All Railway Gazette International articles in February 2002
All articles published this month.
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News
Second thoughts at Roissy
BACK in 1992 Aéroports de Paris rejected a Fr410m bid from Matra to build a rubber-tyred driverless VAL mini-metro to ferry passengers between terminals at Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport. Instead ADP chose Soulé’s SK-6000 cable-powered peoplemover, but after a lengthy testing period decided this was not sufficiently reliable. It called a halt ...
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Shinkansen reservations
East Japan Railway planned to launch an English-language website on January 21. Located at www.world.eki-net.com it will allow overseas customers to reserve seats on all shinkansen and Narita Express airport services up to one month before travelling. A Japanese-language site has been in operation since April last year.Passengers need ...
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Publications
Nahverkehrs-Taschenbuch 2002A useful three-volume directory of the German public transport industry covering both passenger and freight. Details of operators, institutions and research centres are given in Volume I, consultants and suppliers are listed in Volume II, and Volume III is an alphabetical directory of key personnel in all sectors of ...
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News
Umtata upgrade proposed
SOUTH AFRICA’S Eastern Cape provincial transport department has called bids for the refurbishment of the 282 km railway to the former Transkei capital Umtata. The department’s Director for Policy & Projects Lan Situma expects to award a contract next month for a turnkey package, which would include infrastructure and signalling ...
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Pointers
n A delegation of Iraqi Transport Ministry officials was due to join Foreign Secretary Naji Sabri on a visit to Iran at the end of January to discuss proposals for construction of a Baghdad - Tehran rail link.n Swedish infrastructure authority Banverket announced on January 7 that the first Ikea ...
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PEOPLE
Netherlands Railways President & Director-General Hans Huisinga and Director of External Relations Roy Lantain resigned on January 2, together with the company’s entire Supervisory Board under Chairman Jan Timmer. Wim Meyer has been appointed Board Chairman, and Karel J Noordzij Acting President for six months (p59).Indonesian Railway Public Corp President ...
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News
NS spending trimmed
MORE MAINTENANCE and fewer major investment projects is the essence of Norfolk Southern’s capital improvement budget for 2002, announced by Chairman, President & CEO David R Goode on December 13. Planned spending totals $705m, compared with $806m in 2001.The programme provides $482m for infrastructure projects, including $366m for track and ...
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Metros
Bulgaria: Sofia Tramway is negotiating for an EBRD loan to fund the modernisation of up to 45 trams and purchase of 20 new vehicles.China: Guangzhou Metro Corp has selected Siemens’ optic fibre Open Transport Network for data transmission on Line 2, now under construction.A batch of new light rail cars ...
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Market
Brazil: Holland Company has supplied a customised TrackStar road-rail track recording vehicle to MRS Logistíca. It is fitted with EH Reeves’s Laserail geometry measuring equipment.Colombia: Steer Davies Gleave has been commissioned to carry out an audit of traffic and revenue forecasts for Atlantic Railway concession holder Fenoco SA.Denmark: Porterbrook Leasing ...
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More maglev vehicles in Yamanashi trials
ASSESSMENT of the results from running tests carried out on Japan’s 18·4 km experimental maglev guideway near Otsuki in Yamanashi prefecture since April 1997 has prompted a further series of trials using two more vehicles due to be delivered later this year.JR Central, which is promoting the development of superconducting ...
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Low-noise wheel
Unveiled at WCRR was the Syope noise-reducing wheel developed by Lucchini of Italy. Trials have taken place on Italian State Railways with ETR470 and ETR500 high speed trainsets, and the first application on a commercial train will be on the Pendolino units being built for Czech Railways.Sound is damped by ...
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Southwest links open
CHINESE Minister of Railways Fu Zhihuan joined ceremonies at Guiyang on December 30 to mark the completion of upgrading work on CR’s Zhuzhou - Liupanshui line. The 1139 km electrified line connecting the industrial heart of Hunan province with the southwestern coalfields of Guizhou province has been double-tracked at a ...
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Portable ticket issuing
BRITISH inter-city operator Midland Main Line is to begin using SchlumbergerSema’s Avantix Mobile ticket-issuing machine this month. Based on a Pocket PC, 1500 Avantix Mobile units will replace existing portable machines on National Express Group’s nine franchises.Avantix Mobile can print magnetic stripe tickets for use with automatic barrier gates, and ...
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News
IR studies network wiring
ISRAEL RAILWAYS has called tenders for a preliminary design study into the electrification of its entire network, totalling 700 route-km. Previous proposals had only envisaged wiring the 320 route-km passenger network radiating from Tel Aviv, but the new plan would include the heavy-haul freight routes in the south of the ...
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INTELLIGENCE
Australia: Victoria state government has decided not to build a rail link to Melbourne airport in the next 10 years, following the prediction of low patronage in a report by Booz·Allen & Hamilton. However, the proposed alignment is to be reserved for future rail use.South Australia began negotiations last month ...
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PATHstudies integrated ticketing
PORT Authority Trans-Hudson commissioners voted on December 13 to adopt a fare collection system which will accept both smart cards and New York City Transit MetroCards. It is hoped the PATH smart cards will eventually be accepted on all rail and bus lines throughout the New York and New Jersey ...
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High speed laboratory
SPAIN’s Ministry of Development is to establish a high speed research facility that will test components as well as signalling and control systems. Work will also be directed towards ensuring interoperability across the Spanish high speed network. Funding to establish the facility will be provided by Cedex, the ministry’s research ...
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Simple heating
COLD spots in coaches, including vestibules and toilets, can be eliminated using Taipale Flex-El, a 0·2mm thick heating film developed in Finland. This is powered by the vehicle’s electrical supply. It requires no maintenance, and can be installed unobtrusively behind panels or under the floor. Flex-El can raise the ...
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Hand-held readers on test
TRIALS of a hand-held portable smart card ticket reader are to begin on Northern Ireland Railways this summer.NIR is introducing smart card ticketing as part of a £6m Translink scheme to integrate the province’s trains and buses. Rather than equip stations with barriers, NIR is to issue on-train staff with ...