Europe – Page 222
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Rail Business UKPorterbrook completes £250m refinancing
UK: Porterbrook has announced the successful refinancing of its £250m public bond, locking in low funding costs 12 months ahead of the bond’s maturity in October 2020. A £100m samurai loan has been raised from a syndicate of four Japanese institutional investors, in what Porterbrook said was ...
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NewsPatrick Jeantet returns to Keolis
FRANCE: Currently Chairman & CEO of national infrastructure manager SNCF Réseau, Patrick Jeantet is to return to Keolis Group next year as Executive Chairman, succeeding former Chief Executive Jean-Pierre Farandou who took over as President of SNCF on November 1. Announcing the appointment following an extraordinary meeting ...
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NewsPolicies needed to maintain EU rail suppliers’ global leadership
EUROPE: A report setting out policy measures which are needed to maintain the European supply sector’s ‘global leadership’ and competitiveness has been published by an EU expert group drawn from across the rail industry. Established a result of a European Parliament resolution in 2016, the group includes ...
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NewsTiranë airport rail link tenders invited
ALBANIA: Prequalified bidders have been invited to tender for a contract to modernise the existing 34·5 km railway between Durrës and the Tiranë Public Transport Terminal and construct a 5 km link to the international airport at Rinas. Both routes should be equipped with ETCS Level 1, ...
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NewsFour bidders seek Spanish train paths
SPAIN: Infrastructure manager ADIF has received four requests for capacity to operate passenger services on the ‘general interest’ national network including the main high speed corridors. Applications for train paths from December 14 2020 were submitted by national incumbent RENFE, the Rielsfera subsidiary of France’s SNCF, Motion ...
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NewsDigital campus supports Norway’s ERTMS roll-out
NORWAY: ‘The railway is moving into the digital era’, announced Digitisation Minister Nikolai Astrup, on October 31, when he inaugurated Bane NOR’s ERTMS test and training centre at Campus Nyland on October 31.
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NewsTransContainer orders flat wagons
RUSSIA: Intermodal operator TransContainer has awarded United Wagon Co a contract to supply 100 Type 13-6851-05 flat wagons for the transport of heavy containers and tank containers. The contract announced on October 29 is TransContainer’s second for the type, following on from an order for 30 Type ...
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NewsRussian Railways approves digital transformation strategy
RUSSIA: A digital transformation strategy running to 2025 has been approved by the Russian Railways board. The document defines the conceptual foundations and principles for the national railway’s digitalisation, setting priorities including the substitution of foreign IT with domestic technology. One of the main features of the ...
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NewsFuel cell train to be tested in the Netherlands
NETHERLANDS: A Coradia iLint hydrogen fuel-cell multiple-unit is to be tested on the Groningen – Leeuwarden line after an agreement was signed at the Klimaattop Noord NL climate summit by manufacturer Alstom, the province of Groningen, local operator Arriva, infrastructure manager ProRail and energy company Engie. ...
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Metro Report InternationalBetter bus operations through quantum computing
PORTUGAL: Volkswagen is to test bus operation optimisation with the aid of quantum computing during the WebSummit conference taking place in Lisbon on November 4-8. Nine buses manufactured by MAN and operated by Carris will be equipped with a traffic management system that Volkswagen has developed in ...
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NewsIarnród Éireann orders DMU cars to increase commuter capacity
IRELAND: Government approval for the €150m purchase of 41 intermediate coaches to lengthen Iarnród Éireann’s InterCity Railcar diesel multiple-units was announced by Minister for Transport, Tourism & Sport Shane Ross on October 30. This will provide a 34% increase in peak capacity across the Kildare Line, Maynooth ...
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Metro Report InternationalThales wins Docklands Light Railway signalling contracts
UK: Thales has been awarded two contracts for signalling and train control equipment on the Docklands Light Railway light metro in east London, the supplier announced on October 31. Transport for London has awarded Thales a contract to supply upgrades to the signalling software subsystems on the ...
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NewsFreight to be focus of Shift2Rail successor
EUROPE: Freight is likely to be a core focus of the successor to the Shift2Rail joint technology initiative, S2R Executive Director Carlo Borghini told Railway Gazette on October 30 on the sidelines of the World Congress on Railway Research in Tokyo. While the so-called Shift2Rail II programme ...
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NewsStella Artois train launched
BELGIUM: A rail freight service carrying beer for brewing company AB InBev was inaugurated by Minister-President of Flanders Jan Jambon on October 28. The trains operated by Lineas each carry 47 containers directly from a warehouse owned by Katoen Natie to DP World’s Quay 1700 within the ...
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NewsStadler beats CRRC to win Westbahn fleet replacement
AUSTRIA: A contract for the supply and maintenance of a fleet of 15 six-car Kiss double-deck electric multiple-units was signed on October 29 by Stadler, Wien – Salzburg open access operator Westbahn and leasing company Austrian Train Finance. The order is worth just under €300m, with delivery ...
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Metro Report InternationalBattery trolleybuses delivered to Limoges
FRANCE: Limoges has taken delivery of two battery trolleybuses made by Iveco and Škoda Electric. Last year Iveco won a contract for two trolleybuses with an option for four more. The articulated vehicles made to Iveco’s Crealis design feature traction equipment from Škoda, which has also undertaken ...
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Rail Business UKNorthern rail crisis is a ‘collective system inability’, says Arriva UK Trains MD
Arriva UK Trains Managing Director Chris Burchell talks to Rail Business UK about ongoing problems at the Northern franchise, where performance has been hit by the late delivery of new trains, a series of industrial disputes and the inability of the infrastructure to handle the timetable.
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NewsLiefkenshoek rail tunnel PPP refinanced
BELGIUM: The BAM PPP-PGGM joint venture of Royal BAM Group’s public-private partnership arm BAM PPP and Dutch institutional pension fund investor PGGM has refinanced €580m of debt and associated interest swaps relating to the Liefkenshoek rail link in Antwerpen. The 16 km link including a 6·5 km ...
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NewsUkrainian Railways considers fleet modernisation options
UKRAINE: National railway UZ is negotiating with manufacturers for the purchase of main line electric locomotives to replace its ageing Soviet-era fleet, including VL8 locomotives first produced in 1955. On October 17 Chairman Yevgen Kravtsov met a French delegation led by Transport Minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari to discuss ...
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NewsEffiShunter 1000 handed over to ČD Cargo
CZECH REPUBLIC: The first of five CZ Loko EffiShunter 1000 Bo-Bo diesel-electric locomotives ordered by national freight operator ČD Cargo under the fleet renewal programme launched in January 2018 was officially handed over on September 30. The loco is to be used ...