All Railway Gazette International articles in February 2003
All articles published this month.
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News
Testing time on the tightrope
A MOMENT of truth is arriving for the top management of French National Railways. President Louis Gallois has received fresh instructions from the Raffarin government, and these will translate into quite different policies from those followed in the recent past. Gallois’ contract expires at the end of this month, and ...
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Transrapid takes off
RIGHT ON schedule, Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji and German Chancellor Gerhard Schr
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Subway upgrade
RESIGNALLING of the busy 8th Avenue subway in New York is to be completed by 2007, following the award of a $162m contract to Granite Halmar by MTA New York City Transit. The modernisation covers the final 32 track-km on the Concourse line from 205th Street in the Bronx to ...
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Privatisation takes a tumble in Victoria
FEARS THAT private-sector operations in the Australian state of Victoria may be at the point of collapse were confirmed at the end of last year. Issuing a pre-close trading update on December 16 for the 2002 financial year, UK-based rail and bus operator National Express Group confirmed that it was ...
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Planning for robustness
TIMETABLE robustness in the event of delays and disruptions can be automatically analysed using a software package developed by Vossloh System-Technik. TTRA dynamically generates simulated train delays across a network according to random or predetermined patterns. The impact on planned services is predicted, with conflicts automatically resolved and aggregated delays ...
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National portal
BRITAIN’S Department for Transport has awarded a £15m three-year contract to a consortium of Atkins, BBC Technology, ESRI and Real Time Engineering to deliver Transport Direct. SchlumbergerSema is project manager.Transport Direct is a planned national multi-modal transport information portal. A website will be set up later this year, and ...
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News
Railned and RIB merge as ProRail
WITH EFFECT from January 1, the three separate organisations with responsibility for rail infrastructure in the Netherlands have been merged to form a single infrastructure operator, known as ProRail. The move was proposed at the end of 2001, as part of the government’s strategy to simplify the railway structure (RG ...
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Porto LRT opens
JANUARY 1 saw the start of revenue operation on the first line of the Porto light rail network, with the inauguration of 9·3 km of the Blue line between Matosinhos and Trinidade. A limited demonstration service had been offered on part of the route from June 29 until November 17 ...
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Metrosur live
On January 15 the first test run was made on the Metrosur ring route in the southwest suburbs of Madrid. The first metro line in the Spanish capital to be electrified at 1·5 kV DC from new, supplied through a rigid overhead, the 40·5 km ring serving 28 stations is ...
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Reading to move in-house
NETWORK Rail announced on January 13 that it will take over responsibility for inspection and day-to-day maintenance of infrastructure in the Reading area from Amey, after the current contract worth around £50m a year expires on March 31. Agreement has been reached for the Great Western Zone to assume the ...
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High speed plans take shape
While a demonstration run with the Pudong airport maglev line in Shanghai on December 31 hogged the headlines at the turn of the year, Chinese Railways is making steady progress with development of conventional steel-wheel technology for high speed applications
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Madrid suburban growth
THE MINISTRY of Development in Spain is to call tenders for the second section of the new tunnel for suburban services between Atocha and Chamartín stations in Madrid. Within a budget of €95·6m, work to bore a 3·4 km tunnel from new platforms at Nuevos Ministerios to Charmartín is expected ...
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Moscow metro grows
DECEMBER 31 saw completion of a 5 km extension of the Moscow metro, with the inauguration of Dmitry Donskoy Boulevard station at the southern end of the Serpukhovskaya line (RG 1.01 p35). This takes the network outside the orbital ring road for the first time. The terminus will form an ...
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Italian investment keeps growing
INTRO: Holding company Ferrovie dello Stato expects to see capital investment grow at 20% a year between now and 2005. Angelo Scorza reports ANOTHER MAJOR investment programme for the Italian rail network was announced by FS President & Managing Director Giancarlo Cimoli on December 13. ’We have invested €5·4bn in ...
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IR private finance initiative
ON DECEMBER 26 Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee formally launched three major rail investment projects across the country via a satellite link. The schemes in Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat are the first to be funded through the Rashtriya Rail Vikas Yojana, (National Rail Development Board). This is a ...
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Paris trams keep expanding
PARIS transport operator RATP has put the first of 13 Alstom Citadis 302 LRVs into service on Line T2 between La Défense and Issy-Val de Seine, and in December it ordered a second batch of 13 cars worth €21m for delivery in 2004. The route’s existing Alstom TSF cars will ...
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GE launches Evolution prototype
IN A CEREMONY on December 23, General Electric Transportation Systems rolled out a prototype of its Evolution Series diesel-electric locomotive at the Lawrence Park plant in Erie, Pennsylvania. The loco is designed to meet tighter Environmental Protection Agency standards coming into force from 2005, while using 3% less fuel than ...
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Eurofima profits
EUROFIMA’s annual results for 2002 showed a net profit of SFr47·1m. Cash flow was up 3·1% on 2001, to SFr62·4m. Compared to 2001, net interest income increased 6·1% to SFr51·8m. Commissions income fell 4·9% to SFr15·4m. Income from other financial operations decreased by 8·4% to SFr2·9m, and total operating costs ...
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Playing it safe with ETCS
TO AVOID the risk of delaying the opening of the 45 km cut-off now being built between Mattstetten and Rothrist on the main line linking Bern and Zürich, Swiss Federal Railways will equip the double-track alignment with conventional lineside signalling and ZUB train protection as well as ETCS Level 2. ...
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ERTMS under review
ONJANUARY 14 theUKHealth &Safety Executive released three reports into the ERTMS implementation plans put forward last April (RG 6.02 p314). Both the review of economic aspects by the NERA consultancy, and the NEL Consortium study into technical aspects roundly condemn as impractical and unjustified on safety grounds the Uff/Cullen Joint ...