Rail Transport in Domanania (WIP)

Rail transport in Domanania is a part of the transport network in Domanania and an important mode of the conveyance of people and goods, though the railways play a secondary role compared to the road network in the last few decades. The network consists of 4,285 km of standard-gauge lines connecting all major cities with the exception of the Island region, which only has a single legacy tram in Tívaentsan city. Of the network, 2,790 km are double-tracked and 3,187 km are electrified. In 2020, the rail network carried 15% of all traffic - 81.5 million passengers and 18 million tons of freight, with roads carrying 84.8%.

Passenger and freight services are primarily provided by the Doman Railroad Corporation, branded as Domrail, a state-owned enterprise under the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, although some rail lines and services, including high-speed intercity rails, metropolitan rapid transit, and interurban lines, are operated by private companies. The Doman Railroad Authority, another state company under the Transport Ministry, is responsible for constructing and maintaining the railway infrastructure, with Domrail and other rail operators paying track access charges to the Railroad Authority.

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History

Rail transport in Domanania began in the 19th century when Engineers from Ioudaia were hired in 1894 to build a rail line from Tavunt to Kíseutewae, or roughly 30km of track. At the same time, another Ioudaian firm offered to build a 50km line from Tavunt to Kotewae in 1896. Both lines began construction in 1895 and 1897 respectively. Funding for the Kotewae line floundered in 1899, with the project being taken up by a local Doman engineer who studied abroad. With a loan from the government, the Kotewae line was taken on by the newly form Doman Line Company. The Kíseytewae line finished construction in april of 1898, and was inaugurated in june of 1899. The Kotewae line finished construction in 1899, and opened its first service in 1900.

The Doman Line Company was slated to build a rail line over the river Zhapí, but failed to raise enough capital to win the bid. Additional Ioudaian companies won the bid, meanwhile the Doman Line Company would win contracts to build Tram systems inside of Tavunt. The first tram line opened in 1898, connecting Tawo and Godyi districts of Tavunt before the first long distance rail opened.. In 1903, the first major cross country line began construction between 3 major companies. The Hansaesh line was the first cross country rail line, covering almost 400km. This rail line was completed in 1908 after many delays and cost overruns. After it's completion, a train ride from Tavunt to Thuthansaesh took 14 hours to complete.

From 1908-1927, roughly 5,000km of rail were laid, including light rail, tram, heavy rail, and electric only lines. By 1930, almost every major city was connected by some kind of rail system. Most of which were light rail and interurban lines.

In 1946, the Doman government bought ownership of its foreign owned and operated rail companies, primarily from Ioudaia. At the same time, the Doman Line Company was purchased and all of the other companies were merged with the DLC, forming the Doman Rail Authority, an independent agency of the Ministry of Transportation. This agency was in charge of all rails within the country from 1948-1971 and continued electrifying and double-tracking heavily used tracks. However, when the Junta government was overthrown the Doman Rail Authority was split, with a majority of their lines being transferred to the Doman Rail Corporation.

After this, the government's investment into the rail system declined with the series of Five-Year plans initiated by the government to reorganize and empower the Doman economy. The national highway system saw the most benefit from this decline, more than doubling in size from 1971-1990 while the rail network only increased by a small percentage.

Railroads in the 1980s were useful primarily in the transportation of freight, and they were important for passenger traffic around Seoul and in the heavily traveled corridor linking the capital with the northern port of Kevsaae. Although the railroad system grew little during the 1980s, rail improvements – the increased electrification of tracks, replacement of older tracks, and the addition of rolling stock – allowed rail traffic to boom. Some of the busiest lines north of Tavunt had three or four tracks. The 1980s also saw the introduction of high-speed trains connecting Tavunt with Kevsaae, Thuthansaesh, Saekrasa, and Heresrun.

While investment in railroads between cities languished in the 1970s–1980s, railroads in cities continued to receive attention. Announced in 1978, the first line of the Tavunt Metropolitan Subway, the first rapid transit system in Domanania, opened in 1981. Lines 2–4 followed in subsequent years as part of the first phase of construction, but construction on lines 5–8 – the second phase – was postponed in the 1980s and only started in the 1990s. Of the four planned lines in phase three, only line 9 was built, partly through a public-private partnership. The subway system was built by a consortium of Ioudaian Companies, who were instrumental in the modernization of the rail system. Behnam Tomer and Company, Axouch-Kadaronezhad Civil Engineering, and ZRE Operations built the first subway line, and advised on the second subway built in Thuthansaesh in 1984. Outside of these cities, subways opened up in Saekrasa (1990), Heresrun (1992), Theríp (1995), and Kevsaae (1998).

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DTX

The government decided to invest in Domanania's first high-speed rail to ease traffic congestion between Tavunt and Thuthansaesh. With more than two-thirds of the country's population, passenger traffic, and freight traffic concentrated in the corridor connecting the two cities – and a new expressway built in the 1970s failing to solve traffic problems – several studies commissioned by the government in the 1970s proposed building a high-speed railroad. Construction became a priority in the 1980s, when it was included in the 1982–1986 five-year plan.

Planning started before the government decided on the rolling stock. In 1991, Domanania sent a request for proposals to Ioudaia, Belantica and Great Altera, all countries with successful high-speed railways. While initially preferring the Behnam Tomer and Company design, the government selected the Staria design from Belantica, as BT&C were reluctant to transfer their technical know-how while Staria were willing. Staria agreed to a deal where the first run of trains would be built by Staria, then further trains would be built by Domrail and other private companies.

In March 1992, the government created the Doman High Speed Rail Construction Authority to oversee the construction of the Tavunt-Thuthansaesh High Speed Railway (TTH HSR). Construction started on June 30, 1992, before choosing the vehicle. The initial completion goal was 1998; lack of experience, frequent redesign, difficulties in purchasing land, and an economic crisis delayed the entire project. As a result, Doman Train Express (DTX) service began April 1, 2004. Since its opening in 2004, the high-speed rail service has halved the demand for air transport on this corridor which used to be the busiest direct air routes in the country.

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Reform and Private Rail Companies

Private investment in railways in Domanania before the mid-1990s was nominal. Between 1972–1994, only 12 rail projects with a total combined cost of IAD$660 million received private investment, but the operation and management of all remained in government hands. In 1994, to encourage private investment in infrastructure projects through public-private partnerships, the Congress adopted the Promotion of Private Capital in Social Overhead Capital Investment Act, followed in 1998 by the Act on Private Participation in Infrastructure and in 2005 the Act on Public-Private Partnership in Infrastructure given the limited impact of the first law. PPPs can take the form of build–operate–transfer, build-lease-transfer, and build-own-operate delivery models and can be controlled by either the national or local governments. Several companies have participated in projects to revitalise rail lines, leading to an increase in private ownership of rail, light rail, and interurban systems.

The government had been aiming to improve the governance of Doman railways since the 1980s. Initially, the transportation ministry aimed to regain full control over the Doman National Railroad, which operated as an independent government agency, and re-establish it as a government-owned corporation. These efforts petered out in 1995, when government instead granted increased autonomy to DNR. In 1999, the division of DNR responsible for railway construction was merged with the Doman High Speed Rail Construction Authority, which was overseeing the building of the TTH HSR. A few years later, the government decided to split the national railroad into separate companies for operation and construction. As a result, after building TTH HSR, the Doman National Railroad was split into Domrail (established in January 2004) and Doman Rail Network Authority (established in January 2005 and renamed to Doman National Railway in September 2020), the former managing operation and the latter maintaining tracks. This allowed open access in the Doman railway system. DR was constituted with old DNR infrastructure assets, and several debts due to construction of railway lines were transferred.

Railway reform and the introduction of private rail companies into Domanania's network continued into the 2010s. In 2012, the then-Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs called for bids to operate high-speed trains for 15 years on the TTH and Tavunt-Saekrasa lines. The ministry's goal was to end the state-owned Domrail's monopoly and create competition for the state-run DTX trains, hoping to increase the quality of service and decrease fares.

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Connection with Ioudaia
The two countries have a long history of rail development, with many Ioudaian companies having built popular lines still in use today. The two countries have long shared a freight and regular passenger lines on both sides of their shared border. However, a high speed rail connection has never been established, though efforts were made back in the 1990's. In 2010 surveys were made between the two countries, with the first proposal only connecting Tavunt or Theríp with Skoimos. In 2011, the project was extended to connect Tavunt and Nykalessos with a double tracked high speed rail. Construction began in 2012, and finished in 2015. The first test runs began later that year, with initial trains making the trip in under two hours.

In 2016, the TANY line opened for business, with service trains achieving a travel time of under 90 minutes between the two cities. This line has become one of the most popular routes, taking over more than 60% of the air travel in the corridor. The 100km long line operates some of the most modern trains in service between Domanania and Ioudaia, which carries 15,000 people every day, and almost 5 million people per year.

As of 2020, there talks to build a second HSR line in the east, connecting some of Domanania's most densely population cities with the east coast cities of Ioudaia. Official surveys have begun as of 2022.

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Services

High Speed Rail
A high-speed railroad by the name of the Doman Train Express (DTX) is in service between Tavunt, Kevsaae, Saekrasa, Thuthansaesh, Heresrun, Píhankíseudo and Bedo. The railway uses Belantican technology from their company Staria. Service started on April 1, 2004, using the completed high-speed line sections and using upgraded conventional lines. As of 2010, the top speed on dedicated high-speed track is 305 kilometers per hour.

DTX: This high-speed railway system, takes passengers from downtown Tavunt to downtown Thuthansaesh faster than an airplane (including check-in time), makes fewer stops and is more expensive than other trains.
DTX-Blue: A higher-speed railway system with maximum speed 260 km/h. It offers better quality seating overall.
NRT: Another high-speed railway system, operated by private company called "RTC". It services Tavunt, Saekrasa, and Heresrun.

Conventional Rail

NTX: Semi-fast trains operating on select lines
Dungwa-Sí: This is the most popular service, stops at most stations, and offers a mixture of reserved and unreserved seating.
Kyusa: Another popular service that has replaced Dungwa mid-long distance services on specific routes.

Rapid Transit

Domanania's 6 largest cities all have their own subway system, with the Tavunt system being the oldest. The Thuthansaesh subway system is the largest in the country, consisting of 23 station of rapid transit, light metro, commuter rail and people mover lines across the city. Some lines reach out into near by cities, with the regional line reaching Kevsaae almost 60km away.

Light Rail

Trams have remained a popular intercity transit option, with many cities still operating interurban tram lines. However, since the 1990's, cars and busses have become more popular options for commuters. At it's peak in 1983, the light rail network had 1,126km of track laid across the country. Many lines have been decommissioned and removed in favor of additional road ways. The total number of light rail track sits at around 523km. In 2022 there was a popular movement to build modern light rail systems, which culminated in an effort from the government to re-invest in light rail systems. This resulted in nearly $5,000,000 IAD being granted to the Light Intercity Tram Rehabilitation Project (LITR) which has set out to modernize older tram lines, and construct an additional 20km of track to test the feasibility of newer tram lines for non-connected cities off of main rail lines. This project is expected to complete in 2025-26.

Man tram and interurban lines are own by smaller, private companies and aren't subject to the Domrail monopoly on train travel. While lines have been decommissioned, the ones still in operation have tried to keep up with modernizing technology. Roughly 70% of all light rail systems consist of rail cars built within the last 30 years, with some even developing hybrid or off-grid cars to continue service where electrification has not yet occured.