the U5 and U8 lines. The increase of tram accident victims in the pedestrian
zone feared by critics has not occurred.
In 2000, the tram tracks were extended from the previous terminus at Revalerstraße past the Warschauer Straße S-Bahn station to the U-Bahn station of the same name. Since there is no room for a return loop, a blunt ending track was established. In order to accomplish this, bi-directional vehicles were procured. However, the tracks, which were further extended in 1995 to the Oberbaumbrücke, have not yet been expanded to Hermannplatz as had been planned long before.
Since 2000, the tram in Pankow runs beyond the previous terminus Pankow Kirche on to Guyotstraße, connecting the local development areas to the network.
On 12 December 2004, BVG introduced the BVG 2005 plus transport concept. The main focus was the introduction of Metro lines on densely traveled routes, which do not have any subway or suburban traffic. In the tram network, therefore, nine MetroTram lines were introduced and the remaining lines were partially rearranged. The numbering scheme is based on that of 1993, but has undergone minor adjustments. MetroTram and MetroBus lines carry a "M" in front of the line number.
Single metro lines operate on the main radial network; As a rule the line number corresponds to that of 1993; The M4 from the lines 2, 3 and 4, the M5 from the 5, and so on. In addition, the two Pankow lines 52 and 53 were included as a line M1 in the scheme. The supplementary lines of these radials continue to carry 10 numbers, unless they have acted as amplifiers of the respective metro service. Metro services of the ring and tangential net received a number in the 10er range, the supplementary lines retained the 20er number. An exception is the subsequently established line 37, which, together with the lines M17 and 27, travels a common route. Of the 50 lines the only remaining was the 50, the 60 lines remained largely unaffected by the measures.
M1: Niederschönhausen, Schillerstraße and Rosenthal to Mitte, Am Kupfergraben replacing 52 and 53
M2: Heinersdorf to Hackescher Markt
M4: Hohenschönhausen, Zingster Straße to Hackescher Markt
M5: Hohenschönhausen, Zingster Straße to Hackescher Markt
M6: Hellersdorf, Riesaer Straße to Schwartzkopffstraße
M8: Ahrensfelde to Schwartzkopffstraße
M10: Prenzlauer Berg, Eberswalder Straße to Warschauer Straße replacing 20
M13: Wedding to Warschauer Straße replacing 23
M17: Falkenberg to Schöneweide
In 2006, the second line was opened in the western part of the city, and the M10 line moved beyond its former terminus Eberswalderstraße along Bernauer Straße in Gesundbrunnen to the Nordbahnhof in the district of Mitte, before it was being extended to Hauptbahnhof in 2015.
In May 2007, a new line from Prenzlauer Tor along Karl-Liebknecht-Straße towards Alexanderplatz was put into operation, where the line M2 leads directly to the urban and regional train station instead of the current circulation through Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz to Hackescher Markt. The previous route along Alt and Neu Schönhauser Straße no longer carries regular services but operates only as a feeder line.
On September 4, 2011, the one and a half kilometer long new line from the S-Bahn station Adlershof was taken by the science and business location Adlershof to the provisional endpoint Karl-Ziegler-Straße at the campus Adlershof, the Humboldt University in operation. The route with three newly built stops cost 13 million euros and was first operated by the lines 60 and 61 in the overlapping 10-minute intervals. Since 13 December 2015, the line 63 runs instead of the line 60 to Karl Ziegler Street. Originally, the connection should already be completed in 1999. However, the plan approval procedure was only completed in 2002. Shortly before the plan approval decision expired after five years, the project was approved on August 9, 2007, and soon after the first masts for the overhead line were set up. It is expected to have 9000 passengers per working day. This is just as similar to the tram line being built along the Upper Changi Road East and the Flora Drive, and the subsequent linking of Flora Estate into the Upper Changi area.
TOWARDS THE HAUPTBAHNHOF
At the timetable change on 14 December 2014, a new tram line was opened from Naturkundemuseum to Hauptbahnhof via Invalidenstraße, with the final stop at Lüneburger Straße in the district of Alt-Moabit. The double-track line is 2.3 kilometers long to the main station, and new stops have been built on the Chausseestraße, the Invalidenpark and the Hauptbahnhof. This is followed by the 1.1 km single track block bypass that has three stops at Lesser-Ury-Weg, Lueneburger Straße and Clara-Jaschke-Straße, as well as the installation area. The planned opening date has already been postponed several times. Originally planned to complete in 2002. However, the plan was caught by the Administrative Court in 2004 and revised to either 2006 and 2007. However, the first 80 metres of the track has already been built during the construction of Berlin Hauptbahnhof.
A new approval procedure was completed on 15 January 2010. In April 2011, the preparatory construction work had begun. The Ministry of Transport revised the 50 metres of the length, a two-meter-wide strip of garden to the state of Berlin to provide enough space for all road users. In the course of the work on the new line sector, the line branch along, Chausseestraße (between Invalidenstraße and Wöhlertstraße), Schwartzkopffstraße, Pflugstraße, Wöhlertstraße was permanently closed on 26 August 2013. The commissioning of the new line was initially only with the line M5. With the restoration of the connection from the Nordbahnhof to the underground station Naturkundemuseum, the new line from 28 August 2015 could also be used by the lines M8 and M10.
The first horse-drawn tramlines did not use any special labeling as they were radially inferior from the respective endpoints in the center and thus had few points of contact with other lines. Only with the expansion of the network into the city center was there a need to distinguish the lines from each other. From the 1880s, most major German cities therefore used colored target signs or signal boards, sometimes both together. In Berlin, these were always kept in the same combination. As identification colors red, yellow, green and white were used, from 1898 additionally blue. The panels were one or two colors, the latter either half / half divided or in thirds with a line in the second color. However, the number of signal panels used was not sufficient to equip each line with its own color code. In addition, crossing or side by side lines should run with different signal panels. This meant that individual lines had to change their color code several times in the course of their existence. As a result of the electrification and the takeover of the New Berlin Horse Ride by the Great Berlin Horse Railways / Great Berlin Tram (GBPfE / GBS) increased their number of lines at the turn of the century abruptly. With a view of the Hamburg tram, where in the summer of 1900 for the first time in German-speaking countries line numbers were introduced, experimented the GBS from 1901 also with the numbers. In the timetables of this time, the lines were numbered, but could change their order every year. The numbering scheme should include not only the GBS but also its secondary lines. At the same time, letter-number combinations as they appeared in the timetable booklet should be avoided.
The scheme introduced on May 6, 1902 was relatively simple: single numbers were reserved for the ring lines, two-digit for the remaining lines. Initially, the tens gave information about where the line was going; 10 lines were to be found in Moabit, 60 lines in Weissensee and 70 lines in Lichtenberg. The lines of the West Berlin suburban railway were assigned the letters A to M, the Berlin-Charlottenburg tram the letters N to Z and the lines of the Southern Berlin suburban railway were numbered with Roman numerals. The 1910 taken over by the GBS northeastern Berliner Vorortbahn received in 1913 the line designation NO. The colored signal panels remained in parallel until about 1904. In addition, the lines created during this period were still colored signal panels with new, sometimes even three-color color combinations.
Insertors were marked separately from the March 1903. They bore the letter E behind the line number of their main line. In later years, these lines increasingly took over the tasks of booster drives and were therefore shown in the timetables as separate lines. On April 15, 1912, the GBS introduced the first line with three-digit number. The 164 was created by extending the 64, which was maintained in parallel. In the following months more lines were provided with 100 numbers or newly set up, usually as a line pair to the existing line.
The surrounding businesses were not affected by the change in May 1902 and set on their own markings. The lines of the urban trams and the meterspurigen lines of the Teltower circular orbits were still marked with signal panels, on the other hand, the BESTAG and in Heiligensee, not the lines, but only the targets were marked with different colored signs. In 1908, the Spandauer Straßenbahn introduced the line identification with letters, which corresponded to the initial letter of the destination (line P to Pichelsdorf, etc.), in 1917 the company switched to numbers. In Cöpenick, the lines were marked from 1906 with numbers, from 1910 additionally with colored signal panels for the individual routes (red lines to Friedrichshagen, etc.). The Berlin Ostbahnen used from 1913 also like the SBV Roman numbers as line numbers. The other companies, including the standard-gauge lines of the Teltower Kreisbahnen, did not use a line marking.
With the merger of companies for the Berlin tram, the GBS's numbering scheme was extended to cover the rest of the network. Usually, those numbers are assigned, whose lines were continued during the World War I. For example, it came about that the lines operating in Köpenick received mainly 80s numbers. Letters were still awarded to the tram lines in the BVG until 1924, after which it was reserved for the suburban tariff buses.
With the outbreak of the Second World War, the Berlin public transport companies had to stop a large part of the bus traffic to save fuel. Tram traffic has been extended accordingly. The newly established amplifier lines contributed to the distinction of the master lines 200 and 300 numbers. From 1941, the night routes of the bus and the tram networks were later classified into the 400-series numbers. The measures were existed until the end of the war. The last 100 numbers were renumbered in May 31, 1949.
After the administrative separation of the BVG initially only changed the numbering scheme. Tram lines running from the east to the west of Berlin kept their number after the grid separation in 1953 and as a result of network thinning, individual lines were disappeared. The BVG-West waived from July 1966, the prefix A on the bus lines, the BVG-Ost waived in 1 January 1968. While in the west tram traffic was stopped 15 months later, the passenger in the east could not tell from the line number whether it was a tram or bus line. The Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe therefore planned to systematise their network in the 1970s. The city center lines of the tram should receive the line numbers 1 to 30, in Köpenick should retain their 80s numbers. The remaining numbers were intended for the bus. Night lines received from 1973 uniformly 100 numbers, for the tram were initially provided only the numbers from 120. The conversion of the daily lines was only partially completed.
After the reunification, in two steps, a uniform numbering scheme was introduced, which included the lines in the state of Brandenburg. The Berlin tram was assigned the line number range from 1 to 86, then followed by the overland operations in Woltersdorf, Schöneiche and Strausberg with the numbers 87 to 89. The Potsdam tram received the 90s line numbers. E-lines were no longer listed separately in the timetable, but the amplifiers continued to operate as such until 2004. Night lines were indicated on both means of transport by a preceding N and the three-digit line numbers were henceforth intended for the bus routes. The first conversion of 2 June 1991 followed the Berlin tram lines on 23 May 1993. The network was reorganized and divided into five number ranges. The main focus was on the focus on the historical center. Single lines formed the radial main network, 10 lines their supplementary network. 20er lines were intended for the ring and Tangentiallinien. There were 50 lines in the district of Pankow, 60 lines in the district of Köpenick analogous to the bus lines there.
BVG had instituted a new line structure, where the BVG has 22 lines since 2004. MetroTram also uses the symbol MetroTram.svg. On 12 December 2004, BVG had introduced the transport concept, BVG 2005+. The main content was the introduction of metro lines on busy routes where there are no S-Bahn or U-Bahn. In the tram network, therefore, nine tram lines under MetroTram were introduced, and the other lines have permanently rearranged. The numbering scheme is that it was similar to the 1993 scheme, but has undergone major adjustments.
Metro lines with a single digit number travel through the radial main network, as a rule, the line number corresponds to that of 1993, so the lines became 2, 3, and 4 into M4, the 5 into M5 and so on. In addition, the two Pankow lines, 52 and 53 were included as line M1 in the main scheme. The supplementary lines of the radials continue to carry 10 numbers, unless they have been merged into the amplifier of the metro line. Metro lines of the ring and tangential network received the numbers in the 10 range, whose supplementary lines retain the 20 range. An example is the retrofitted line, route 37, which together with the lines of M17 and 27 runs a common route. Of the 50 routes remained, the only one of the 50, the 60 lines were remained untouched by these measures.
FLEET
The Berlin tram has three different families of vehicles. In addition to Tatra high-floor vehicles there are low floor six-axle double articulated trams in unidirectional and bidirectional version (GT6N and GT6N-ZR), and since 2008, the new Flexity Berlin. The Tatra KT4 trams were phased out by 2017, and T6A2/B6A2 trams were phased out by 2007, those are Communism-era trams.
The number of trams has shrunk continuously. The BVB had 1,024 vehicles, while currently there are about 600. The reduction is possible because the new low-floor cars on average achieve more than twice the mileage per year (100,000 km), and, being longer, carry more passengers and therefore rarely operate in double header.
In July 2006, the cost of energy per vehicle-kilometer was:
tram €0.33
coupled set €0.45
bus €0.42
underground train €1.18
GT6N
Between 1992 and 2003 45 bidirectional T6N-ZRs and 105 unidirectional GT6Ns were purchased. The cars have a width of 2.30 m and a length of 26.80 m. They can carry 150 passengers and can run as coupled sets.
134 cars were in a risky transaction leased to a US investor and leased back. The SNB has accrued more than €157 million to hedge potential losses from cross-border business.
In the end of 2011 and beginning of 2012 the SNB began the carriage 1006 and 1016 a sample exercise. They were provided with a new drive technology and new software such as the Flexcitys. The only mutually detachable vehicles had to distinguish the new car numbers 1506 and the 1516.
FLEXITY BERLIN
In April 2005, a European tender was issued for low floor trams, half unidirectional, and half bidirectional vehicles. The latter will respond better to the BVG and construction faults and build on certain routes for cost savings. The Vienna tramway tram type ULF was tested in passenger service.
On 12 June 2006, the BVG decided to procure new trams. These are based on the tested Incentro, referred to by Bombardier as Flexity Berlin. In October 2008, for €13 million, four prototypes were ordered and since then extensively tested. There are one- and two-way cars, respectively 30.8 and 40 m in length, carrying about 180 or 240 passengers. Use in coupled sets is not possible.
On 29 June 2009, the Supervisory Board of the BVG decided to buy 99 Flexity cars, 40 of which will be long and 59 short versions, for €305.3 million. In September 2011 the first 13 long cars began to be delivered. To replace all old Tatra cars, a further 33 costing €92.3 million may need to be ordered in 2017. The trams will be manufactured at Bombardier's Bautzen works or Hennigsdorf.
In June 2012 the Supervisory Board approved the BVG 2nd Serial recall of an additional 39 trams of type "Flexity Berlin". Considering the order of over 99 vehicles from 2010, that means a total of 38 vehicles and 47 long bidirectional vehicles, as well as 53 short bidirectional vehicles will be ordered from the manufacturer, Bombardier Transportation. Thus, the SNB responds to both the very positive development of passenger numbers at the tram and allows bidirectional vehicles the eventual abandonment of turning loops and enhancing the design stops. Once this procurement is secured in 2017, then the old Tatra cars can be scrapped. The State of Berlin's funded budget is €439.1 million.
The new cars are equipped with 2.40 m wheel spacing, 10 cm wider than the existing low-floor trams. The track width was chosen so that modifications in the network are not necessary This affects only the routes, which will operate on the Flexity. Köpenick and parts of the Pankow network, the web is unable to drive.
In December 2015, BVG exercised an option for another 47 Flexity trams from Bombardier to handle increased ridership.
TRAM DEPOTS
Depots are required for storage and maintenance purposes. BVG has seven operational tram depots, five of which are used for storage of service trams:
Kniprodestraße, in Friedrichshain on the east side of the junction of Kniprodestraße and Conrad-Blenkle-Straße. This depot is used for track storage and rail-grinding machinery only. It is on bus route 200, and the access tracks connect to tram line M10.
Köpenick, on the west side of Wendenschloßstraße, south of the junction with Müggelheimer Straße. The depot entrance is on tram route 62.
Lichtenberg, on the east side of Siegfriedstraße, north of Lichtenberg U-Bahn station. The depot entrance is on tram routes 21 & 37 and bus routes 240 & 256.
Marzahn, on the south side of Landsberger Allee, east of Blumberger Damm. The depot has a tram stop on the M6 and 18 lines. Bus route 197 also passes the depot.
Nalepastraße, on the east side of Nalepastraße, in Oberschöneweide. It is not on any tram or bus route, but its access line connects with tram routes M17, 21, 37, 63 and 67 at the junction of Wilhelminenhofstraße and Edisonstraße.
Niederschönhausen, on the north-east corner of the junction of Deitzgenstraße and Schillerstraße. The line is on tram line M1. The depot is used for the storage of works machinery and historic, and preserved trams.
Weissensee, on the north side of Bernkasteler Straße near the junction of Berliner Allee and Rennbahnstraße. The depot entrance is not directly passed by any bus or tram route, but tram routes 12 & 27 and bus routes 156, 255 & 259 serve the adjacent Berliner Allee/Rennbahnstraße tram stop.
Out-of-service trams returning to Nalepastraße and Weissensee depot remain in-service until reaching the special tram stop at each depot.
GENERAL VIEW
The Berlin tram network is today the third largest in Germany
Around Berlin there are some additional tram systems that do not belong to the BVG:
the Verkehrsbetrieb Potsdam (operators of the Potsdam Tramway)
the Strausberg Railway (actually, a tram line located in the town of Strausberg)
the Woltersdorf Tramway (line 87, partly in Berlin)
the Schöneiche-Rüdersdorf Tramway (line 88, partly in Berlin)
The last three companies are located in the eastern suburbs at the eastern edge of Berlin. Each of them has only one line.
WIKIPEDIA
September 19 2021, Images shot for American Cancer Society's 49th Annual Bike-A-Thon endpoint at Bader Field, Atlantic City.
Fonte Avatar official FB Page:
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Black Waltz sees Avatar coming completely full circle, returning to a more aggressive form of heavy metal but incorporating the lessons they learned while jamming on big riffs with album number three. “We finally came to understand what a good groove is all about and what a great fit it was for our sound,” notes Eckerström.
Tracks like the appropriately titled “Ready for the Ride,” the rollicking “Let it Burn” (which dips into some delicious stonerifficness), the anthemic “Smells Like a Freakshow” (a modern day twist of Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie) and “Torn Apart” are supercharged with a dynamic range of artistic showmanship on a near cinematic scale and it’s all stitched together by a driving bottom end.
While most European metal acts who dare attempt this level of musicianship, showmanship and attention to detail seem content to toil away in the studio and lock themselves away from the crowds, Avatar have excelled beyond their peers thanks in large part to their continued focus on road work. Careening to and fro on tour busses and airplanes around the world like a marauding troupe of circus performers, Eckerström and his mates (guitarists Jonas Jarlsby and Tim Öhrström, bassist Henrik Sandelin and drummer John Alfredsson) have forged the type of musical bond that can only be brought forth from massive amounts of time spent together on the stage, in hotel rooms, in airports and partying at the venue’s bar.
Whether on tour with bands like In Flames, Dark Tranquility or Helloween, playing gigantic festivals like Storsjöyra and Sweden Rock Festival or demolishing South by Southwest, playing live is what it all comes down to for this band. “That is the final manifestation of our art,” Eckerström insists. “Of course an album is a piece of art in itself, but mainly it's a means to reach the higher goal, which is doing these awesome shows. Touring is of the greatest importance.”
“We all just love the pirate’s life,” he admits freely. “Sailing into the city on this tour bus thingy, going to kick some ass, have that party and all the while meeting all of these people, entertaining them, encountering a culture that's not your own. We love that.”
The want for this type of lifestyle goes back to early childhood fascinations for the good-humored singer. Reading about superheroes, watching Hulk Hogan on TV, getting exposed to Kiss – these were the first ingredients for what Eckerström would go on to create with the guys in Avatar and what has culminated now in Black Waltz.
The frontman promises that Avatar will continue to create, to captivate and to experiment. There’s no definitive endpoint in sight. It’s always about the horizon, the journey itself. “As long as you're hungry as an artist, there are higher and higher artistic achievements. I love AC/DC and Motorhead and what they’ve established is amazing, but we don’t want to write albums that are kind of like the album before. We want to travel to a new galaxy, so to speak, every time.”
The goal is always to conquer what came before. “That is what stays with you as a mentally healthy musician. Or maybe a mentally deranged one, I’m not sure,” the singer laughs. And part and parcel to that continued evolution will be the ever broadening expansion of the scope of Avatar’s worldwide presentation: Black Waltz and beyond.
“We have great visions of what we want to do and the things we want to give to people on a stage,” Eckerström promises. “These ideas, these visions, they require a huge audience. They require a lot of legroom to be done, so I want to get into those arenas, basically. I know we would do something really magical if we got the chance. This idea is one of those things that really, really keeps us going.”
In the background you can see the Nationaal Monument op de Dam.
Im Hintergrund sieht man das Nationaal Monument op de Dam.
Dam Square or the Dam (Dutch pronunciation: [dɑm]) is a town square in Amsterdam, the capital and most populated city of the Netherlands. Its notable buildings and frequent events make it one of the best-known and most important locations in the city and the country.
Location and description
Dam Square lies in the historical center of Amsterdam, approximately 750 metres (2,500 ft) south of the main transportation hub, Centraal Station, at the original location of the dam in the river Amstel. It is roughly rectangular in shape, stretching about 200 metres (650 ft) from west to east and about 100 metres (350 ft) from north to south. It links the streets Damrak and Rokin, which run along the original course of the Amstel River from Centraal Station to Muntplein (Mint Square) and the Munttoren (Mint Tower). The Dam also marks the endpoint of the other well-traveled streets Nieuwendijk, Kalverstraat and Damstraat. A short distance beyond the northeast corner lies the main red-light district: De Wallen.
On the west end of the square is the neoclassical Royal Palace, which served as the city hall from 1655 until its conversion to a royal residence in 1808. Beside it are the 15th-century Gothic Nieuwe Kerk (New Church) and the Madame Tussauds Amsterdam Wax Museum. The National Monument, a white stone pillar designed by J.J.P. Oud and erected in 1956 to memorialize the victims of World War II, dominates the opposite side of the square. Also overlooking the plaza are the NH Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky and the upscale department store De Bijenkorf. These various attractions have turned the Dam into a tourist zone.
History
The Dam derives its name from its original function: a dam on the Amstel River, hence also the name of the city of Amsterdam. Built in approximately 1270, the dam formed the first connection between the settlements on the sides of the river. The dam was originally built with a discharge sluice to allow control of the water level of the newly dammed river, but would soon be rebuilt with locks which also permitted navigation between the dammed river and the new harbor, the Damrak. The settlement first appeared in a document from 1275, concerning a road toll granted by the count of Holland Floris V to the residents apud Amestelledamme 'at the dam in the Amstel' or 'at the dam of Amstelland'.
As the dam was gradually built up it became wide enough for a town square, which remained the core of the town developing around it. Dam Square as it exists today grew out of what was originally two squares: the actual dam, called Middeldam, on which was located a large fish market (vismarkt) where ships moored at the dam to load and unload goods; and Plaetse, an adjacent plaza to the west. The area became a centre not only of commercial activity but also of the government, as the site of Amsterdam's town hall.
As a market square, the Dam had a weigh house that can be seen in some old paintings. It was demolished in 1808 by order of Louis Bonaparte who, upon taking up residence in the newly converted Royal Palace, complained that his view was obstructed.
The Damrak, or the former mouth of the Amstel River, was partially filled in the 19th century; since then, the Dam square has been surrounded by land on all sides. The new land made room for the Beurs van Zocher, a stock exchange that was built in 1837. After the stock trade moved to the Beurs van Berlage in 1903, the Zocher building was demolished. In its place, De Bijenkorf department store has stood since 1914.
In 1856, a war memorial named De Eendracht (The Unity) was unveiled inside the square before King William III. A stone column with a female statue on top, the monument acquired the nickname "Naatje of the Dam". It was taken down in 1914.
Dam Square shooting, 1945
During World War II, the Netherlands were occupied by Nazi Germany. On 7 May 1945, two days after German capitulation, thousands of Dutch people were waiting for Canadian troops to arrive on the Dam square in Amsterdam. In the Grote Club, on the corner of Kalverstraat and Paleisstraat, members of the German Kriegsmarine watched as the crowd below their balcony grew and people danced and cheered. The Germans then placed a machine gun on the balcony and started shooting into the crowds. The motives behind the shooting have remained unclear; the Germans were drunk and possibly angered because contrary to previous agreement Dutch police had arrested members of the German military.
The shooting finally came to an end after a member of the Dutch resistance climbed into the tower of the royal palace and started shooting onto the balcony and into the club. At that moment, a German officer together with a Resistance commander found their way into the club and convinced the men to surrender. At the brink of peace, 120 people were badly injured and 22 pronounced dead. In 2013, evidence was brought to light that suggested the number may have been higher: possibly 33 people died, and there were 10 more unconfirmed possible victims.
Coronation riots, 1980
Dam Square was the central scene of the largest post-war civil disturbance in the Netherlands during the Amsterdam coronation riots on 30 April 1980.
Present
Several tram lines traverse the Dam and have stops there. In the time of the horse tram (end 19th century), the Dam was the most important tram hub of Amsterdam. After 1900, this function moved to the Central Station, at the other end of the Damrak.
Over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, Amsterdam's main square became a "national" square well known to nearly everyone in the Netherlands. It has frequently been the location of demonstrations and events of all kinds, and a meeting place for many people. On 4 May every year, the Dutch celebrate National Memorial Day (Nationale Dodenherdenking), in observance of which the last addition to the square, the National Monument, was set up in 1956.
A funfair was held on Dam Square for several years.
On 6 December 2003, Bulgarian mobster Konstantin "Samokovetsa" Dimitrov was shot dead on Dam Square.
On 7 November 2024, a series of attacks occurred by fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv F.C. at Dam Square during their UEFA Europa League match against AFC Ajax.
On 27 March 2025, a 30-year old Ukrainian citizen from Donetsk used knives to attack a 67-year-old woman and a 69-year-old man with American nationality, a 26-year-old man with Polish nationality, a 73-year-old Belgian woman and a 19-year-old Dutch woman in the Sint Nicolaasstraat area in the vicinity of Dam Square.
On 3 April 2025, a 50-year-old man set himself on fire inside of his car, near the National Monument, causing a small explosion and injuring himself. No bystanders were injured.
(Wikipedia)
Der Dam ist der zentrale Platz der Stadt Amsterdam und der bekannteste Stadtplatz der Niederlande. Er liegt im Zentrum des mittelalterlichen Stadtkerns und ist Standort zahlreicher Bauwerke von nationaler Bedeutung, darunter des Königlichen Palasts. Der hier im 13. Jahrhundert errichtete Damm im Fluss Amstel war Namensgeber für den Platz wie für die gesamte Stadt.
Lage
Der Dam liegt im Mittelpunkt Amsterdams. Die beiden wichtigsten einmündenden Straßen sind die auf dem zugeschütteten Flussbett der Amstel erbauten Boulevards Damrak, der nach Norden zum Amsterdamer Hauptbahnhof führt, und Rokin, der nach Süden bis zum Muntplein (Münzplatz) führt.
Westlich parallel zu diesen verlaufen die weitaus schmaleren Einkaufsstraßen Nieuwendijk (nach Norden) und Kalverstraat (nach Süden), die als Fußgängerzone ausgewiesen sind. Die Kalverstraat gilt als wichtigste Einkaufsstraße der Stadt.
Östlich parallel zu Damrak und Rokin verlaufen die Warmoesstraat und der Nes, die in das östliche Ende des Platzes münden.
Die wichtigsten in Ost-West-Richtung einmündenden Straßen sind die nach Osten zum Oudezijds Voorburgwal (Altseitner Vorburgwall, einer der „Wallen“) führende Damstraat und die nach Westen zum Singel führende Paleisstraat.
Kleinere in den Platz einmündende Gässchen sind die Mozes en Aaronstraat und die Eggertstraat im Nordwesten, der Pijlsteeg (Pfeilgasse) im Osten und das Beurspoortje (Börsenpförtchen) im Südosten.
Bauwerke
Das dominierende Bauwerk auf dem Dam ist der Königliche Palast, der während der Blütezeit der Stadt 1648–1665 von den reich gewordenen Bürgern als Rathaus erbaut wurde. Während der französischen Besatzung requirierte der von Napoleon zum „König von Holland“ ernannte Louis Bonaparte das Rathaus als seinen Königspalast. Nach der Vertreibung der Franzosen 1813 wurde das Rathaus wieder an die Stadt zurückgegeben, aber nach dem Kauf durch das niederländische Königshaus 1939 wiederum zum königlichen Palast. Die königliche Familie nutzt das riesige Bauwerk allerdings nur zu Repräsentationszwecken, als Wohnsitz bevorzugt sie die ebenfalls vom Architekten Jacob van Campen errichteten Paläste Huis ten Bosch am Rande und Noordeinde im Zentrum von Den Haag.
Zuvor befand sich an fast derselben Stelle das alte, im gotischen Stil erbaute Rathaus Amsterdams, das 1652 abbrannte, was den Anlass zum Neubau bot.
Das zweite große Monument am Dam ist die gotische Liebfrauenkirche, heute als Nieuwe Kerk („Neue Kirche“) bekannt. Die Kirche wurde 1409 geweiht, die jüngsten Bauteile im nördlichen Querschiff entstanden 1530–1540 im Renaissancestil. Die größte Kirche der Altstadt besitzt keine Türme, die Bauarbeiten für diese wurden 1563 abgebrochen. Die Kirche brannte dreimal ab, zuletzt 1645, wurde aber jeweils im ursprünglichen Stil wiederhergestellt. Sie wurde 1979 von der Niederländisch-reformierten Kirche in die Hände einer Stiftung übergeben und dient heute als Kulturzentrum, Ausstellungs- und Konzertsaal. Auch die Hochzeiten der Königsfamilie und die Einsegnungen der neuen Könige und Königinnen finden hier statt.
Das dritte bekannte Bauwerk auf dem Dam ist das Nationalmonument, das seit 1956 an die Opfer der Besetzung der Niederlande durch Nazideutschland 1940–1945 erinnert. Hier findet jährlich am 4. Mai, dem niederländischen Volkstrauertag, die zentrale Gedenkfeier statt, an dem der König am Monument einen Kranz zu Ehren der Toten niederlegt. An den übrigen Tagen ist das Denkmal ein beliebter Treffpunkt für Jugendliche, Touristen und Tauben.
An seiner Stelle stand von 1856 bis 1914 das Denkmal De Eendracht („die Eintracht“) von Louis Royer, im Volksmund auch bekannt als Naatje van de Dam, das an die durch die Abspaltung Belgiens 1830/31 verlorene Einheit der Niederlande erinnerte, die hier durch eine vier Meter hohe Frauenfigur verkörpert wurde.
Weitere Großbauten am Dam sind das Hotel Krasnapolsky (1883) auf der Ostseite des Platzes und an der Nordostseite das Kaufhaus De Bijenkorf (Bienenkorb, 1912–1915) zwischen Damrak und Warmoesstraat, die größte der 13 Filialen dieser Warenhauskette. Auf der Südseite des Platzes, zwischen Rokin und Kalverstraat, liegt, im Warenhaus Peek & Cloppenburg, das Wachsfigurenkabinett Madame Tussauds. An der Ecke zum Rokin steht das Industria-Haus des Industrieele Groote Club, erbaut 1912 durch Foeke Kuipers.
Auf dem Dam stand das älteste Waaghaus in Amsterdam. Die erste 1341 erbaute Waag op de Dam wurde 1561–1565 durch ein neues Waaghaus im Renaissancestil ersetzt, die „Tweede Waag“. Nachdem die Waag op de Dam für die schnell wachsende Stadt zu klein geworden war, wurde 1617 eine zusätzliche öffentliche Waage am Nieuwmarkt in Betrieb genommen. Die Waag op de Dam wurde 1808 abgerissen.
Geschichte
Der Bau eines Damms und einer Schleuse geht zurück in die Gründungsgeschichte der Stadt und geschah wahrscheinlich zwischen 1265 und 1275. Die Abdeichung von Flussmündungen wurde nötig, um die durch Sturmfluten gefährdete Küstenlinie zu verkürzen. Zu solchen Deichen gehörten Schleusen, um das Flusswasser hindurch zu lassen und die Schifffahrt nicht zu behindern. Hinzu kam die wichtige Funktion für den Wasserhaushalt: während die Amstel unterhalb des Damms bis zur Mündung in die Meeresbucht IJ zur Zuiderzee und damit zur Nordsee offen war und den Gezeiten der Nordsee unterlag, konnte der Mensch den Wasserspiegel oberhalb des Damms durch Öffnen und Schließen der Schleuse selbst regulieren und damit weitgehend konstant halten. Durch gezieltes Öffnen der Schleusentore während einer Ebbe konnte Flusswasser mit großer Kraft ins Meer gespült werden, damit die städtischen Abwässer aus der Stadt entsorgt und sogar die Fahrrinne des im Mündungsbereich der Amstel (dem Damrak) gelegenen Hafens vertieft werden.
Auch andere altholländische Städte entstanden auf diese Weise, eben die Abdeichung einer Flussmündung zur Verkürzung des Seedeichs, so etwa Rotterdam (an der Rotte), Schiedam (Schie) oder Zaandam (Zaan), die deshalb ebenfalls das Suffix -dam im Namen tragen.
Der Damm schloss damit die Lücke im Seedeich auf dem südlichen Ufer des IJ und schuf gleichzeitig erstmals eine feste Straßenverbindung über die Amstel, die die beiden bereits vorhandenen Siedlungskerne beiderseits des Flusses (im Bereich des heutigen Nieuwendijk auf dem westlichen und der heutigen Warmoesstraat auf dem östlichen Ufer) miteinander verband.
Am Ende des Mittelalters wurde die Deichkrone so weit verbreitert, dass Raum für einen Stadtplatz entstand, der Middeldam genannt wurde. Auf dem Westufer entstand ein weiterer Platz, der gemäß seiner Funktion als zentraler Hauptplatz einfach nur Plaetse („Platz“) hieß. Der nördliche Teil des Middeldams hieß Vissersdam (Fischerdamm), weil hier der städtische Fischmarkt ansässig war, der südliche hier Vijgendam (Feigendamm). Der Plaetse hieß während der französischen Okkupation ab 1795 Place de la Révolution und anschließend Place Napoléon.
Der Dam diente als zentraler Marktplatz der Stadt, an dem auch Schiffe anlegen konnten. Diese Möglichkeit entfiel im 19. Jahrhundert, als der Damrak, der zum IJ führende Unterlauf der Amstel, zugeschüttet und zu einem prächtigen Boulevard ausgebaut wurde. Der Platz wurde in den 1910er Jahren nach Norden erweitert und zu der heute bekannten städtebaulichen Einheit zusammengefasst. Die Amstel oberhalb des Dam, der Rokin, erhielt 1913 noch Uferstraßen, wurde aber zwischen 1933 und 1936 ebenfalls zugeschüttet, so dass der Dam auch von Süden her nicht mehr mit Schiffen erreichbar ist.
Im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert entwickelte der Dam sich vom zentralen Marktplatz Amsterdams zu einem nationalen „Forum“, dem Mittelpunkt der Nation, der jedem Niederländer ein Begriff ist und der die Kulisse für wichtige nationale Veranstaltungen, Demonstrationen und Gedenkfeiern abgibt.
Verkehr
Der im Zuge des früheren Amstel-Flussbetts in Nord-Süd-Richtung verlaufende Straßenzug Damrak–Dam–Rokin ist in der mittelalterlich strukturierten Altstadt eine der wenigen für neuzeitlichen Autoverkehr benutzbaren Achsen und dementsprechend eine wichtige Hauptstraße.
Der Dam war zu Zeiten der Pferdebahn der wichtigste Knoten des Straßenbahnnetzes in ganz Amsterdam, später verlagerte sich diese Funktion nach Norden an den Hauptbahnhof. Der Dam ist trotzdem auch heute noch ein wichtiger Straßenbahnknoten und wird von sechs Linien angefahren. Gleise führen über Damrak und Rokin, durch die Paleissstraat, die Mozes-en-Aaronstraat und vor dem Rathaus auf der Westseite des Platzes entlang.
Ab 2003 wurde entlang Damrak und Rokin die Noord-Zuidlijn der Amsterdamer U-Bahn errichtet. Aufgrund technischer Probleme beim Bau verzögerte sich die Eröffnung der Strecke von 2011 auf 2018. Im Zuge des Baus der Metrostation Rokin, die unter der gleichnamigen Straße südlich des Dams liegt, wurden ein fünfgeschossiges unterirdisches Parkhaus und eine unterirdische Fahrradgarage mit 260 Stellplätzen angelegt.
(Wikipedia)
Central Park is one of the very iconic parts of New York City. My earliest memories of the park is when I lived on W93rd Street Back from 55-63 before there was gentrification and actual middle and working class people could still afford to live in Manhattan and my mother would take us to the nearby playgrounds. In my adolescence and early adulthood it was a very cool place to hang and also a nice place to take a girl on a low budget when the weather was nice. Over the years I would go here to see concerts at the Wollman Skating Rink for several years where the concerts were general admission and the tickets were cheap even when adjusted for inflation and I saw many well known bands there. I also made money around the concerts selling beer we bought wholesale from beer a distributor selling them at around a 300-400% markup but there was a lot labor involved hauling in a large cooler and shopping carts full of ice. The park was also endpoint for many political marches during the Vietnam War and the occasional large free concert such as Jefferson Airplane and Simon and Garfunkel. The free concerts ended when Diana Ross gave a free concert when the concert suddenly ended when fierce summer thunderstorms passed through when groups of mostly youths attending the concert formed flash mobs that assaulted and robbed people. After that the city banned large free concerts in the park and the incident became a point of racial animosity for years to come. During the eighties me and my wife spent many a pleasant day or evening walking the paths. During the nineties when my children were small we would take our kids every year to visit many of the museums that border the park and afterwards they would love to play in many of the custom made playgrounds built by generous wealthy donors.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJrUigEoSZ0
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www.nytimes.com/1983/07/24/nyregion/youth-gags-rob-fans-a...
The Berlin tramway (German: Straßenbahn Berlin) is the main tram system in Berlin, Germany. It is one of the oldest tram networks in the world having its origins in 1865 and is operated by Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG), which was founded in 1929. It is notable for being the third-largest tram system in the world, after Melbourne and St. Petersburg. Berlin's streetcar system is made up of 22 lines that operate across a standard gauge network, with almost 800 stops and measuring almost 190 kilometres in route length and 430 kilometres in line length. Nine of the lines, called Metrotram, are operated continuously around the clock, and are identified with the letter "M" before their number; the other thirteen lines are regular city tram lines and are identified by just a line number.
Most of the recent network is within the confines of the former East Berlin - tram lines within West Berlin having been replaced by buses during the division of Berlin (the first extension into West Berlin opened in 1994 on today's M13). In the eastern vicinity of the city there are also three private tram lines that are not part of the main system, whereas to the south-west of Berlin is the Potsdam tram system with its own network of lines.
HISTORY
In 1865, a horse tramway was established in Berlin. In 1881, the world's first electric tram line opened. Numerous private and municipal operating companies constructed new routes, so by the end of the 19th century the network developed quite rapidly, and the horse trams were changed into electric ones. By 1930, the network had a route length of over 630 km with more than 90 lines. In 1929, all operating companies were unified into the BVG. After World War II, BVG was divided into an eastern and a western company but was once again reunited in 1992, after the fall of East Germany. In West Berlin, by 1967 the last tram lines had been shut down. With the exception of two lines constructed after German reunification, the Berlin tram continues to be limited to the eastern portion of Berlin.
HORSE BUSES
The public transport system of Berlin is the oldest one in Germany. In 1825, the first bus line from Brandenburger Tor to Charlottenburg was opened by Simon Kremser, already with a timetable. The first bus service inside the city has operated since 1840 between Alexanderplatz and Potsdamer Bahnhof. It was run by Israel Moses Henoch, who had organized the cab service since 1815. On 1 January 1847, the Concessionierte Berliner Omnibus Compagnie (Concessionary Berlin Bus Company) started its first horse-bus line. The growing market witnessed the launch of numerous additional companies, with 36 bus companies in Berlin by 1864.
HORSE TRAMS
On 22 June 1865, the opening of Berlin's first horse tramway marked the beginning of the age of trams in Germany, spanning from Brandenburger Tor along today's Straße des 17. Juni (17 June Road) to Charlottenburg. Two months later, on 28 August, it was extended along Dorotheenstraße to Kupfergraben near today's Museumsinsel (Museum Island), a terminal stop which is still in service today. Like the horse-bus, many companies followed the new development and built horse-tram networks in all parts of the today's urban area. In 1873, a route from Rosenthaler Platz to the Gesundbrunnen was opened, to be operated by the new Große Berliner Pferde-Eisenbahn (Great Berlin Horse Railway) which would later become the dominant company in Berlin under the name of Große Berliner Straßenbahn (GBS; Great Berlin Tramway).
ELECTRIFICATION
On 16 May 1881, the region of Berlin again wrote transport history. In the village of Groß-Lichterfelde, which was incorporated into Berlin-Steglitz 39 years later, Werner von Siemens opened the world's first electric tramway. The electric tram in Groß-Lichterfelde was built to 1,000 mm metre gauge and ran from today's suburban station, Lichterfelde Ost, to the cadet school on Zehlendorfer Straße (today Finckensteinallee). Initially, the route was intended merely as a testing facility. Siemens named it an "elevated line taken down from its pillars and girders" because he wanted to build a network of electric elevated lines in Berlin. But the skeptical town council did not allow him to do this until 1902, when the first elevated line opened.
The first tests of electric traction on Berlin's standard gauge began on 1 May 1882, with overhead supply and in 1886 with chemical accumulators, were not very successful. Definitively, electric traction of standard-gauge trams in Berlin was established in 1895. The first tram line with an overhead track supply ran in an industrial area near Berlin-
Gesundbrunnen station. The first line in more a representative area took place with accumulators for its first year, but got a catenary, too, four years later. In 1902, the electrification with overhead wiring had been completed, except for very few lines on the periphery.
The last horse-drawn tram line closed in 1910.
UNDERGROUND TRAMS
On 28 December 1899, it became possible to travel underground, even under the Spree, upon completion of the Spreetunnel between Stralau and Treptow. Owing to structural problems, it was closed on 25 February 1932. From 1916 to 1951, the tram had a second tunnel, the Lindentunnel, passing under the well-known boulevard Unter den Linden.
GREAT VARIETY OF COMPANIES UNTIL THE FORMATION OF THE BVG
The history of tramway companies of the Berlin Strassenbahn is very complicated. Besides the private companies, which often changed because of takeovers, mergers, and bankruptcies, the cities of Berlin, Spandau, Köpenick, Rixdorf; the villages Steglitz, Mariendorf, Britz, Niederschönhausen, Friedrichshagen, Heiligensee and Französisch Buchholz, and the Kreis Teltow (Teltow district) had municipal tramway companies.
The most important private operating company was the Große Berliner Pferde-Eisenbahn (Great Berlin Horse Railway), which called itself Große Berliner Straßenbahn (GBS) (Great Berlin Tramway) after starting the electrification. GBS acquired nearly all of the other companies through the years. In 1920, the GBS merged with the municipal companies BESTAG and SSB to become the Berliner Straßenbahn (Berlin Tramway), which was reorganized in 1929 into the newly formed municipal Berliner Verkehrs-AG (BVG) (Berlin Transport Company). Besides the tramway, the BVG also took over the elevated and underground rail lines and the bus routes which were previously operated primarily by the Allgemeine Berliner Omnibus-Actien-Gesellschaft (ABOAG) (General Berlin Bus Corporation).
The following table includes all companies that operated tramways in today's Berlin before the formation of the BVG. The background color of each line marks the drive method which the respective company used to serve their lines at the time of the formation (blue = horse tram, yellow = steam tram, white = electric tram, red = benzole tram).
On the day of its formation, the BVG had 89 tramway lines: a network of 634 km in length, over 4,000 tramway cars, and more than 14,400 employees. An average tram car ran over 42,500 km per year. The Berlin tramway had more than 929 million passengers in 1929, at which point, the BVG already had increased its service to 93 tramway lines.
In the early 1930s, the Berlin tramway network began to decline; after partial closing of the world's first electric tram in 1930, on 31 October 1934, the oldest tramway of Germany followed. The Charlottenburger Chaussee (today Straße des 17. Juni) was rebuilt by Nazi planners following a monumental East-West-Axis, and the tramway had to leave. In 1938, however, there were still 71 tramway lines, 2,800 tram cars and about 12,500 employees. Consequently, the bus network was extended during this time. Since 1933, Berlin also had trolley buses.
During World War II, some transport tasks were given back to the tramway to save oil. Thus an extensive transport of goods was established. Bombings (from March 1943 on) and the lack of personnel and electricity caused the transportation performance to decline. Due to the final Battle for Berlin, the tramway system collapsed on 23 April 1945.
THE NETWORK SINCE 1945
The BVG was - like most other Berlin institutions—split into two different companies on 1 August 1949. Two separate companies were installed, the BVG West in the three western sections (with 36 tram lines) and the BVG Ost (Berlin Public Transit Authority East) (with 13 lines) in the Soviet sector. The latter became in 1969 the VEB Kombinat Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVB). On 14 October 1950, traffic on the lines from West Berlin to the Brandenburgian suburbs Kleinmachnow and Schönefeld stopped, and on 15 January 1953, traffic over the downtown sector border did, too.
From 1949 to 1955, both companies exchanged the Thomson-Houston type trolley poles of their tramcars line by line for pantographs.
WEST
From 1954 onwards, a shift took place in the public transit plans of West-Berlin. From that moment, plans aimed at discontinuing the tramway service and replacing it with extended underground and bus lines. The tramway was considered old-fashioned and unnecessary since Berlin already had a well-developed underground network. From 1954 to 1962 numerous tram lines were replaced with bus routes and extended underground lines and stops. By 1962, the western part of the city had only 18 tram lines left out of the original 36.
On 2 October 1967 the last tramcar traveled through West-Berlin over the last line, which carried number 55 - from Zoo Station via Ernst-Reuter-Square, the City Hall in Charlottenburg, Jungfernheide S-Bahn station, Siemensdamm, Nonnendammallee,
Falkenseer Platz, and Neuendorfer Allee to Spandau, Hakenfelde.
Today, many MetroBus lines follow the routes of former tram lines.
The separation of the city resulted in many problems and difficulties for the public transportation system. Tram lines could no longer travel through the city's center as usual, and the main tram garage was moved to Uferstraße in Western Berlin.
EAST
Soviet Moscow was, with its tram-free avenues, the role model for East-Berlin's transport planning. The car-oriented mentality of West Berlin also settled in the East since a lot of tram lines closed here as well in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1967, the lines through the city center closed down at the same time as the new city expansion on Alexanderplatz started to grow.
However, complete elimination of the city's tram network was neither planned nor even discussed.
Those lines were built in order to connect the new housing estates Marzahn, Hohenschönhausen, and finally Hellersdorf to the city's tram network from the late 1970s to the early 1990s:
AFTER REUNIFICATION
In 1992, the West Berlin transport company BVG took over the East Berlin's BVB. (In addition to bus and subway lines, the new BVG also ran the trams, which now only circulated in the former East Berlin districts.)
There was an attempt to shut down the tram routes running to Pankow, because the trams in Schönhauser Allee run parallel to the U2 line, which does not run to Rosenthal, however.
In 1995, the first stretch of tram route along Bornholmer Straße was opened to the west in two stages. The Rudolf-Virchow-Klinikum and the metro stations located in Seestraße, Wedding, and Osloer Straße in Gesundbrunnen have since re-connected to the tram network.
Since 1997, the tram stops right at the Friedrichstraße station. Previously, passengers changing between modes of transport here had to take a long walk to get to the restored train station. Since then, the trams terminate along the reversing loop "Am Kupfergraben" near the Humboldt University and the Museum Island.
The following year saw the re-opening of tram facilities at Alexanderplatz. These routes now come directly from the intersection with Otto-Braun-Straße across the square, stopping both at the U2 underground station and the overground station for regional and commuter trains, where there is a direct interchange to the U5 and U8 lines. The increase of tram accident victims in the pedestrian
zone feared by critics has not occurred.
In 2000, the tram tracks were extended from the previous terminus at Revalerstraße past the Warschauer Straße S-Bahn station to the U-Bahn station of the same name. Since there is no room for a return loop, a blunt ending track was established. In order to accomplish this, bi-directional vehicles were procured. However, the tracks, which were further extended in 1995 to the Oberbaumbrücke, have not yet been expanded to Hermannplatz as had been planned long before.
Since 2000, the tram in Pankow runs beyond the previous terminus Pankow Kirche on to Guyotstraße, connecting the local development areas to the network.
On 12 December 2004, BVG introduced the BVG 2005 plus transport concept. The main focus was the introduction of Metro lines on densely traveled routes, which do not have any subway or suburban traffic. In the tram network, therefore, nine MetroTram lines were introduced and the remaining lines were partially rearranged. The numbering scheme is based on that of 1993, but has undergone minor adjustments. MetroTram and MetroBus lines carry a "M" in front of the line number.
Single metro lines operate on the main radial network; As a rule the line number corresponds to that of 1993; The M4 from the lines 2, 3 and 4, the M5 from the 5, and so on. In addition, the two Pankow lines 52 and 53 were included as a line M1 in the scheme. The supplementary lines of these radials continue to carry 10 numbers, unless they have acted as amplifiers of the respective metro service. Metro services of the ring and tangential net received a number in the 10er range, the supplementary lines retained the 20er number. An exception is the subsequently established line 37, which, together with the lines M17 and 27, travels a common route. Of the 50 lines the only remaining was the 50, the 60 lines remained largely unaffected by the measures.
M1: Niederschönhausen, Schillerstraße and Rosenthal to Mitte, Am Kupfergraben replacing 52 and 53
M2: Heinersdorf to Hackescher Markt
M4: Hohenschönhausen, Zingster Straße to Hackescher Markt
M5: Hohenschönhausen, Zingster Straße to Hackescher Markt
M6: Hellersdorf, Riesaer Straße to Schwartzkopffstraße
M8: Ahrensfelde to Schwartzkopffstraße
M10: Prenzlauer Berg, Eberswalder Straße to Warschauer Straße replacing 20
M13: Wedding to Warschauer Straße replacing 23
M17: Falkenberg to Schöneweide
In 2006, the second line was opened in the western part of the city, and the M10 line moved beyond its former terminus Eberswalderstraße along Bernauer Straße in Gesundbrunnen to the Nordbahnhof in the district of Mitte, before it was being extended to Hauptbahnhof in 2015.
In May 2007, a new line from Prenzlauer Tor along Karl-Liebknecht-Straße towards Alexanderplatz was put into operation, where the line M2 leads directly to the urban and regional train station instead of the current circulation through Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz to Hackescher Markt. The previous route along Alt and Neu Schönhauser Straße no longer carries regular services but operates only as a feeder line.
On September 4, 2011, the one and a half kilometer long new line from the S-Bahn station Adlershof was taken by the science and business location Adlershof to the provisional endpoint Karl-Ziegler-Straße at the campus Adlershof, the Humboldt University in operation. The route with three newly built stops cost 13 million euros and was first operated by the lines 60 and 61 in the overlapping 10-minute intervals. Since 13 December 2015, the line 63 runs instead of the line 60 to Karl Ziegler Street. Originally, the connection should already be completed in 1999. However, the plan approval procedure was only completed in 2002. Shortly before the plan approval decision expired after five years, the project was approved on August 9, 2007, and soon after the first masts for the overhead line were set up. It is expected to have 9000 passengers per working day. This is just as similar to the tram line being built along the Upper Changi Road East and the Flora Drive, and the subsequent linking of Flora Estate into the Upper Changi area.
TOWARDS THE HAUPTBAHNHOF
At the timetable change on 14 December 2014, a new tram line was opened from Naturkundemuseum to Hauptbahnhof via Invalidenstraße, with the final stop at Lüneburger Straße in the district of Alt-Moabit. The double-track line is 2.3 kilometers long to the main station, and new stops have been built on the Chausseestraße, the Invalidenpark and the Hauptbahnhof. This is followed by the 1.1 km single track block bypass that has three stops at Lesser-Ury-Weg, Lueneburger Straße and Clara-Jaschke-Straße, as well as the installation area. The planned opening date has already been postponed several times. Originally planned to complete in 2002. However, the plan was caught by the Administrative Court in 2004 and revised to either 2006 and 2007. However, the first 80 metres of the track has already been built during the construction of Berlin Hauptbahnhof.
A new approval procedure was completed on 15 January 2010. In April 2011, the preparatory construction work had begun. The Ministry of Transport revised the 50 metres of the length, a two-meter-wide strip of garden to the state of Berlin to provide enough space for all road users. In the course of the work on the new line sector, the line branch along, Chausseestraße (between Invalidenstraße and Wöhlertstraße), Schwartzkopffstraße, Pflugstraße, Wöhlertstraße was permanently closed on 26 August 2013. The commissioning of the new line was initially only with the line M5. With the restoration of the connection from the Nordbahnhof to the underground station Naturkundemuseum, the new line from 28 August 2015 could also be used by the lines M8 and M10.
The first horse-drawn tramlines did not use any special labeling as they were radially inferior from the respective endpoints in the center and thus had few points of contact with other lines. Only with the expansion of the network into the city center was there a need to distinguish the lines from each other. From the 1880s, most major German cities therefore used colored target signs or signal boards, sometimes both together. In Berlin, these were always kept in the same combination. As identification colors red, yellow, green and white were used, from 1898 additionally blue. The panels were one or two colors, the latter either half / half divided or in thirds with a line in the second color. However, the number of signal panels used was not sufficient to equip each line with its own color code. In addition, crossing or side by side lines should run with different signal panels. This meant that individual lines had to change their color code several times in the course of their existence. As a result of the electrification and the takeover of the New Berlin Horse Ride by the Great Berlin Horse Railways / Great Berlin Tram (GBPfE / GBS) increased their number of lines at the turn of the century abruptly. With a view of the Hamburg tram, where in the summer of 1900 for the first time in German-speaking countries line numbers were introduced, experimented the GBS from 1901 also with the numbers. In the timetables of this time, the lines were numbered, but could change their order every year. The numbering scheme should include not only the GBS but also its secondary lines. At the same time, letter-number combinations as they appeared in the timetable booklet should be avoided.
The scheme introduced on May 6, 1902 was relatively simple: single numbers were reserved for the ring lines, two-digit for the remaining lines. Initially, the tens gave information about where the line was going; 10 lines were to be found in Moabit, 60 lines in Weissensee and 70 lines in Lichtenberg. The lines of the West Berlin suburban railway were assigned the letters A to M, the Berlin-Charlottenburg tram the letters N to Z and the lines of the Southern Berlin suburban railway were numbered with Roman numerals. The 1910 taken over by the GBS northeastern Berliner Vorortbahn received in 1913 the line designation NO. The colored signal panels remained in parallel until about 1904. In addition, the lines created during this period were still colored signal panels with new, sometimes even three-color color combinations.
Insertors were marked separately from the March 1903. They bore the letter E behind the line number of their main line. In later years, these lines increasingly took over the tasks of booster drives and were therefore shown in the timetables as separate lines. On April 15, 1912, the GBS introduced the first line with three-digit number. The 164 was created by extending the 64, which was maintained in parallel. In the following months more lines were provided with 100 numbers or newly set up, usually as a line pair to the existing line.
The surrounding businesses were not affected by the change in May 1902 and set on their own markings. The lines of the urban trams and the meterspurigen lines of the Teltower circular orbits were still marked with signal panels, on the other hand, the BESTAG and in Heiligensee, not the lines, but only the targets were marked with different colored signs. In 1908, the Spandauer Straßenbahn introduced the line identification with letters, which corresponded to the initial letter of the destination (line P to Pichelsdorf, etc.), in 1917 the company switched to numbers. In Cöpenick, the lines were marked from 1906 with numbers, from 1910 additionally with colored signal panels for the individual routes (red lines to Friedrichshagen, etc.). The Berlin Ostbahnen used from 1913 also like the SBV Roman numbers as line numbers. The other companies, including the standard-gauge lines of the Teltower Kreisbahnen, did not use a line marking.
With the merger of companies for the Berlin tram, the GBS's numbering scheme was extended to cover the rest of the network. Usually, those numbers are assigned, whose lines were continued during the World War I. For example, it came about that the lines operating in Köpenick received mainly 80s numbers. Letters were still awarded to the tram lines in the BVG until 1924, after which it was reserved for the suburban tariff buses.
With the outbreak of the Second World War, the Berlin public transport companies had to stop a large part of the bus traffic to save fuel. Tram traffic has been extended accordingly. The newly established amplifier lines contributed to the distinction of the master lines 200 and 300 numbers. From 1941, the night routes of the bus and the tram networks were later classified into the 400-series numbers. The measures were existed until the end of the war. The last 100 numbers were renumbered in May 31, 1949.
After the administrative separation of the BVG initially only changed the numbering scheme. Tram lines running from the east to the west of Berlin kept their number after the grid separation in 1953 and as a result of network thinning, individual lines were disappeared. The BVG-West waived from July 1966, the prefix A on the bus lines, the BVG-Ost waived in 1 January 1968. While in the west tram traffic was stopped 15 months later, the passenger in the east could not tell from the line number whether it was a tram or bus line. The Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe therefore planned to systematise their network in the 1970s. The city center lines of the tram should receive the line numbers 1 to 30, in Köpenick should retain their 80s numbers. The remaining numbers were intended for the bus. Night lines received from 1973 uniformly 100 numbers, for the tram were initially provided only the numbers from 120. The conversion of the daily lines was only partially completed.
After the reunification, in two steps, a uniform numbering scheme was introduced, which included the lines in the state of Brandenburg. The Berlin tram was assigned the line number range from 1 to 86, then followed by the overland operations in Woltersdorf, Schöneiche and Strausberg with the numbers 87 to 89. The Potsdam tram received the 90s line numbers. E-lines were no longer listed separately in the timetable, but the amplifiers continued to operate as such until 2004. Night lines were indicated on both means of transport by a preceding N and the three-digit line numbers were henceforth intended for the bus routes. The first conversion of 2 June 1991 followed the Berlin tram lines on 23 May 1993. The network was reorganized and divided into five number ranges. The main focus was on the focus on the historical center. Single lines formed the radial main network, 10 lines their supplementary network. 20er lines were intended for the ring and Tangentiallinien. There were 50 lines in the district of Pankow, 60 lines in the district of Köpenick analogous to the bus lines there.
BVG had instituted a new line structure, where the BVG has 22 lines since 2004. MetroTram also uses the symbol MetroTram.svg. On 12 December 2004, BVG had introduced the transport concept, BVG 2005+. The main content was the introduction of metro lines on busy routes where there are no S-Bahn or U-Bahn. In the tram network, therefore, nine tram lines under MetroTram were introduced, and the other lines have permanently rearranged. The numbering scheme is that it was similar to the 1993 scheme, but has undergone major adjustments.
Metro lines with a single digit number travel through the radial main network, as a rule, the line number corresponds to that of 1993, so the lines became 2, 3, and 4 into M4, the 5 into M5 and so on. In addition, the two Pankow lines, 52 and 53 were included as line M1 in the main scheme. The supplementary lines of the radials continue to carry 10 numbers, unless they have been merged into the amplifier of the metro line. Metro lines of the ring and tangential network received the numbers in the 10 range, whose supplementary lines retain the 20 range. An example is the retrofitted line, route 37, which together with the lines of M17 and 27 runs a common route. Of the 50 routes remained, the only one of the 50, the 60 lines were remained untouched by these measures.
FLEET
The Berlin tram has three different families of vehicles. In addition to Tatra high-floor vehicles there are low floor six-axle double articulated trams in unidirectional and bidirectional version (GT6N and GT6N-ZR), and since 2008, the new Flexity Berlin. The Tatra KT4 trams were phased out by 2017, and T6A2/B6A2 trams were phased out by 2007, those are Communism-era trams.
The number of trams has shrunk continuously. The BVB had 1,024 vehicles, while currently there are about 600. The reduction is possible because the new low-floor cars on average achieve more than twice the mileage per year (100,000 km), and, being longer, carry more passengers and therefore rarely operate in double header.
In July 2006, the cost of energy per vehicle-kilometer was:
tram €0.33
coupled set €0.45
bus €0.42
underground train €1.18
GT6N
Between 1992 and 2003 45 bidirectional T6N-ZRs and 105 unidirectional GT6Ns were purchased. The cars have a width of 2.30 m and a length of 26.80 m. They can carry 150 passengers and can run as coupled sets.
134 cars were in a risky transaction leased to a US investor and leased back. The SNB has accrued more than €157 million to hedge potential losses from cross-border business.
In the end of 2011 and beginning of 2012 the SNB began the carriage 1006 and 1016 a sample exercise. They were provided with a new drive technology and new software such as the Flexcitys. The only mutually detachable vehicles had to distinguish the new car numbers 1506 and the 1516.
FLEXITY BERLIN
In April 2005, a European tender was issued for low floor trams, half unidirectional, and half bidirectional vehicles. The latter will respond better to the BVG and construction faults and build on certain routes for cost savings. The Vienna tramway tram type ULF was tested in passenger service.
On 12 June 2006, the BVG decided to procure new trams. These are based on the tested Incentro, referred to by Bombardier as Flexity Berlin. In October 2008, for €13 million, four prototypes were ordered and since then extensively tested. There are one- and two-way cars, respectively 30.8 and 40 m in length, carrying about 180 or 240 passengers. Use in coupled sets is not possible.
On 29 June 2009, the Supervisory Board of the BVG decided to buy 99 Flexity cars, 40 of which will be long and 59 short versions, for €305.3 million. In September 2011 the first 13 long cars began to be delivered. To replace all old Tatra cars, a further 33 costing €92.3 million may need to be ordered in 2017. The trams will be manufactured at Bombardier's Bautzen works or Hennigsdorf.
In June 2012 the Supervisory Board approved the BVG 2nd Serial recall of an additional 39 trams of type "Flexity Berlin". Considering the order of over 99 vehicles from 2010, that means a total of 38 vehicles and 47 long bidirectional vehicles, as well as 53 short bidirectional vehicles will be ordered from the manufacturer, Bombardier Transportation. Thus, the SNB responds to both the very positive development of passenger numbers at the tram and allows bidirectional vehicles the eventual abandonment of turning loops and enhancing the design stops. Once this procurement is secured in 2017, then the old Tatra cars can be scrapped. The State of Berlin's funded budget is €439.1 million.
The new cars are equipped with 2.40 m wheel spacing, 10 cm wider than the existing low-floor trams. The track width was chosen so that modifications in the network are not necessary This affects only the routes, which will operate on the Flexity. Köpenick and parts of the Pankow network, the web is unable to drive.
In December 2015, BVG exercised an option for another 47 Flexity trams from Bombardier to handle increased ridership.
TRAM DEPOTS
Depots are required for storage and maintenance purposes. BVG has seven operational tram depots, five of which are used for storage of service trams:
Kniprodestraße, in Friedrichshain on the east side of the junction of Kniprodestraße and Conrad-Blenkle-Straße. This depot is used for track storage and rail-grinding machinery only. It is on bus route 200, and the access tracks connect to tram line M10.
Köpenick, on the west side of Wendenschloßstraße, south of the junction with Müggelheimer Straße. The depot entrance is on tram route 62.
Lichtenberg, on the east side of Siegfriedstraße, north of Lichtenberg U-Bahn station. The depot entrance is on tram routes 21 & 37 and bus routes 240 & 256.
Marzahn, on the south side of Landsberger Allee, east of Blumberger Damm. The depot has a tram stop on the M6 and 18 lines. Bus route 197 also passes the depot.
Nalepastraße, on the east side of Nalepastraße, in Oberschöneweide. It is not on any tram or bus route, but its access line connects with tram routes M17, 21, 37, 63 and 67 at the junction of Wilhelminenhofstraße and Edisonstraße.
Niederschönhausen, on the north-east corner of the junction of Deitzgenstraße and Schillerstraße. The line is on tram line M1. The depot is used for the storage of works machinery and historic, and preserved trams.
Weissensee, on the north side of Bernkasteler Straße near the junction of Berliner Allee and Rennbahnstraße. The depot entrance is not directly passed by any bus or tram route, but tram routes 12 & 27 and bus routes 156, 255 & 259 serve the adjacent Berliner Allee/Rennbahnstraße tram stop.
Out-of-service trams returning to Nalepastraße and Weissensee depot remain in-service until reaching the special tram stop at each depot.
GENERAL VIEW
The Berlin tram network is today the third largest in Germany
Around Berlin there are some additional tram systems that do not belong to the BVG:
the Verkehrsbetrieb Potsdam (operators of the Potsdam Tramway)
the Strausberg Railway (actually, a tram line located in the town of Strausberg)
the Woltersdorf Tramway (line 87, partly in Berlin)
the Schöneiche-Rüdersdorf Tramway (line 88, partly in Berlin)
The last three companies are located in the eastern suburbs at the eastern edge of Berlin. Each of them has only one line.
WIKIPEDIA
Fonte Avatar official FB Page:
A dark, twisted circus sideshow that’s built around bombastically grooving melodic death n’ roll is swinging forward with captivating glee, mesmerizing merriment and the plundering power of lethal pirates toward those brave souls who hand over a ticket to be torn by Avatar and their Black Waltz, the fourth album and first proper American release from the Swedish masters of mayhem.
Within Avatar’s diverse songs, a steady focus on the fluid and organic power of the riff (recalling the thunderous foresight of heavy metal’s original wizards, Black Sabbath) takes flight combined with an adventurous sprit veering off into the astral planes of the psychedelic atmosphere conjured by pioneers like Pink Floyd back in the day.
Avatar has found a footing that combines the best of rock n’ roll, hard rock and heavy metal’s past, present and future into an overall artistic presentation that is thought-provoking, challenging and altogether enchantingly electric. With the grandiose showmanship of American professional wrestling, the snake oil salesmanship of early 20th century vaudevillian troubadours and the kinetically superheroic power of early Kiss, Avatar lays waste to lesser mortals with ease. Whether somebody gets their rocks off listening to Satyricon or System of a Down, they’ll find something suitably deranged here.
“We’re in this weird field, caught in a triangle between extreme metal, rock n’ roll and what can be described as Avant-garde,” confesses Avatar vocalist Johannes Eckerström. The all-enveloping theme park vibe of the band’s music and visual counterpart means that, naturally, “it’s turning into something bigger.”
“I have been in this band for ten years. I grew up in this band,” Eckerström explains. “We’re somewhat veterans on the one hand. But we’re the new kids in the neighborhood in America at the same time.”
Avatar came of age as “little brothers” of sorts of the famed Gothenburg scene that spawned the celebrated New Wave Of Swedish Death Metal. The band’s debut album, 2006’s Thoughts of No Tomorrow, was filled with brutal, technical melodic death metal to be sure but already, “We tried to put our own stamp on it,” the singer assures. While the following year’s Schlacht still contained flourishes of melody, the unrelenting metallic fury reached an extreme peak. “Intensity was very important,” he says, with some degree of understatement.
Where to go for album number three? “We basically rebelled against ourselves,” Eckerström says of 2009’s self-titled collection. “We figured, ‘We can play faster and make even weirder, more technical riffs,’ because Schlacht was cool. But to take that another step would have turned us into something we didn’t want to be.”
Instead Avatar rediscovered their inherent passion for traditional heavy metal and classic rock n’ roll. “We decided to remove some unnecessary ‘look at me, I can play!’ parts and added more groove. We added a whole new kind of melody. It was awesome to be this ‘rock n’ roll band’ for a while. It was refreshing and liberating.”
Black Waltz sees Avatar coming completely full circle, returning to a more aggressive form of heavy metal but incorporating the lessons they learned while jamming on big riffs with album number three. “We finally came to understand what a good groove is all about and what a great fit it was for our sound,” notes Eckerström.
Tracks like the appropriately titled “Ready for the Ride,” the rollicking “Let it Burn” (which dips into some delicious stonerifficness), the anthemic “Smells Like a Freakshow” (a modern day twist of Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie) and “Torn Apart” are supercharged with a dynamic range of artistic showmanship on a near cinematic scale and it’s all stitched together by a driving bottom end.
While most European metal acts who dare attempt this level of musicianship, showmanship and attention to detail seem content to toil away in the studio and lock themselves away from the crowds, Avatar have excelled beyond their peers thanks in large part to their continued focus on road work. Careening to and fro on tour busses and airplanes around the world like a marauding troupe of circus performers, Eckerström and his mates (guitarists Jonas Jarlsby and Tim Öhrström, bassist Henrik Sandelin and drummer John Alfredsson) have forged the type of musical bond that can only be brought forth from massive amounts of time spent together on the stage, in hotel rooms, in airports and partying at the venue’s bar.
Whether on tour with bands like In Flames, Dark Tranquility or Helloween, playing gigantic festivals like Storsjöyra and Sweden Rock Festival or demolishing South by Southwest, playing live is what it all comes down to for this band. “That is the final manifestation of our art,” Eckerström insists. “Of course an album is a piece of art in itself, but mainly it's a means to reach the higher goal, which is doing these awesome shows. Touring is of the greatest importance.”
“We all just love the pirate’s life,” he admits freely. “Sailing into the city on this tour bus thingy, going to kick some ass, have that party and all the while meeting all of these people, entertaining them, encountering a culture that's not your own. We love that.”
The want for this type of lifestyle goes back to early childhood fascinations for the good-humored singer. Reading about superheroes, watching Hulk Hogan on TV, getting exposed to Kiss – these were the first ingredients for what Eckerström would go on to create with the guys in Avatar and what has culminated now in Black Waltz.
The frontman promises that Avatar will continue to create, to captivate and to experiment. There’s no definitive endpoint in sight. It’s always about the horizon, the journey itself. “As long as you're hungry as an artist, there are higher and higher artistic achievements. I love AC/DC and Motorhead and what they’ve established is amazing, but we don’t want to write albums that are kind of like the album before. We want to travel to a new galaxy, so to speak, every time.”
The goal is always to conquer what came before. “That is what stays with you as a mentally healthy musician. Or maybe a mentally deranged one, I’m not sure,” the singer laughs. And part and parcel to that continued evolution will be the ever broadening expansion of the scope of Avatar’s worldwide presentation: Black Waltz and beyond.
“We have great visions of what we want to do and the things we want to give to people on a stage,” Eckerström promises. “These ideas, these visions, they require a huge audience. They require a lot of legroom to be done, so I want to get into those arenas, basically. I know we would do something really magical if we got the chance. This idea is one of those things that really, really keeps us going.”
I am reading a pre-print of "Evolving Ourselves" and his TechonomyBio 2015 talk describes how unnatural selection and non-random selection are dominating the evolution of our biome and our species. More below.
It reminds me of the class I co-taught at Stanford with Larry Lessig in 2004 on genetics, evolved artifacts, and the regulatory ecosystem. I wrote at the time:
We went in with the presumption that society will likely try to curtail “genetic free speech” as it applies to human germ line engineering (changing the DNA of egg or sperm), and thereby curtail the evolution of evolvability. Lessig predicts that we will recapitulate the 200-year debate about the First Amendment to the Constitution. Pressures to curtail free genetic expression will focus on the dangers of “bad speech”, and others will argue that good genetic expression will crowd out the bad. Artificial chromosomes (whereby children can decide whether to accept genetic enhancements when they become adults) can decouple the debate about parental control and agency. And, with a touch of irony, China may lead the charge.
Many of us subconsciously cling to the selfish notion that humanity is the endpoint of evolution. In the debates about machine intelligence and genetic enhancements, there is a common and deeply rooted fear about being surpassed – in our lifetime. But, when framed as a question of parenthood (would you want your great grandchild to be smarter and healthier than you?), the emotion often shifts from a selfish sense of supremacy to a universal human search for symbolic immortality.
P.S. The video also came out for our opening panel; it starts at minute 4:27 of "You Say You Want a Revolution" with (Drew Endy of Stanford, David Glazer of Google, me, and Chris Waller of Merck). And here's a summary article that runs with my parenting metaphor.
Interesting walkway near the Metra station in Fox Lake, endpoint on the Milwaukee District-North line, far Northwest of Chicago. (Late with holiday posts but I wasn't able to post in December!)
A USB extender system. It includes one local (computer) and one remote (accessory) endpoint module (which I relabeled Dest.[destination] and Source, respectively, for my reference even though USB is technically a bidirectional connection), plus a power supply, not shown here, which can be plugged in at either end. All the system needs is an Ethernet cable between the the two boxes; your USB devices can be situated up to 328 feet (100m) from the computer, a considerable distance.
The logo on the front of the module references the full plug-and-play nature of the system, not including the effort to run a long network cable and, when necessary, the skill and resources to install modular connectors at both cable ends.
Fonte Avatar official FB Page:
A dark, twisted circus sideshow that’s built around bombastically grooving melodic death n’ roll is swinging forward with captivating glee, mesmerizing merriment and the plundering power of lethal pirates toward those brave souls who hand over a ticket to be torn by Avatar and their Black Waltz, the fourth album and first proper American release from the Swedish masters of mayhem.
Within Avatar’s diverse songs, a steady focus on the fluid and organic power of the riff (recalling the thunderous foresight of heavy metal’s original wizards, Black Sabbath) takes flight combined with an adventurous sprit veering off into the astral planes of the psychedelic atmosphere conjured by pioneers like Pink Floyd back in the day.
Avatar has found a footing that combines the best of rock n’ roll, hard rock and heavy metal’s past, present and future into an overall artistic presentation that is thought-provoking, challenging and altogether enchantingly electric. With the grandiose showmanship of American professional wrestling, the snake oil salesmanship of early 20th century vaudevillian troubadours and the kinetically superheroic power of early Kiss, Avatar lays waste to lesser mortals with ease. Whether somebody gets their rocks off listening to Satyricon or System of a Down, they’ll find something suitably deranged here.
“We’re in this weird field, caught in a triangle between extreme metal, rock n’ roll and what can be described as Avant-garde,” confesses Avatar vocalist Johannes Eckerström. The all-enveloping theme park vibe of the band’s music and visual counterpart means that, naturally, “it’s turning into something bigger.”
“I have been in this band for ten years. I grew up in this band,” Eckerström explains. “We’re somewhat veterans on the one hand. But we’re the new kids in the neighborhood in America at the same time.”
Avatar came of age as “little brothers” of sorts of the famed Gothenburg scene that spawned the celebrated New Wave Of Swedish Death Metal. The band’s debut album, 2006’s Thoughts of No Tomorrow, was filled with brutal, technical melodic death metal to be sure but already, “We tried to put our own stamp on it,” the singer assures. While the following year’s Schlacht still contained flourishes of melody, the unrelenting metallic fury reached an extreme peak. “Intensity was very important,” he says, with some degree of understatement.
Where to go for album number three? “We basically rebelled against ourselves,” Eckerström says of 2009’s self-titled collection. “We figured, ‘We can play faster and make even weirder, more technical riffs,’ because Schlacht was cool. But to take that another step would have turned us into something we didn’t want to be.”
Instead Avatar rediscovered their inherent passion for traditional heavy metal and classic rock n’ roll. “We decided to remove some unnecessary ‘look at me, I can play!’ parts and added more groove. We added a whole new kind of melody. It was awesome to be this ‘rock n’ roll band’ for a while. It was refreshing and liberating.”
Black Waltz sees Avatar coming completely full circle, returning to a more aggressive form of heavy metal but incorporating the lessons they learned while jamming on big riffs with album number three. “We finally came to understand what a good groove is all about and what a great fit it was for our sound,” notes Eckerström.
Tracks like the appropriately titled “Ready for the Ride,” the rollicking “Let it Burn” (which dips into some delicious stonerifficness), the anthemic “Smells Like a Freakshow” (a modern day twist of Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie) and “Torn Apart” are supercharged with a dynamic range of artistic showmanship on a near cinematic scale and it’s all stitched together by a driving bottom end.
While most European metal acts who dare attempt this level of musicianship, showmanship and attention to detail seem content to toil away in the studio and lock themselves away from the crowds, Avatar have excelled beyond their peers thanks in large part to their continued focus on road work. Careening to and fro on tour busses and airplanes around the world like a marauding troupe of circus performers, Eckerström and his mates (guitarists Jonas Jarlsby and Tim Öhrström, bassist Henrik Sandelin and drummer John Alfredsson) have forged the type of musical bond that can only be brought forth from massive amounts of time spent together on the stage, in hotel rooms, in airports and partying at the venue’s bar.
Whether on tour with bands like In Flames, Dark Tranquility or Helloween, playing gigantic festivals like Storsjöyra and Sweden Rock Festival or demolishing South by Southwest, playing live is what it all comes down to for this band. “That is the final manifestation of our art,” Eckerström insists. “Of course an album is a piece of art in itself, but mainly it's a means to reach the higher goal, which is doing these awesome shows. Touring is of the greatest importance.”
“We all just love the pirate’s life,” he admits freely. “Sailing into the city on this tour bus thingy, going to kick some ass, have that party and all the while meeting all of these people, entertaining them, encountering a culture that's not your own. We love that.”
The want for this type of lifestyle goes back to early childhood fascinations for the good-humored singer. Reading about superheroes, watching Hulk Hogan on TV, getting exposed to Kiss – these were the first ingredients for what Eckerström would go on to create with the guys in Avatar and what has culminated now in Black Waltz.
The frontman promises that Avatar will continue to create, to captivate and to experiment. There’s no definitive endpoint in sight. It’s always about the horizon, the journey itself. “As long as you're hungry as an artist, there are higher and higher artistic achievements. I love AC/DC and Motorhead and what they’ve established is amazing, but we don’t want to write albums that are kind of like the album before. We want to travel to a new galaxy, so to speak, every time.”
The goal is always to conquer what came before. “That is what stays with you as a mentally healthy musician. Or maybe a mentally deranged one, I’m not sure,” the singer laughs. And part and parcel to that continued evolution will be the ever broadening expansion of the scope of Avatar’s worldwide presentation: Black Waltz and beyond.
“We have great visions of what we want to do and the things we want to give to people on a stage,” Eckerström promises. “These ideas, these visions, they require a huge audience. They require a lot of legroom to be done, so I want to get into those arenas, basically. I know we would do something really magical if we got the chance. This idea is one of those things that really, really keeps us going.”
I'm cheating - I've uploaded this photograph before.
I'm sorry, but I felt a sudden need to regale the internet with my current mental state and I needed an image-shaped excuse.
I've reached a finishing line. An endpoint, and a big four-years-in-the-making deadline. Everything has been handed in, it's even been hung & exhibited & it's had a glorious opening night. But I think the genuine heartfelt happiness is only kicking in now. The opening night passed oddly. It simply unfolded and I just felt numb. Behind my ears were the words "OHMYGODTHISISYOURGRADSHOWOPENING", booming but calm. The evening went well, we had hundreds of people, beautiful evening sun, glitchfree installations and the correct abundance of smiles.
But it didnt quite feel real, and it certainly didnt feel joyous from the inside out. There were still nerves, and processing, and thoughts flying around about every aspect of the show.
Not this week though, and not today. I'm exhaling with real, effortless comfort, I'm ticking off ideas&errands&emails casually and Im sipping some cold white wine & 7up. *that* part is finished, and I'm happy.
Left: Stecknitz-Prahm
Right: Ilmenau Ewer
Those barges were used to ship salt to Lübeck via Stecknitz Canal
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OLD CRANE
The Old Crane is a historic harbour crane at the former Ilmenau-Harbour in Lüneburg. The 1797 built crane was at that time the most powerful crane in the northern part of Germany and is still one of the main-sights in Lüneburg.
A crane at this part of Lüneburg harbour is officially mentioned in the history of Lüneburg in the year 1330. At that time Lüneburg was already important, because of its saline. So the main use of this crane was to load the ships with salt from the salines. The ships had to ship the salt mainly to the Hanseatic Town of Lübeck, where the salt was stored in the historic - and still existing - Salt Warehouses (Lübecker Salzspeicher).
And also the huge amount of fire wood was landed from ships with this crane. This fire wood was necessary to boil out the salt from the brine.
TECHNIC
This crane is a typical medieval treadwheel crane. It is powered by a man-powered double-treadwheel with a diameter of the lower wheel of 5 meter.
Over the centuries that Lüneburg crane was reconstructed many times. In winter 1795 a flooding with ice caused many damage in Lüneburg. In summer 1797 the crane was repaired by carpenter G. P. Hintze. The present crane is untouched since 1797.
In August 1840 the crane raised his haviest load: a steam locomotive built by Englands George Forrester & Company and transported by sea to Germany. The estimated weight of that locomotive was 9,3 tons. To rotate the treadwheel of the crane they needed 38 men. To ensure the crane has enough power they tested it with the 10 tons of 80 railway rails.
In 1838 the crane already managed to raise a steam locomotive with 14.000 pounds.
With the building of the railroad track Hamburg-Hannover Lüneburg was attached to railroad in 1847. In short time the transport moved from the waterways to rail. So Lüneburg harbour and the crane lost its importance and in 1860 the crane had to stop the business - even it was still intact!
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HISTORY OF TREADWHEELS
A treadwheel, or treadmill, is a form of engine typically powered by humans. It may resemble a water wheel in appearance, and can be worked either by a human treading paddles set into its circumference (treadmill), or by a human or animal standing inside it (treadwheel). These devices are no longer used for power or punishment, and the term "treadmill" has come to mean an exercise machine for running or walking in place.
Uses of treadwheels included raising water, to power cranes, or grind grain. They were used extensively in the Greek and Roman world, such as in the reverse overshot water-wheel used for dewatering purposes. They were widely used in the Middle ages to lift the stones in the soaring Gothic cathedrals. There is a literary reference to one in 1225, and one treadwheel crane survives at Chesterfield, Derbyshire and is housed in the Museum. It has been dated to the early 14th century and was housed in the top of the church tower until its removal in 1947. They were used extensively in the Renaissance famously by Brunelleschi during the construction of Florence cathedral.Penal treadmills were used in prisons during the early-Victorian period in the UK as a form of punishment. According to The Times in 1827, and reprinted in William Hone's Table-Book in 1838, the amount prisoners walked per day on average varied, from the equivalent of 6,600 vertical feet at Lewes to as much as 17,000 vertical feet in ten hours during the summertime at Warwick gaol. In 1902, the British government banned the use of the treadwheel as a form of punishment.
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STECKNITZ CANAL
The Stecknitz Canal (German: Stecknitzfahrt) was an artificial waterway in northern Germany which connected Lauenburg and Lübeck on the Old Salt Route by linking the tiny rivers Stecknitz (a tributary of the Trave) and Delvenau (a tributary of the Elbe), thus establishing an inland water route across the drainage divide from the North Sea to the Baltic Sea. Built between 1391 and 1398, the Stecknitz Canal was the first European summit-level canal and one of the earliest artificial waterways in Europe. In the 1890s the canal was replaced by an enlarged and straightened waterway called the Elbe–Lübeck Canal, which includes some of the Stecknitz Canal's watercourse.
The original artificial canal was 0.85 metres deep and 7.5 metres wide; the man-made segment ran for 11.5 kilometres, with a total length of 97 kilometres including the rivers it linked. The canal included seventeen wooden locks (of which the Palmschleuse at Lauenburg still exists) that managed the 13-metre elevation difference between its endpoints and the highest central part, the Delvenaugraben.
HISTORY
In the Middle Ages the trade between the North Sea and Baltic Sea grew dramatically, but the sea journey through Øresund, increasingly important to commercial shipping since the thirteenth century, was time-consuming and dangerous. Therefore, the emerging Hanseatic city of Lübeck and Eric IV of Saxe-Lauenburg agreed in 1390 to cooperate in the construction of an artificial canal between the Elbe and the Baltic Sea. Construction on the canal began in 1391; thirty barges carrying the first load of salt from Lüneburg reached Lübeck on 22 July 1398.
The Stecknitz Canal soon replaced the existing overland cart road as the main transport mode for Lüneburg salt on the Old Salt Route. In Lübeck the salt was stored in vast salt warehouses and then transferred to ocean-going vessels for export throughout the Baltic region. In the reverse direction the Stecknitz barges transported cereals, furs, herring, ash, timber and other goods from Lübeck, which were reloaded in Lauenburg and transported down the Elbe to Hamburg. Later coal, peat, brick, limestone and gravel were added to the cargo. The importance of the canal was greatest in years in which Øresund was closed to merchant ships because of disputes over the Sound Dues and foreign shipping.
In the fifteenth century traffic peaked, with more than 3,000 shipments of more than 30,000 tons of salt moving on the canal each year. This number declined by the seventeenth century to 400 to 600 shipments (5,000 to 7,000 tons). In 1789 there were still sixty-four shipments carrying approximately 680 tons of salt. Plans for a new Baltic–North Sea canal were proposed as early as the seventeenth century, but none was implemented until the end of the nineteenth century, when the new Elbe–Lübeck Canal was built using parts of the old route of the Stecknitz Canal. For five hundred years the canal was used to transport the "white gold" and other goods; today the Palmschleuse lock in Lauenburg is one of the last remaining parts of the former canal, preserved as an historical monument.
TECHNOLOGY
The Stecknitz Canal consisted of an 11.5-kilometre artificial waterway (the Delvenaugraben) linking two minor rivers, the north-flowing Stecknitz and south-flowing Delvenau. The man-made trench itself was about 85 centimetres deep and 7.5 metres wide, though it was enlarged between 1821 and 1823 to a depth of 144 centimetres and a width of 12 metres. Outside the artificial segment the canal followed the tortuous natural watercourses of the two rivers; as a result, the full journey from Lauenburg to Lübeck stretched to a distance of 97 kilometres, even though the straight-line separation between the two cities is only 55 kilometres. The journey along the canal often lasted two weeks or longer due to the number and primitive design of the locks and the difficulty of towing.
The canal's course originally included thirteen locks, which later renovations increased to seventeen. Initially most were one-gate flash locks built into weirs (usually set below the mouth of a tributary creek), where water was dammed until a barge was ready to pass downriver. In Lauenburg the initial course included one chamber lock (the Palmschleuse) because of a watermill whose operation would have been made impossible by a flash lock. Over the course of the canal's lifetime further flash locks were progressively converted to chamber locks until the 17th century.
The canal overcame the drainage divide between the North and Baltic Seas, with a summit height of 17 metres above sea level. In order to supply the top portion of the canal with water, flow was diverted from Hornbeker Mühlenbach. To the north the canal descended to the Ziegelsee by the town of Mölln and then connected to the Stecknitz by a series of eight locks. The southern end of the artificial canal descended to the Delvenau through a staircase of nine locks.
BARGES AND DRIVERS
The original salt barges measured roughly 12 metres by 2.5 metres, with a 40-centimetre draft when loaded to capacity with around 7.5 tons of salt, and required at least ten days to make the journey one way. When traveling uphill or through chamber locks the barges had to be hauled by laborers or animals walking the towpath on the banks of the channel. By the nineteenth century newer vessel designs included rigging that eliminated the need for towing (with sufficient wind).
In Lauenburg and Lübeck the barges were unloaded and their contents transferred to ships for export down the Elbe and Trave. Stecknitz barge drivers were only permitted to own one barge each, so they could not acquire great wealth in the trade; in the long run this ensured their dependence upon the Lübeck salt merchants, who were not bound by any such limitations and amassed great fortunes. The guild of the Stecknitzfahrer (Stecknitz barge drivers) still exists today in Lübeck and meets annually at the Kringelhöge to celebrate the guild's history.
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Der Alte Kran (Schreibweise früher auch Krahn) ist ein historischer Hafenkran am ehemaligen Ilmenau-Hafen in Lüneburg. Der 1797 erbaute Kran, der damals zu den leistungsfähigsten in ganz Norddeutschland gehörte, prägt bis heute das Bild des Wasserviertels und gilt als eines der Wahrzeichen der Stadt.
TECHNIK
Der Kran ist aus tragendem Holzfachwerk gebaut, welches als Wetterschutz mit einer Bretterverkleidung versehen wurde; die Dachflächen sind mit Kupferplatten gedeckt. Der Unterteil mit kreisförmigem Grundriss (Durchmesser: acht Meter) ist feststehend. Der Oberteil mit dem Kranausleger ist drehbar gelagert (ähnlich einer Holländerwindmühle). Vier Sandsteinblöcke von je etwa 200 kg dienen als Gegengewicht zur Last. Die Kettenwinde im Oberteil wird angetrieben über eine 9 m hohe Königswelle, diese wiederum durch ein doppeltes Tretrad mit 5 m Durchmesser im Unterteil.
In Stade wurde 1977 ein Nachbau am Hansehafen errichtet, der heute als Informationszentrum für Stader Stadtgeschichte dient; ein zweiter, funktionstüchtiger Nachbau befindet sich im Hebezeug-Museum in Witten in Nordrhein-Westfalen.
GESCHICHTE
Ein Kran am Standort des heutigen Kranes am Lüneburger Hafen wird erstmals 1330 urkundlich erwähnt. Er diente neben dem Heben anderer Waren vor allem dem Betrieb der Lüneburger Saline, nämlich einerseits zum Verschiffen des dort produzierten Salzes (insbesondere über den Stecknitzkanal nach Lübeck, aber auch in andere Städte) und andererseits zum Anlanden des Brennholzes, welches für den Betrieb der Sudhäuser benötigt wurde. Der Kran teile sich die Arbeit mit den kleineren Winden des benachbarten Lagerhauses (damals Heringshaus, heute Altes Kaufhaus genannt). In einer Verordnung des Lüneburger Stadtrates war festgelegt, welche Waren von welchem Kran zu heben waren und welche Gebühren („Krangeld“) dafür zu entrichten waren.
Der ursprüngliche Kran wurde über die Jahrhunderte immer wieder um- und ausgebaut. In seiner heutigen Form besteht der Kran fast unverändert seit 1797. Im Winter 1795 wurden viele Bauwerke im Hafen durch ein Hochwasser mit Eisgang stark beschädigt, darunter auch der Kran und die benachbarte Brücke. Der Kran wurde im Sommer 1797 vom Zimmermann G. P. Hintze unter der Leitung des Landbauverwalters Kruse in neuer Form wieder aufgebaut.
Am 13. August 1840 hob der Kran seine schwerste Last an Land: eine Dampflokomotive für die Herzoglich Braunschweigische Staatseisenbahn, die in England von George Forrester & Company gebaut und auf dem Wasserweg nach Deutschland transportiert worden war. Das Gewicht der Lok wurde auf bis zu 60 Schiffspfund (ca. 9,3 Tonnen) geschätzt. Zum Drehen des Tretrades wurde dabei die Kraft von 38 Menschen benötigt. Als Belastungstest wurde vorher ein Paket mit 80 Eisenbahnschienen mit etwa 20.000 Pfund Gewicht angehoben. Zwei Jahre zuvor hatte der Kran bereits eine leichtere Lok mit etwa 14.000 Pfund gehoben.
Mit dem Bau der Eisenbahnlinie Hamburg-Hannover, die 1847 Lüneburg erreichte, verlagerte sich der Warentransport von und nach Lüneburg binnen kurzer Zeit vom Binnenwasserweg auf die Schiene. In der Folge verlor der Hafen und somit auch der Kran rapide an Bedeutung. Im Jahre 1860 stellte der Kran aus wirtschaftlichen Gründen seinen Betrieb ein (obwohl er technisch weiterhin intakt war).
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GESCHICHTE DER TRETMÜHLE
Eine Tretmühle (auch Tretrad oder Laufrad) ist ein seit dem Römischen Reich bis in die Moderne benutzter Antrieb für Mühlen und insbesondere für Hebe-Vorrichtungen (Krane). Sie arbeitet nach dem Prinzip des Wellrads und nutzt die Körperkraft von Menschen oder Tieren.
Heute wird das Wort Tretmühle im übertragenen Sinne für eine monotone Tätigkeit oder Tagesablauf benutzt.
KONSTRUKTION UND BETRIEB
Kernstück einer Tretmühle sind ein oder mehrere (meist zwei), übermannshohe hölzerne Treträder („Fabricae pedales“, Fußwerke, Laufräder, Durchmesser von 3 m bis 5 m) mit meist acht Holz-Speichen auf jeder Seite. Die Räder waren auf einer schweren, horizontalen Holzwelle angebracht, die bei mittelalterlichen Tretkränen mit Drehdach in einer quadratischen Holzkonstruktion als Rad-„Träger“ oder auf freistehenden Radlagern ruhte (bei römischen Kränen und als festmontierte Hebevorrichtung). Bei Mühlen (Kornmühlen, Pumpmühlen etc.) war die horizontale Antriebsachse mit dem Mahlwerk oder Pumpwerk verbunden, bei den Hebevorrichtungen saß eine Tretvorrichtung auf der Achse, entweder in deren Verlängerung oder auch zwischen den Treträdern. Im einfachsten Fall war die Tretvorrichtung ein Abschnitt auf der Achse mit Begrenzungsringen. Die Tretvorrichtung nahm Seil oder Kette auf. In den Treträdern, deren Innenfläche (Lauffläche) mit rutschmindernden Trittleisten versehen war, liefen die Radläufer, Tret- oder Windenknechte (auch Windenfahrer genannt, bei Kranen auch Kranenknechte) und setzten damit den Mechanismus in die gewünschte Richtung in Gang. Es gab auch Ausführungen ähnlich einem Wasserrad, bei dem die Menschen außen auf schaufelartigen Trittbrettern liefen. Auf mittelalterlichen Baustellen galten die Windenknechte (bis ins 18. Jahrhundert waren Tretradantriebe stark verbreitet) als hoch- bis höchstbezahlte Arbeitskräfte. Die Tätigkeit war mühsam, extrem anstrengend und in Hebevorrichtungen auch gefährlich. Das Halten der Lasten war schwierig, weil die Laufräder nicht gesichert werden konnten, um die Last während des Drehvorganges auf Höhe zu halten. Auch das Ablassen der Lasten barg Gefahr, weil sich die Last durch ihre Eigenmasse selbständig machen und die Männer in den Treträdern ins „Rotieren“ und „Schleudern“ (Redewendung) bringen konnte: es gab zum Teil schwere und tödliche Unfälle. Zum Heben einer Last auf eine Höhe von 4 m mussten die Windenknechte in den Laufrädern etwa 56 m an Laufstrecke zurücklegen (vom Achs- und Raddurchmesser abhängig: bei 4 m Raddurchmesser und 0,4 m Achsdurchmesser entspricht eine Radumdrehung 12,56 m Laufstrecke und 1,26 m Wickellänge (= Hubhöhe), das sind 50,24 m Laufstrecke und 5 m Hub). Das bedeutete für einen kompletten Hebe- und Senkvorgang eine Gesamtstrecke von etwa 132 bis 140 m. Bei solcher Tätigkeit musste jeder sich auf den anderen verlassen können. Viel Erfahrung und Kondition war vonnöten, um die harte Tätigkeit im Akkord (berechnet nach gelöschter Ladung gemäß einer Gebührenliste durch den Kranmeister) gewinnbringend zu schaffen. Zwischen 15 und mehr als 20 Mann arbeiteten in und an einem mittelalterlichen Ladekran. Sie waren zum Teil in der „Aufläder-Zunft“ organisiert, dem ursprünglichen Wort für die Ladetätigkeit am Kran.
EINSATZBEREICHE
In der Schifffahrt kamen beim Betrieb der seit dem Mittelalter verbreiteten Hafenkräne zwecks Zeitgewinn gewöhnlich Doppeltreträder zum Einsatz, die an beiden Seiten eines drehbaren Turms befestigt waren. Diese Turm-Tretkräne waren entweder aus Holz oder Stein gebaut und konnten beim Verladen eine Last von bis 2,5 Tonnen bewältigen. Es wird geschätzt, dass circa 80 Tretkräne an 32 Kranstandorten am Rhein mit Nebenflüssen im Einsatz waren, im gesamten deutschsprachigem Raum sogar ca. doppelt so viele.
Verbreitet war der Einsatz der Treträder auch beim Betrieb von Mühlen und beim Bau großer Gebäude, insbesondere der mittelalterlichen Kathedralen, wo Tretradkräne als Einzel- oder Doppelräder in die Dachkonstruktion integriert waren. Im Freiburger Münster, Gmünder Münster, Straßburger Münster, in St. Marien und St.Nikolai Stralsund sowie in der Abtei des Mont-Saint-Michel sind diese beispielsweise noch vorhanden. Bis 1868 befand sich auf dem bis dahin unvollendeten Südturm des Kölner Doms ein durch Treträder angetriebener Baukran aus dem 15. Jahrhundert.
Noch Anfang des 19. Jahrhunderts mussten in den britischen Kolonien Sträflinge in den Tretmühlen arbeiten. Zwei solcher Mühlen, zynisch als „dancing academies“ bezeichnet, wurden ab 1823 in Sydney zum Antrieb von Getreidemühlen eingesetzt. Da diese Mühlen großen Profit abwarfen, wurden sechs weitere in Betrieb genommen. Die Arbeitszeit betrug bis zu zwölf Stunden täglich, die Leistung wurde mit der Dampfmaschine in Relation gesetzt und mit 70 Watt pro Arbeiter angegeben. Aus dem Jahr 1850 wird berichtet, dass 28 Sträflinge die Arbeit in der Tretmühle verweigerten und den Tod durch Erhängen vorzogen. Auch Frauen mussten in den Tretmühlen arbeiten, auf Schwangerschaft wurde keine Rücksicht genommen.
WIKIPEDIA
The interfaces that lead us into cyberspace prove that one cannot detach technology from desire. Digital technologies promise to transcend familiar reality and to connect us to the paradise that reality has taken from us. Down with the detours and delays of reality: let us have instant gratification! What we cannot have in reality, we can have via the fantasy screen. As a “consensual hallucination” cyberspace would be the utopic, new ideal world.
Interface Fantasy: A Lananian Cyborg Ontology – Andre Nusselder
In the virtual world of Second Life, where status is often accrued by having the best collection of sexually appealing avatars, desire and its ultimate physical endpoint, sex (or in this case cybersex), prevails. Cybersex is “more than role play it is the creation of a shared fantasy.” Avatars are hollow – avatars are pure, avatars are clean, avatars have no orifices. They do not leak, shit, sweat, rot – there is no inconvenience to their bodies. And if an avatar has no orifices then sex in Second Life is safer than in real life – the user is “freed from the burden of the body.” Many criticisms have been levelled at Second Life for its high number of sex, porn and exotic dance Sims. Contemporary art critic and curator Domenico Quaranta said of in world existence, “life revolves around the banal repetition of real-life rituals (having sex, going dancing, and attending parties, openings and conferences) and the same principles: private property, wealth and consumption.” As the promotional video for dedicated cybersex virtual world “The Red Light Center” attests, “Be who you want to be…without the hassle”. Cybersex or ‘getting off online’, in Second Life is a form of immersive role play – a mixed reality happening in that it more often than not, one could imagine, elicits physical action in its users offline.
Whilst filming the “sex-scene” for this work my mind flickered between the ridiculousness of two digital bodies’ glitching against each other and the surreal feeling that behind that bunch of pixels a real person is operating and text chatting or, somewhat disturbingly, perhaps even masturbating. In the end I created two avatars – one my own and one an idealised male – and operated them both simultaneously using two computers to create the desired film output for projection. It was quite fitting as in the end, playing dolls, are we not just virtually fucking ourselves anyway? Can we really create intimacy in these new manufactured spaces?
about 50 Hong Kong Protestors gathered in the Victoria Park before the rally , each wearing a different head mask representing a different message of the Hong Kong Protest movement.
raising of the hands with 5 fingers representing "5 demands not one less"
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‘Resist tyranny, join a union’: Huge turnout as Hongkongers hit the streets for New Year’s Day protest
Thousands of Hongkongers took to the streets on Wednesday for the first police-approved mass protest of the new year.
The huge turnout built on a continuing a pro-democracy movement that has reached each corner of the city over the past seven months.
The march received a letter of no objection from the police, and began at around 2:40pm in Victoria Park in Causeway Bay.
The front of the march reached the endpoint at the Chater Road Pedestrian Precinct in Central just after 4pm.
In addition to the five core demands of the movement, protesters on Wednesday also called for increased union participation, supporting the victims of political reprisals, and halting a proposed pay rise for the police.
Protesters chanted slogans such as “Five demands, not one less,” as well as new additions such as “Resist tyranny, join a union.”
Those at the head of the march included some newly-elected pro-democracy district councillors – whose term in office began on January 1.
A group outside Victoria Park were rallying Hongkongers to register to vote: “We want to use our vote to tell the Hong Kong government what we want… We want the people to come out again and win at the Legislative Council election [in September],” Ms Oliver told HKFP, following the pro-democracy camp’s victory at last year District Council elections.
Though the extradition bill – which sparked the movement – was axed, demonstrators are still demanding an independent probe into police behaviour, amnesty for those arrested, universal suffrage and a halt to the characterisation of protests as “riots.”
In a statement, march organisers the Civil Human Rights Front (CHRF) called on the public to be “more united, persistent, and caring of one another” in the coming year.
“In 2020, the police have already fired the first round of tear gas,” the group wrote shortly after midnight. “Carrie Lam and police brutality turned a festive season into anguish, and perhaps we should say ‘Five demands, not one less’ instead of happy new year.”
In a statement later on Wednesday, the Front said the police had taken no responsibility for any misconduct: “They dehumanise protestors as cockroaches, demean journalists as “black reporters” and arrest medical doctors and nurses as rioters. Now, the government even attempts to increase the salaries of these rioting police.”
“We must persist this fight, for the arrested, injured and departed brothers and sisters in this movement. When victory comes, we shall gather at the dawn,” they added.
During the march, Ms Ho of the Construction Site Workers General Union said they had over 10,000 signed-up members and around 100 active members: “It is a union that already exists, but now we are recruiting more workers with the same political stance,” she said.
“We aim for three targets. The first one, we want to defend our own worker’s rights… We want to get the right to vote in the coming legislative election [as a functional constituency]… The third aim – we are trying to use construction workers’ role in this movement – for example, volunteer teams for people in need – trying to prepare for the general strike.”.....
www.hongkongfp.com/2020/01/01/resist-tyranny-join-union-h...
民陣今日（1日）舉行「毋忘承諾，並肩同行」 元旦大遊行。在預定起步時間2時，銅鑼灣東角道已聚集大量等待插隊的民眾，亦有不少市民支持黃色經濟圈，黃店「渣哥」有逾百人排隊光顧。