All Railway Gazette International articles in April 2006 – Page 3

  • News

    Crew change at the front end

    2006-04-01T10:00:00Z

    YOUR EDITOR’S last official engagement was to give the keynote presentation at JR East’s 12th Research & Development Symposium in Tokyo on March 28. It seemed a fitting culmination to 15 years ’at the controls’, during which this journal has constantly striven to give the best coverage in the world ...

  • News

    Rotem scoops Metrolink car order

    2006-04-01T10:00:00Z

    THE SOUTHERN California Regional Rail Authority board voted on February 24 to order new double-deck push-pull rolling stock from Rotem for the Los Angeles Metrolink commuter rail network. The base order covers 33 driving cab cars and 54 intermediate trailers at a price of $176m. Some are needed for ...

  • Kuala Lumpur’s Express Rail Link
    News

    Developing local capabilities in Malaysia

    2006-04-01T10:00:00Z

    ELECTROCUTED monkeys are rarely a problem on German commuter railways, but Kuala Lumpur’s Express Rail Link and the operators of similar trains and infrastructure in Europe do have other sources of disruption in common. Sharing knowledge has brought performance benefits. ERL’s four-car articulated ET425M Desiro EMUs ...

  • News

    Slovak freight sale hits the buffers

    2006-04-01T10:00:00Z

    POLITICAL expediency has dictated a halt to the privatisation of ZSSK Cargo (RG 3.06 p112). A political crisis in Slovakia has led to elections being called on June 17, and the outgoing government has deemed it convenient to halt all sell-off plans in the face of widespread opposition. Six bidders ...

  • News

    Putting the world's longest trams into service in Budapest

    2006-04-01T10:00:00Z

    Over the next year, BKV will take delivery of 40 low-floor trams from Siemens to operate the Grand Boulevard trunk routes in Budapest; at almost 54m in length, the six-section cars will be the longest trams in the world

  • News

    Industry News in Brief

    2006-04-01T10:00:00Z

    Oregon Iron Works and Skoda Transportation have signed an agreement for the US firm to produce tram components under licence (RG 9.05 p574).The CXT subsidiary of L B Foster Co is to build a concrete sleeper plant in Tucson, Arizona, with Grimbergen long-line manufacturing equipment. Production will begin this summer, ...

  • News

    City News in Brief

    2006-04-01T10:00:00Z

    Ottawa city officials are expected to announce on April 21 a preferred bidder for the C$725m project to develop a 31 km light rail line between Rideau Centre and Barrhaven, serving 34 stops. SNC Lavalin/Bombardier, Kiewit-Ellisdon/ Kinki Sharyo, and PCL/Dufferin Construction/Siemens submitted financial offers on March 3, having lodged technical ...

  • News

    Passenger News in Brief

    2006-04-01T10:00:00Z

    Amtrak has ordered over 200 blast-mitigating waste bins from BlastGard International for $828750. The MTR91 and MTR101 bins are designed to avoid fragmentation, blast shock and thermal effects from improvised bombs.The Ministry of Railways recorded 1·15 billion passengers carried on China’s railways in 2005, a 10-year high and up 3·3% ...

  • News

    Products in Brief

    2006-04-01T10:00:00Z

    Ferrovie Nord Milano is installing Westermo Lynx 328 Ethernet switches and optic fibre links to replace analogue communications between trackside equipment and its control centre. So far 10 stations have been covered by the network, and work on two more lines with 22 stations is now underway.Westermo Teleindustri, SwedenLEDtrain arrivals ...

  • News

    Consultancy bought

    2006-04-01T10:00:00Z

    HALCROW has acquired the remaining 51% interest in Bangkok-based civil engineering consultancy Pyramid Development International Corp.PDI and Halcrow have worked together since the mid-1990s on projects including the Bangkok metro and double tracking for State Railway of Thailand, and in 2002 Halcrow acquired a 49% stake in PDI from Asian ...

  • News

    Record investment boosts EFE's passenger business

    2006-04-01T10:00:00Z

    A stable political and economic climate has enabled Chilean State Railways to undertake its largest-ever three-year investment programme, which involved spending of US$1bn in 2003-05. This included increased capacity on commuter networks and improved long-distance services, as John Kolodziejski reports

  • News

    Peijs ignores MoU on Betuwe Route

    2006-04-01T10:00:00Z

    CONFUSION has deepened over who will operate and maintain the new freight railway linking the port of Rotterdam to the German network at Emmerich. Contrary to our last report (RG 2.06 p68), no contract has been signed for maintenance and operation of the Betuwe Route.In a statement on February 14, ...

  • tn_nl-emu-rotterdam_07.jpg
    News

    Benchmarking identifies good practice in rolling stock maintenance

    2006-04-01T10:00:00Z

    An international review comparing rolling stock maintenance and performance at passenger operators around the world found a wide variance in cost-efficiency, reliability and availability. An exchange of good practice offers the potential for significant gains in cost and reliability

  • News

    Mixed messages puzzle Beijing - Shanghai bidders

    2006-04-01T10:00:00Z

    LAST MONTH we reported extensively on China’s technology transfer deals which have given the country’s railway industry expertise in heavy haul and high speed EMU technology. So we were not unduly surprised to learn that Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun had said on March 9 that foreign technology was not ...

  • News

    World Bank funds MZ split

    2006-04-01T10:00:00Z

    PLANS to separate the Macedonian rail network into infrastructure and operating companies are due to be authorised by the government this month, in line with legislation approved last year. On February 17 Makedonski Zeleznici signed a loan agreement with the World Bank which will provide US$15m to support the restructuring. ...

  • News

    Balfour Beatty rail profits down

    2006-04-01T10:00:00Z

    PROFIT before exceptional items in Balfour Beatty’s Rail Engineering & Services sector fell by 27% to £32m in the year to December 31 2005, affected by Network Rail taking maintenance work in-house during 2004. The fine incurred by Balfour Beatty Rail Infrastructure Services in respect of the Hatfield rail accident ...

  • News

    Automation gets the most out of mining railway infrastructure

    2006-04-01T10:00:00Z

    Earlier this year, faster, heavier and fully-automatic trains began running on the El Teniente copper mine's private railway, marking the culmination of a major upgrade to squeeze the maximum daily tonnage out of the infrastructure

  • News

    Milano to build automated metro

    2006-04-01T10:00:00Z

    A €500m TURNKEY CONTRACT was awarded at the end of February for the first stage of Milano metro Line 5. The fully-automated line will be built by a consortium which includes existing operator ATM, with Alstom Ferroviaria, Astaldi, Ansaldo Trasporti Sistemi Ferroviari, AnsaldoBreda and Torno Internazionale. The initial section will ...

  • News

    Noise attenuation

    2006-04-01T10:00:00Z

    Letter to the editor

  • News

    Latest generation ATP

    2006-04-01T10:00:00Z

    WESTINGHOUSE Rail Systems announced the launch of its latest generation of automatic train protection and automatic train operation systems on February 13. Westran has been developed for use in computer-based train control applications, in particular metros operating high-frequency services. Most of the equipment is carried on the rolling stock, which ...