All Railway Gazette International articles in April 1999 – Page 3

  • News

    First West Rail E&M contracts

    1999-04-01T10:00:00Z

    ON MARCH 8 Hong Kong’s Kowloon - Canton Railway Corp awarded the first two railway systems contracts for its West Rail project, valued at a total of HK$3·5bn. The 30·3 km West Rail Phase I linking Kowloon, Yuen Long and Tuen Mun is due to be completed in 2003. Worth ...

  • News

    V/Line Freight concessioned

    1999-04-01T10:00:00Z

    THE SUCCESSFUL bidder to run rail freight in the Australian state of Victoria was announced by state Premier Jeff Kennett on February 22. The Freight Victoria consortium has agreed to pay just over A$163m for V/Line Freight under a 15-year renewable lease to operate and maintain the rail network outside ...

  • News

    Competition shunted off line

    1999-04-01T10:00:00Z

    IT WOULD BE wrong to call the Great British Experiment in restructuring state-owned railways a failure. Estimates for the year to March 31 show passenger-km up 23% and freight tonne-km up 40% on 1994-95. Four decades have passed since passenger-km on Britain’s main line network last topped 35 billion. Nevertheless, ...

  • News

    CityNEWS

    1999-04-01T10:00:00Z

    Consorcio de Transportes de Vizcaya has ordered a fleet of 10 metro trainsets at a cost of Pts10bn, to operate the future Line 2 of the Bilbao metro. The cars will be built by CAF, with electrical equipment from Adtranz, which has also been contracted to supply and install the ...

  • News

    Putting the brakes on

    1999-04-01T10:00:00Z

    THE long-running saga of concession renegotiation in Argentina took a sudden and unexpected turn on February 3, when a last-minute legal challenge from consumer group UUC prevented the new contracts for the Mitre, Sarmiento and Urquiza commuter networks (RG 2.99 p65) in Buenos Aires from being signed into law. The ...

  • News

    TheTrainLine brings online booking to Britain

    1999-04-01T10:00:00Z

    BRITAIN’s first online rail ticketing system went live on Thursday February 25. Tickets and seat reservations where available can be ordered with secure payment over the internet for services operated by all 25 British franchises using software developed by Virgin Trains and IT specialists Cap Gemini. TheTrainLine is part of ...

  • News

    BNSF boosts spending

    1999-04-01T10:00:00Z

    ON MARCH 8 Burlington Northern Santa Fe announced a $2·5bn capital spending plan for 1999. This is a similar amount to recent previous years, so that by the end of 1999 BNSF will have invested almost $10bn over a four-year period.Nearly a third of the 1999 programme, $812m, will go ...

  • News

    Dutch bloomers

    1999-04-01T10:00:00Z

    NS Groep NV has raised its net operating profit by just over 20% to 197m guilders, largely by improved performance from the passenger business NS Reizigers. Revenue grew by 9%, but operating costs fell, despite a 5% increase in the number of trains running from May 1998, and a fares ...

  • News

    Underground PPP bids soon

    1999-04-01T10:00:00Z

    ON MARCH 15 London Transport announced that a formal procurement process for the London Underground Public-Private Partnership would start ’later in the spring’. Invitations to tender will be issued before the end of this year for three infrastructure companies - Sub Surface Lines, Infraco BCV (Bakerloo, Central, Victoria and Waterloo ...

  • News

    Berlin seen as centre of signalling expertise

    1999-04-01T10:00:00Z

    Stuttgart-based Alcatel SEL has picked Berlin as a key location for development of radio-based train control systems. According to Friedrich Smaxwil, Chief Executive of Alcatel SEL’s transport business, between DM100m and DM120m may be spent in the next five to 10 years on developing the European Rail Traffic Management System ...

  • News

    Berlin U-Bahn needs repairs

    1999-04-01T10:00:00Z

    BERLIN transport operator BVG has revealed that it needs to spend DM330m over the next five years for urgent repairs on the three U-Bahn routes serving the eastern part of the city. Decaying steelwork and water leaks have weakened the tunnel structures, and many stations are in need of major ...

  • News

    First blast launches Gotthard base tunnel

    1999-04-01T10:00:00Z

    Sedrun's access shaft was the scene of the first blasting work for the Gotthard base tunnel on February 4. Andrew Hellawell was there to witness it first hand

  • News

    ONCFM awards signalling deal

    1999-04-01T10:00:00Z

    MOROCCAN National Railways awarded a contract worth 53m euros to Alstom Transport on March 8 for resignalling work over the next four years. The contract covers 550 km from Kenitra to Oujda, which is electrified as far as Fes, and 200 km of the southern line from Sidi El ...

  • News

    Asturian link completed

    1999-04-01T10:00:00Z

    SPANISH narrow gauge operator Feve inaugurated a cross-city link through the Asturian capital Oviedo on February 4. Separate termini built by different private railways serving eastern and western routes have been replaced by a new cross-city route, serving metre-gauge platforms within Renfe’s broad gauge station. Total cost of the project ...

  • News

    Exhibitors bank on Asian market revival

    1999-04-01T10:00:00Z

    INTRO: Singapore Expo CentreApril 14-16SINGAPORE is the host city for the Exporail (Asia) 99 trade exhibition, being staged on April 14-16 at the Singapore Expo Centre. Organised by Interfama Brooks Exhibitions, the show is taking place at the same venue as the 1999 International Symposium on Public Transit for the ...

  • News

    Profits up at Ansaldo Signal

    1999-04-01T10:00:00Z

    PRESENTing its results for the 1998 financial year on March 10, Ansaldo Signal reported revenue of US$354·5m, up 11·4% from 1997. Gross profit was up 40·2% at $77·1m and net income was $6·5m or $0·32 per share. This compares with Wall Street estimates of $0·15 for 1998 and a loss ...

  • News

    SRT investment hits all time high

    1999-04-01T10:00:00Z

    BYLINE: Saravudh DhamasiriGeneral ManagerState Railway of ThailandDOUBLE TRACKING, electrification, new rolling stock and resignalling are spearheading investment plans in Thailand. More than 180bn baht (US$4·5bn) will be spent by SRT over the next 10 years.The package of modernisation measures includes construction of several new lines (Table I), which will in ...

  • News

    Brisbane airport BOT

    1999-04-01T10:00:00Z

    QUEENSLAND’s state government has awarded a build-operate-transfer concession to the Airtrain Citylink consortium for construction of an 8·5 km rail link to Brisbane airport at a cost of A$223m. Work is expected to take two years, followed by a 35-year operating period before the line is handed over to the ...

  • News

    WMATA looks ahead

    1999-04-01T10:00:00Z

    WITH COMPLETION of the US capital’s 166 km metro network approaching after 30 years, planners in Washington DC are discussing possible extensions, to serve new suburbs and raise daily ridership to 2 million.Favoured projects include a new Red line station at Florida and New York Avenues, extension of the Blue ...

  • News

    Madrid metro extends again

    1999-04-01T10:00:00Z

    ON MARCH 3 the President of the City of Madrid inaugurated a 2·8 km extension of metro Line 1, which has been built at a cost of Pts8·9bn. It is the eighth in a series of metro extensions to be opened in the Spanish capital over the last 15 months ...