Danish State Railroad Proposes Version of Schiller Institute's `Kattegat Connection'

PRESS RELEASE

Danish State Railroad Proposes Version of Schiller Institute's `Kattegat Connection'

Aug. 30, 2007 (EIRNS)-—The Danish State Railroad (DSB) announced a new high-speed rail proposal, with a new Kattegat connection as the central feature, at a transportation conference in Aalborg. The proposal (see graphic) entails a ring consisting of a (non-maglev) high-speed train connection between Copenhagen, over a new Kattegat bridge, through Aarhus (Denmarks second largest city on the Danish mainland) to Horsens; which is then connected to the existing rail lines comprising the second half of the ring. Sticking out from this ring would be connections to the other major cities on the Danish mainland.

The proposal reflects the Schiller Institute plan for a Maglev connection between Copenhagen and Aarhus over a Kattegat bridge, which burst into the Danish political process, and the leading newspaper, the Jyllands-Posten, over the past months (see http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2007/2007_10-19/2007-14/pdf/26-28_714_maglev.pdf).

The new proposal was presented by DSB's environmental director Jesper Moelgaard, who said it will make Denmark one big metropolis. When the Great Belt Bridge [between the Danish islands of Zealand and Fyn] was opened, the train traffic was increased by 70 percent, while the amount of train passengers across the Oeresund [between Denmark and Sweden] increased by 8,000 percent when the Oeresunds bridge was opened.

While basing the proposal on a new Kattegat bridge is commendable, DSB has not yet taken the leap to maglev, arguing that the trains should be able to run on both the new tracks and the old tracks, which lead to the cities not traversed by the Copenhagen-Horsens part of the ring.