All Railway Gazette International articles in February 2007
All articles published this month.
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News
Regional franchises benefit from an international perspective
Over the past decade, several state-owned railways from mainland Europe have looked at participating in the UK passenger rail franchising market. So far the only successful entrant has been NedRailways, which runs Merseyrail and Northern Rail in partnership with Serco. Chief Executive Anton Valk explains
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NewsCapacity crunch looms on busy UK network as policy failures bite
Contrasts abound in the complex UK railway business, with high costs militating against network enhancements despite the urgent need to raise capacity
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News
British franchising policy rewards high bids
LAST NOVEMBER the UK House of Commons Transport Committee published a hard-hitting report about the franchising process for passenger services (RG 12.06 p768), describing the current structure as a 'complex, fragmented and costly muddle'. In terms of cost, the Association of Train Operating Companies estimates that it costs between £3m ...
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NewsCross-London projects languish on the back burner
WHILE the East London Line is finally being rebuilt to provide rapid and frequent services along a corridor linking London's northern and southern suburbs, two major projects to make it simple for rail passengers to travel across London have made spectacularly little progress over the last 15 years. The Thameslink ...
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News
Finance February 2007
Africa: The Northern Corridor Transit Transport Co-ordination Authority based in Mombasa is to receive US$3m from the African Development Bank and World Bank to prepare an infrastructure master plan for trade and transport in east Africa. A further US$1·5m has been budgeted to establish a Central Corridor agency to manage ...
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NewsQR on course to move freight throughout Australia
A transformation is taking place in Australian rail freight, as Queensland's state-owned railway emerges as the stronger of two major players and Pacific National seeks a new backer under Toll ownership. Richard Hope asked CEO Bob Scheuber where QR is heading now
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News
Extension takes East London Line from Underground to Overground
Due for completion in June 2010, Phase 1 of the East London Line extension programme will see one of London Underground's shortest routes become part of a new orbital link connecting the main line network north and south of the Thames
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News
DB reform proposals bring more shadows than light
Next month, a working party convened by the German transport ministry is due to come up with legislative proposals for the partial flotation of Deutsche Bahn. However, there are still many policy discrepancies, which may impact on the European strategy for greater liberalisation of the continent's railways
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News
TCDD celebrates as high speed line nears completion
Delegates attending two seminars in December to mark the 150th anniversary of railways in Turkey were able to inspect progress on the first sections of the Ankara - Istanbul high speed line, reports Felix Schmid, Associate Professor in Railway Systems Engineering at the University of Birmingham
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News
Common standards regime needed to assure engineering competence
DETAILED ANALYSIS of the way the competence of individuals is assured in the UK rail industry has been undertaken by the Railway Engineers Forum, which brings together the established institutions representing civil, mechanical, electrical, signalling and track engineers. A paper published in November includes proposals that could reconcile inconsistencies in ...
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News
Test track speeds up
The Railway Research Institute subsidiary of Czech Railways formally marked the completion of a KC60m modernisation of a 5 km section of its Cerhenice test track on December 13. Track on the larger of the test site's two loops has been upgraded to permit conventional trains to run at 210 ...
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News
Vossloh IT sold
ON JANUARY 11 Vossloh Group announced the sale of its Information Technologies division to Funkwerk AG, which will take over the unit for a provisional price of k8m.In the first nine months of the 2006 fiscal year Vossloh IT reported a pre-tax loss of k9?3m. This disposal will result in ...
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News
Sena reopening
MOZAMBIQUE state railway authority CFM announced last month that it expected services to resume on the southern part of the Sena line ’before March’. After a 20-year hiatus caused by civil war, trains will start to carry limestone over the 90?km section from quarries at Muanza to a cement factory ...
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News
Reinforcing research work
TENSAR International will use Railtex to unveil the results of research into stiff polymer geogrids which has been undertaken by Network Rail and the University of Nottingham.Full-scale testing at the university looked at the influence of grid properties such as stiffness and aperture size, showing that significant reductions in track ...
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News
RandstadRail repairs
FOLLOWING the two derailments which disrupted RandstadRail services in November (RG 1.07 p14), operator HTM commissioned Delta Rail to track down the causes. The consultant has identified weaknesses in key components of the 60 turnouts on the Hofplein Line, which were due to be remedied by the end of January, ...
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News
Wheel and rail protection
ROWE Hankins Components will present a selection of equipment for on-train and trackside safety and protection. A new product on show will be an on-board intelligent Wheel Flange Lubrication System, which protects rails and flanges from excess wear, cutting noise and maintenance costs. The key elements of WFLS are a ...
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News
Powder River ruling
PROPOSALS by Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad to build a 420?km line into Wyoming’s Powder River Basin coalfields are back on course. A court ruling on December 28 upheld a decision by the US Surface Transportation Board granting final approval for the $6bn project, which also envisages rebuilding 965?km of ...
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News
Mumbai SPV
THE SPECIAL Purpose Vehicle company to build and operate Line 1 of the planned Mumbai metro network under a 35-year BOT concession was officially incorporated on December 22. Under the PPP agreement signed earlier this year (RG 7.06 p378), Mumbai Metro One Pvt Ltd is owned 74% by the Reliance ...
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News
MTS wins Tel-Aviv metro
IN A CEREMONY on December 31, Israeli Finance Minister Abraham Hirschson, Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz and representatives from the project manager NTA announced that the MTS consortium had been selected as concessionaire to develop the Tel-Aviv light metro Red Line between Bat Yam and Petach Tikvah. Headed by local firm ...