Asia – Page 113
-
NewsWorld Bank agrees third Eastern DFC loan
INDIA: The World Bank board approved a US$650m loan to support the construction of the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor on June 30. The loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction & Development has a seven-year grace period and a maturity of 22 years. The Eastern DFC will run for 1 ...
-
NewsWorld Speed Survey 2015: China remains the pacesetter
INTERNATIONAL: China remains the pacesetter in the world rail speed race, according to the latest World Speed Survey published in Railway Gazette International on July 1. Authored by Jeremy Hartill of the UK’s Railway Performance Society, the biennial survey compiles in tabular form the fastest timetabled start-to-stop journeys between different ...
-
NewsHefei – Fuzhou high speed line opens
CHINA: The 813 km Hefei – Fuzhou Passenger-Dedicated Line opened on June 28, with journey times between the capitals of Anhui and Fujian provinces cut from 8 h to under 4 h. The new line also serves popular tourist destinations. Construction of the line began in 2010, with the ...
-
NewsPakistan Railways ‘out of intensive care’
PAKISTAN: Minister of Railways Khawaja Saad Rafique has said Pakistan Railways is now ‘out of intensive care’. The federal budget for 2015-16 has allocated Rs41bn for PR’s non-staff costs, a business class Karachi – Islamabad passenger service has been launched and freight services to Iran restarted. The 2015-16 budget ...
-
NewsPakistan Railways orders GE locomotives
PAKISTAN: An agreement for Pakistan Railways to purchase 55 GE Transportation diesel locomotives was signed by PR’s Director of Procurement Ziauddin Ahmed Qureshi and GE Regional Sales Director Ashfaque Nainar in Lahore on June 20. The 1 676 mm gauge 4 500 hp locomotives are to be supplied from ...
-
NewsTenders called for Indian inter-city EMUs
INDIA: The Ministry of Railways has invited requests for qualification for a contract to supply and maintain about 15 inter-city electric multiple-units. These would be used to pilot the use of fixed-formation trainsets instead of locomotive-hauled stock on long-distance services. The 15 EMUs would total 315 cars, of which ...
-
NewsTüvasaş and Voith open workshop
TURKEY: Tüvasaş and Voith have opened a joint maintenance, repair, and assembly workshop at the Turkish rolling stock manufacturer’s bogie plant in Adapazarı. The workshop undertakes the maintenance and repair of Voith Turbo transmissions used on DMUs operated by national railway TCDD, as well as local assembly activities and ...
-
NewsEastern Dedicated Freight Corridor civils contract signed
INDIA: Dedicated Freight Corridor Corp of India Ltd has awarded a design and build contract covering the civil works for the 402 km New Bhaupur (Kanpur) – Mughalsarai section of the Eastern DFC, which will eventually run for 1 839 km from Ludhiana to Dankuni near Kolkata. The Rs50·8bn contract ...
-
NewsMumbai network switches from DC to AC
INDIA: Central Railway has announced that ‘a historic milestone was achieved’ at 05.37 on June 8, with completion of the conversion of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus – Mumbra slow lines and CST – Thane fast lines from 1·5 kV DC to 25 kV AC electrification. The Mumbai CST – Kalyan ...
-
NewsJR West picks MerMec inspection technology
JAPAN: West Japan Railway Company has selected MerMec to supply machine-vision technology for its track inspection fleet, the railway’s General Manager Eiji Tsubone announced at a meeting of the EU-Japan Industrial Dialogue on Railways & Urban Transport Suppliers in Brussels on May 21. Following ‘a long tendering and evaluation period’, ...
-
NewsFirst Shinkansen train through the Seikan Tunnel
JAPAN: The mayor of Aomori and other city officials participated in a ceremony at Shin-Aomori in the early hours of May 24 to mark the arrival of the first Series H5 trainset from Hokkaido through the Seikan Tunnel. Following the delivery of the first unit to JR Hokkaido in October ...
-
NewsPavlodar tram financing signed
KAZAKHSTAN: The European Bank for Reconstruction & Development has signed a loan agreement worth €10m with Pavlodar Tramways to support infrastructure modernisation and the procurement of 25 new trams. The national government is proving a grant worth €3·71m, and further support is coming from the regional government. The 86 ...
-
NewsChinese company signs Tyva railway agreement
RUSSIA: Coal mining concession holder Tuva Energy Industrial Corp and the China Civil Engineering Construction Corp subsidiary of China Railway Construction Corp have signed a memorandum of understanding for the implementation of privately financed railway and port projects. The three agreements signed on May 8 cover a proposed 410 ...
-
NewsJR East calls international tenders for DEMU fleet
JAPAN: East Japan Railway announced on May 19 that it is calling international tenders for a fleet of diesel-electric multiple-units to operate services on non-electrified lines, with between 150 and 200 trainsets to be ordered in the coming years. Bids are due by July 24 for an initial build of ...
-
NewsMyanmar signalling contract signed
MYANMAR: Myanma Railways has awarded Mitsubishi Corp and Hitachi a contract to modernise the signalling on the 140 km Yangon – Pyuntasa route by June 2017. The ¥2·4bn contract signed on May 15 is being funded by a grant from Japan International Cooperation Agency. The companies will supply electronic ...
-
NewsADB to assist south Luzon PPP programme
PHILIPPINES: Tenders are expected to be called within the next three months seeking a concessionaire to manage and maintain the Main Line South infrastructure linking Manila with the south of the island of Luzon for a period of 30 years. The Asian Development Bank and Development Bank of the ...
-
NewsStadler to supply double-deck EMUs to Azerbaijan
AZERBAIJAN: An agreement for the supply of five Kiss double-deck electric multiple-units was signed by Stadler Rail CEO Peter Spuhler and Javid Gurbanov, Chairman of national railway ADY, at the TransCaspian 2015 trade fair in Baku on May 13. The 1 520 mm gauge 3·3 kV DC EMUs are to ...
-
NewsAstana light rail framework agreement signed
KAZAKHSTAN: The city of Astana signed a framework agreement for the construction of the first phase of the capital’s light rail project on May 7. Project authority Astana LRT LLP signed the agreement with a consortium of China Railway International Group and Beijing State-Owned Assets Management Co. The ...
-
NewsTurkish rail market opening coming this year
TURKEY: Legislation outlining the legal framework for liberalisation of the railway sector was published in the government’s official journal on May 2. Publication of the Law on Capacity Allocation & Network Access paves the way for market opening to be introduced by the end of this year, with state railway ...
-
NewsMalaysia – Singapore high speed line opening date put back
ASIA: The planned opening date for the proposed 330 km high speed line between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore is to be put back from 2020 to a more realistic date, the prime ministers of Malaysia and Singapore jointly announced after their annual leader’s retreat on May 5. The location for ...