All Railway Gazette International articles in August 2005 – Page 2
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News
NSB wins Gjøvikbanan tender
NORWEGIAN railway operator NSB has been awarded a 10-year contract to run passenger services on the Oslo - Gjøvik line from June 2006 until mid-2016.The 123 km Gjøvikbanan was the first inter-city route in the country to be put out to tender, as one of three pilot projects for the ...
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News
Getting to the point
RAPIDcollation of maintenance and status data can be achieved through the use of SmartPoint technology developed by ESA SrL of Casssari. SmartPoint uses miniature memory buttons developed to withstand extreme environments, which are attached directly to rolling stock or infrastructure components requiring monitoring. These can accommodate up to 488 digits ...
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News
Upgrade funding package in place
RéSEAU Ferré de France President Jean-Pierre Duport participated in a ceremony at Clermont-Ferrand on June 30 to launch upgrading work on the main line to Paris.Under an agreement between the French government, Auvergne region and Puy-de-D
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News
Fret SNCF on the offensive
WITH rival freight operator Connex now using RFF tracks (RG 7.05 p409), Fret SNCF is moving onto the offensive with applications for safety certificates to run trains in Belgium, Italy and Luxembourg. The first is expected imminently and the other two by the end of the year.Announcing this on June ...
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First-generation ICE fleet starts a half-life refit programme
INTRO: Ralf Roman Rossberg saw the first of 59 ICE1 trainsets being refurbished in DB's Nürnberg workshops where a €180m project to rejuvenate the fleet is getting underway SINCE the first ICE1 trainsets entered service in a blaze of publicity in 1991, each set has clocked up an ...
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News
Fire Protection in Vehicles & Tunnels for Public Transport
PREPARED by the Association of German Transport Undertakings, this 504 page bilingual softback provides an overview in German and English of fire prevention and fire-fighting methods. The book is intended to help with the development and specification of new tunnel projects, and to aid the revision of practice in existing ...
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News
Finance
Bosnia: EBRD and EIB are to provide a €140m loan for modernisation of the rail network, following the passing of a law on structural reform that separates accounting of passenger and freight operations and creates an infrastructure management company and a regulatory body.Europe: On July 13 Eurotunnel presented confidential proposals ...
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News
Knorr-Bremse factory opens
ON JUNE 29 Knorr-Bremse Rail Systems’ UK and Ireland headquarters and production facility at Melksham in Wiltshire (RG p5.05 p285) was formally opened by Managing Director Paul Johnson and Knorr-Bremse Rail AG executive board member Dr Dieter Wilhelm. The ceremony marked the completion of the relocation of the braking system ...
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News
New hope for Hope Downs
THE ACQUISITION by Rio Tinto of a stake in the Hope Downs iron ore project, announced on July 1, has cleared the way for construction of a rail link to the mine. Hope Downs is due to start producing ore in 2008, and the promoting joint venture of Hancock Prospecting ...
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News
EFC to double from mine to port
More passing loops are being built and new motive power and wagons are on order for the Carajás Railroad as a prelude to double-tracking the entire 892 km line. Murray Hughes reports from northern Brazil
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News
Dispute in Estonia
WE REPORTED last month that investors in Baltic Rail Services, the majority shareholder in Eesti Raudtee, had sent a Notice of Dispute to the Estonian government claiming a breach of bilateral investment treaties (RG 7.05 p394).BRS was seeking to initiate negotiations with the government, and failing this, it intended to ...
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News
Dieter
CAPTION: Japanese winemakers in the Katsunumacho area of Yamanashi Prefecture have found a new use for an abandoned railway tunnel. Dating from 1903, the 1·1 km Fukasawa tunnel was closed in 1997 because of its deteriorating condition. Realising that the steady year-round temperature of 15íC would be suitable ...
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News
Fleet renewal deal signed
OVER 7000 new coaches, EMU cars and locomotives are to be built for Russian Railways over the next five years, under the terms of a framework agreement reached with Transmash Holding in June.The agreement was signed by Transmash Chairman Dmitry Komissarov and the then RZD President Gennady Fadeyev. The Governor ...
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News
DaQin line strengthened
Traffic on the 632 km Datong - Qinhuangdao heavy haul coal line increased from 123·7 million gross tonnes in 2003 to 150 MGT last year, according to Liu Zhengjie of the China Academy of Railway Sciences. He told the Railway Engineering conference in London on June 30 that this year ...
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News
Czech sleepers
SIEMENS signed a €26·5m contract on June 22 to supply Czech Railways with 12 air-conditioned WLABmz 200 km/h sleeping cars which will be used on international services to Italy, Switzerland and Germany from November 2006.Financed by INGLease, the vehicles will be built at Siemens’ SKV Praha-Zlicin plant. They will have ...
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News
Under control
SERENA SOFTWARE has supplied railway monitoring, diagnostics and software firm Mer Mec with its Dimensions platform, which is being used to manage all projects across the company, reducing time to market and ensuring compliance with design regulations.Head of Mer Mec’s Quality Department Francesco Muolo said Dimensions was adopted ’to unify ...
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News
French firms take Italian contracts
ON JULY 5 French transport group Transdev confirmed that it had been selected for a six-year contract to operate the metro, funicular, rack railway and bus services in Genova. With 630000 inhabitants making an average of 239 trips per year, Genova is the first Italian city to put the operation ...
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News
Stock contracts renegotiated
SPANISH National Railways has revised two rolling stock contracts originally awarded on February 24 2004 to reflect the requirements of the PEIT infrastructure plan (p459) and changing expectations of its future rolling stock requirements. A consortium of CAF and Alstom was awarded a €583·8m contract to supply 45 gauge-changing EMUs ...
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Concessions revised
NEW concessions to operate 14 regional routes in the Netherlands were awarded to NS Reizigers on July 1, in line with legislation that came into effect on January 1 this year. Most of the concessions are limited to two years or less, giving the transport ministry time to put its ...