Radaveld · About us
Three beacons, five islands, one board
The Ilvara Transit Authority has moved this city since 12 March 1908, when the town assembly merged a tramway and a ferry company that had spent nineteen years competing for the same passengers across the same strait.
The city
Ilvara sits in the Aldursea: 5 islands, 104 km² of land, 612,400 residents in the city and 781,000 in the wider bay. The name is older than the charter. From the older Ilvarr, “three beacons” — the fires kept on Varneska, Vinnahald and the Sarnurn until 1889.
Almost nothing here is more than two kilometres from salt water, and nothing at all is more than eleven. That is the whole argument for the way we are built: two metro lines under and along the rock where the ground allows it, a tram through streets too narrow and too old to widen, and boats where a tunnel would cost more than the island is worth.
The climate is cool oceanic, wet, and windier than visitors expect. February averages 3.1 °C and August 17.4 °C; the city takes 1,155 mm of rain a year. Two things in that list change how the network runs. Sea fog on 41 mornings a year, most of them between April and June. Fog slows the ferries and never stops them. The keldvinna, the north gale, blows force 8 or above on about 22 days a year. A gale does stop them, and when it does your ferry ticket is accepted on the metro and the tram without further payment.
The Radaveld in numbers
- 5linesacross 3 modes
- 32stations10 of them interchanges
- 96 millionjourneys a yearticketed and counted
- 2,140staffdrivers, crew, engineers, office
- 104 km²island area612,400 residents
The authority
The Radaveld is a statutory body of the city of Ilvara, not a company. It owns the track, the tunnels, the quays, the boats and the trains, and it answers to a board of nine: four councillors, three passenger representatives elected at the Aldudag assembly, the harbourmaster, and one member appointed by the salt guild — a seat nobody has been able to abolish since 1908.
Fares cover 63 per cent of what we spend. The rest comes from the city rate, the harbour dues and the car park at Vendahald, which subsidises the airport line it stands next to. We publish the accounts every March, on paper, at the counter in the Radahus.
The Radaveld writes in Ilvarik first and English second, gives the reason before the apology, and does not apologise twice for the same delay.
Standing instruction to staff, issued 1974 and never withdrawn
Before 1908
- Ostrahald Vellrada Ostrahald Tramways1889–1908
- Kelduskota Selskap North Ferry Company1871–1908
What runs on each line
Five lines, three modes, one ticket. The gauge, the tunnels and the boats all date from different centuries, which is why nothing on this network is interchangeable except the passengers.
M1 Aldurada, Tide LineAlduradaTide Line
Class 62 “Aldu” six-car sets, rebuilt 2019–2023
The spine of the city: under the Aldustrav in a 1962 cast-iron tube, under the Mirastrav in a 1988 concrete one.
M2 Rimmrada, Ridge LineRimmradaRidge Line
Class 78 “Rimm” four-car sets
Quay to quay across Ostrahald, following the basalt ridge that the old windmills stood on.
T3 Oskarada, Old Town LineOskaradaOld Town Line
Sixteen low-floor Type 16 cars, plus four 1931 cars on the summer heritage duty
Ilvara’s first public transport, still on its original gauge. Trams have not entered Varnstessa since the square was paved over in 1994.
F4 Kelduskota, North FerryKelduskotaNorth Ferry
MV Aldursorra, MV Keldvinna and MV Varneska — 220 passengers, 40 bicycles
Round the west headland and along the Aldustrav. Suspended in a north gale of force 8 or above.
F5 Miraskota, South FerryMiraskotaSouth Ferry
MV Sorreska and MV Mirastrav — 180 passengers, 24 bicycles, 2 assisted-boarding bays
The airport boat, the salt-pan boat and the marsh boat, in that order. Suspended in a north gale of force 8 or above.
How the network arrived
- 9th c.Sealers and cod fishers settle the sheltered bay behind Ostrahald. Three beacons are kept on the outer rocks; the name Ilvarr is first written down in 1041.
- 1204The islands are chartered as a single town. The first stone quay, the Ostrahald, gives the main island its name.
- 1698Ilvara is declared a free port. Salt from the Sorreska pans and salted cod pay for the grey basalt streets that still stand in the old town.
- 1871The Kelduskota Selskap puts two steam launches on the Varneska and Vellskarra crossings. Fares are collected in salt tokens for the first three months, an arrangement nobody repeats.
- 1889Horse trams open between Skotahald and the Old Gate. The gauge chosen that year, 1,188 mm, is still the gauge of the T3.
- 1908The ferry company and the tramways are merged into the Ilvara Radaveld by act of the town assembly, on 12 March. The date is still a public holiday.
- 1912The Aldubrenn bridge opens, carrying trams and carts across the Aldustrav for the first time.
- 1962The M1 Aldurada opens through a cast-iron tube under the Aldustrav — the first immersed metro tube in the Aldursea — from Vellskarra Hald to Mirahald.
- 1971The M1 is pushed up the cliff to Keldarda through the Skarra incline, at the time the steepest adhesion-worked metro grade in service anywhere.
- 1978The M2 Rimmrada opens quay to quay along the ridge. Ilvara becomes a two-line metro city with 41 escalators and one persistent leak.
- 1988The Mirastrav tunnel and the airport extension open together. The polder of Nydmarn, drained in 1934, finally gets its railway.
- 1994Varnstessa is paved over and closed to traffic. The T3 is diverted round the old town and has not entered the square since.
- 2016The last high-floor trams are withdrawn. Every T3 stop is levelled for step-free boarding within eighteen months.
- 2023The Class 62 rebuild is completed. All twenty-two sets now carry through-gangways, tide-warning displays and space for eight bicycles.
Reading the names
Ilvarik is the language of the islands and the language of the signs. Nothing on this network has a name that means nothing: every station is a description of the place it stands in, and once you know the roots below you can read a station you have never visited.
- Ilvarik compounds from the back: the last root carries the sense, the ones before it describe. Sarnvella is a street of dressed stone, not a stone of the street.
- vell (a reach) and vella (a street) are unrelated words that catch out every visitor. Vellskarra is the cliff reach; Skarravella is the street on it.
- Station signs carry the Ilvarik name in full capitals and the English name beneath it in lower case. Announcements are made in Ilvarik, then English.
- Ostrahald means “the harbour landing”. The island took the name of its first stone quay, built in 1204, and the English form Harbour Isle dates from the free-port charter of 1698.
The roots, all 37 of them
- aldu, alda
- tide; the set of the sea
- arda
- high ground
- brenn
- bridge
- eska
- holm, small island
- fenna
- marsh
- gest
- gate
- hald
- a landing or holding; by extension, a quay
- il
- beacon, kept fire
- keld
- north; cold
- kova
- kiln, works
- lissa
- spring water
- lunta
- grove
- lys
- east; light
- marn
- the sea as it rises and falls
- mella
- mill
- mira
- south
- nava
- hollow
- nyd
- new
- oska
- old
- rada
- line, route
- rimm
- ridge
- sarn
- dressed stone
- skarra
- sea cliff
- skota
- boat
- sorra
- salt
- strav
- strait
- tarv
- market
- tessa
- square
- tumb
- west
- urn
- tower
- varn
- three, a triad
- veld
- board, governing body
- vell
- a reach of water or land
- vella
- street
- velmi
- shrine
- venda
- air
- vinna
- wind
So: Sorrakova is the salt works, Keldarda the north heights, Lyslunta the east grove, and the mark on this page is the Trivarn — the three beacons — adopted in 1961.
The nine holidays
On all nine the network runs to the Sunday timetable, and the Radahus counter and lost property office are closed. Aldudag is our own: it is the day the board was created.
| Date | Ilvarik | English |
|---|---|---|
| 1 January | Nyddag | New Day |
| 12 March | Aldudag | Tide Day — the founding of the Radaveld |
| 1 May | Kovadag | Works Day |
| 18 June | Sorrafest | Salt Feast |
| 1 August | Haldadag | Quay Day — the free-port charter of 1698 |
| 3 November | Ilvaradag | Beacon Day |
| 24 December | Velmidag | Shrine Day |
| 25 December | Midvinter | Midwinter |
| 26 December | Vinterdag | Winter Day |
Aldudag is 12 March. If it falls on a Sunday the holiday timetable is not doubled; the boats simply run the Sunday service and the band plays at Skotahald at noon.
Anything else?
The contact centre answers Monday to Friday 07:00–19:00, Saturday 09:00–17:00 on +279 4 220 1908. If you have left something on a boat or a train, start with lost property — the sooner you tell us, the shorter the walk.