Asia – Page 117
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NewsWestern Dedicated Freight Corridor electrification contract awarded
INDIA: Dedicated Freight Corridor Corp of India has awarded a consortium of Japanese firm Sojitz Corp and local partner Larsen & Toubro a ¥50bn contract to supply and install 2 x 25 kV 50 Hz electrification equipment on the 915 km Rewari – Vadodara section of the Western Dedicated Freight ...
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NewsGovernment mulls more airport rail links
THAILAND: Two more airport rail links are being evaluated by the government, Transport Minister Prajin Juntong announced on November 20. The two proposed lines would complement the 1 435 mm gauge line which has linked Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport with a city centre terminus at Makkasan since 2010. One would ...
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NewsXinjiang high speed line opens
CHINA: The Passenger-Dedicated Line between Urumqi and Hami in the Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region of western China opened on November 16. The 530 km route serves stations at Urumqi South, Turpan North, Shanshan North, Tuha and Hami. Construction of the line began in January 2010. The alignment through the Gobi ...
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NewsSMEC India acquires Leadrail Infra Solutions
INDIA: The SMEC India subsidiary of Australian infrastructure consultancy SMEC announced on November 14 that it had acquired Leadrail Infra Solutions, a Bangalore-based company providing railway engineering services including track, alignment, bridge and structure design. Leadrail has worked on metro projects in Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Ahmadabad and Monterrey, and rail ...
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NewsHitachi bids to buy Finmeccanica rail businesses
ITALY: Defence and aviation group Finmeccanica announced on November 18 that Hitachi Ltd had submitted the previous day an offer to buy its AnsaldoBreda rolling stock business and its 40% stake in signalling supplier Ansaldo STS. A statement by the Italian group added that it intended to analyse Hitachi’s offer ...
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NewsNorthern Mongolian Rail Corridor agreement signed
MONGOLIA: The Northern Railways rail infrastructure subsidiary of Aspire Mining has signed an engineering, procurement and construction framework agreement with China Railway 20 Bureau Group covering Phase 1 of the Northern Mongolian Rail Corridor. This follows parliament’s approval of the government’s national rail policy in October. Phase 1 of ...
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NewsDhaka metro tenders in January
BANGLADESH: Tenders are to be invited in January for eight work packages on Dhaka Metro Line 6, Transport Minister Obaidul Quader announced on November 5. The minister said he hoped that the contracts could be signed in time for construction to get underway in 2016, which would see the first ...
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NewsChina approves three new lines
CHINA: The National Development & Reform Commission approved plans for the construction of three lines serving Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Shanxi on October 30. The Tibetan line is to start at Xierong on the Lhasa – Xigaze route which opened in August, and will run eastwards for 402 km to ...
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NewsHokkaido Shinkansen tracklaying completed
JAPAN: JR Hokkaido held a ceremony at Kikonai station on November 1 to mark the completion of tracklaying for the Hokkaido Shinkansen, which will bring high speed train services onto the country’s northern island in 2016. JR Hokkaido President Osamu Shimada was joined by Hokkaido Governor Harumi Takahash to ...
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NewsKeolis signs Wuhan commuter rail letter of intent
CHINA: Keolis signed a letter of intent to participate in the operation of the future Greater Wuhan commuter rail network when a delegation from Hubei province visited Lille in France on November 3. The province is developing a network of six commuter lines up 80 km long to link Wuhan ...
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NewsAfghan railway tendering begins
AFGHANISTAN: The Afghanistan Railway Authority has invited expressions of interest in three performance-based contracts to operate, maintain and manage the 75 km railway from Hairatan on the Uzbek border to a freight terminal near Mazar-i-Sharif. Responses from ‘experienced, high calibre and competent national and international’ companies should be submitted to ...
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NewsIndian Railways begins wi-fi roll-out
INDIA: Minister of Railways D V Sadananda Gowda has inaugurated Indian Railways’ first station wi-fi installation at Bangalore City, which has been equipped as the pilot for a programme to provide wi-fi at all category A and A1 stations. The RailWire wi-fi programme is being undertaken by the Ministry of ...
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NewsMongolian parliament backs rail expansion
MONGOLIA: Parliament approved the government’s national rail policy on October 24. This sets out plans for the expansion of the network, and grants the government powers to call tenders and negotiate a build-operate-transfer concession for the planned Northern Rail Line. The 1 520 mm gauge multi-user mixed traffic Northern ...
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NewsNorth Korea launches Victory railway upgrade
NORTH KOREA: A ground-breaking ceremony for the ‘Victory’ project to modernise the railway linking the west coast port of Namp’o with Pyongyang, Kangdong and the Jaedong coalfields was held on October 21. The project is being supported by Russia, and guests at the groundbreaking included Minister of External Economic ...
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NewsJoint venture to audit Borneo coal railway project
INDONESIA: Russian Railways and Austrian-Swiss contractor Rhomberg-Sersa have agreed to undertake a technical audit for the eastern Kalimantan coal railway project, for which RZD is providing technical support. Construction of the coal railway on the island of Borneo could begin in 2016, RZD says. According to a memorandum signed by ...
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NewsGauge-changing Free Gauge Train on test in Kyushu
JAPAN: JR Kyushu and the Japan Railway Construction Transport & Technology Agency officially launched test running with the gauge-changing Free Gauge Train prototype in a ceremony at Yatsushiro on October 19. Designated Series 9000 by JR Kyushu, the four-car trainset is being tested between Kagoshima-Chuo and Shin-Yatsushiro on the 1 ...
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NewsFirst Series H5 Shinkansen trainset arrives in Hokkaido
JAPAN: The first Series H5 trainset for the Hokkaido Shinkansen was delivered to the island on October 13. A welcoming ceremony was held at Haldane Harbour before the vehicles were transferred by road to JR Hokkaido’s Nanae depot. Built by Kawasaki Heavy Industries in Kobe, the trainset had been ...
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NewsPresident reopens railway to Jaffna
SRI LANKA: The final section of line reconnecting the Jaffna peninsula in the north with the rest of the rail network was formally opened by President Mahinda Rajapaksa on October 13. The 38 km Pallai – Jaffna link restores what was one of Sri Lanka Railways' most important routes before ...
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NewsRailway research stepped up
NORTH KOREA: Investment in research to develop local skills in locomotive production, track components and IT systems has been stepped up in North Korea, reports the State Academy of Sciences. SAS’s Branch Academy of Railway Science subsidiary has achieved ‘many successes’ in developing IT-based processes for rail transport, and it ...
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NewsJapanese railway test centre opens to support export drive
JAPAN: What Mitsubishi Heavy Industries describes as Japan's first comprehensive railway transport system verification facility was officially opened on October 2. The Mihara Test Centre is located at the Wadaoki plant of MHI’s Mihara Machinery Works in Hiroshima Prefecture. It is being made available for use by all private ...