High speed rail industry news – Page 20
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NewsFlytoget Oaris lands in Oslo
NORWAY: The first of eight Oaris EMUs being built by CAF for Oslo airport express operator Flytoget was officially unveiled on March 5. Ordered in April 2015, the four-car Class 78 units will join Flytoget’s existing fleet of 16 Adtranz-built Class 71 trainsets, providing a 50% increase in capacity to ...
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RENFE seeks ‘pro-active’ international expansion
SPAIN: RENFE will be adopting an ‘unprecedented and pro-active’ approach to international expansion as its domestic market faces more liberalisation under the EU’s Fourth Railway Package, the Spanish incumbent’s President Isaías Táboas Suárez told the Rail Live trade show in Bilbao on March 6. Suárez highlighted RENFE’s participation in ...
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Protectionism dilutes the competitive dynamic
COMMENT: Are incumbent state operators expanding their low-cost high speed offer to try and keep new entrants out of a liberalised inter-city market, and how might this fit with European competition policy, asks Railway Gazette Managing Editor Nick Kingsley.
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SNCF brings forward Ouigo expansion to Toulouse
FRANCE: Originally envisaged for 2020, Ouigo low-cost high speed services between Paris and Toulouse are now to begin running on July 6. The SNCF subsidiary has announced that ticket sales for its first trains will open on March 26. Ouigo will initially operate one train each way per day, calling ...
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Eurostar sets new ridership record
EUROPE: The introduction of direct London – Amsterdam trains and a strong increase in business travel contributed to record Eurostar ridership during 2018, the operator announced on March 5. Reporting its annual results, the cross-Channel high speed operator said 11 million passengers had used its international services during the year, ...
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FRA pulls funds from California high speed project
USA: The Federal Railroad Administration announced on February 19 that it intended to cancel $929m of federal grant destined for the high speed rail project in California. In addition, FRA ‘is actively exploring every legal option to seek the return from California of $2·5bn in Federal funds FRA previously granted ...
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Chelyabinsk – Yekaterinburg high speed rail plan
RUSSIA: A non-binding memorandum of understanding to plan a high speed railway between Chelyabinsk and Yekaterinburg was signed by the Russian Direct Investment Fund sovereign wealth fund, Siemens Mobility and the Economic Partnership Ural High-Speed Rail on February 15, on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference 2019. The proposed ...
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ALFA-X nose is 22 m long
JAPAN: East Japan Railway has unveiled the second driving car for its experimental ALFA-X Shinkansen trainset, which features a 22 m long aerodynamic nose designed to mitigate the sonic boom effect of entering and passing through tunnels at very high speed. Built at Hitachi's Kasado plant, Car 10 has a ...
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High speed line approved
CHINA: Construction of the 176 km Chengdu – Zigong Yulin Passenger-Dedicated Line has been approved, with a budget of 35·9bn yuan and opening planned for 2023. The Chengdu – Tianfu section will be built for 250 km/h operation, and the Tianfu – Zigong section for 350 km/h. There will be ...
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California high speed rail plan scaled back
USA: A scaling back of the high speed rail project in California was announced by Governor Gavin Newsom in his first State of the State address on February 12. Newsom said the project ‘as currently planned’ would ‘cost too much and take too long’, and added that there had been ...
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DB launches digital research train
GERMANY: Deutsche Bahn has unveiled a four-car laboratory train which will be available to the rail sector across Germany for testing digital technologies. Branded the Advanced TrainLab, the train is a former ICE-TD diesel-electric set able to run at 200 km/h. One of the train’s first duties has been to ...
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HS2 announces London station construction partners
UK: The preferred bidders for the Construction Partner contracts to build High Speed 2’s two London stations were announced by project promoter HS2 Ltd on February 6. A joint venture of Mace and Dragados has been selected to undertake the rebuilding of the London Euston terminus, while the Old ...
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Fyra V250 trainset on test in Italy
ITALY: Trenitalia has begun test running with one of the 17 AnsaldoBreda V250 trainsets which it acquired cheaply following their short and troubled life on Fyra services in the Netherlands and Belgium. The first test run left Milano Centrale for Bologna Centrale at 20:30 on February 4. The trainsets are ...
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Project company to support Finnish rail reforms
FINLAND: New line development, transparent access to infrastructure services and the provision of rolling stock for on-rail competition are to be facilitated by a state-owned special purpose company to be formed under plans unveiled by Minister of Transport & Communications Anne Berner on February 1. The Cabinet Committee on Economic ...
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Red look for refurbished TGV-Lyria Euroduplex
EUROPE: Franco-Swiss high speed operator TGV-Lyria has unveiled the first of 15 multi-system Euroduplex trainsets which are destined to operate all Lyria services from the December 15 2019 timetable change. Being repainted into a predominantly red livery at the PSA works in Rouen, at a rate of two or three ...
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Acciona cleared to take stake in Spanish open access company ILSA
SPAIN: Competition authority CNMC has granted approval for infrastructure construction group Acciona to acquire a controlling stake in open access passenger service promoter Intermodalidad de Levante, which was founded by Valencia-based regional airline Air Nostrum. ISLA is developing plans to launch a passenger service between Madrid in Spain and Montpellier ...
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SNCF rolls out GIRO scheduling software
FRANCE: SNCF is to deploy GIRO’s Hastus integrated scheduling and operations software to replace the existing tools which are used to manage staff and rolling stock on its network of high speed services. The software will cover around 380 trains, 5 000 drivers and onboard staff and 9 000 employees ...
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Machine vision to support autonomous trains
CHINA: US-based visual perception technology company PerceptIn has worked with rolling stock manufacturer CRRC to develop a long-range machine vision device for high speed trains which it says can automatically detect obstacles up to 1 000 m ahead, providing autonomous driving systems with the time needed to react. PerceptIn is ...
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Alstom joint venture to maintain RENFE trainsets
SPAIN: National operator RENFE has renewed three contracts for Alstom to undertake the full maintenance of 15 S-104 Avelia Pendolino high speed trainsets and to provide preventive, predictive and corrective maintenance of 106 suburban multiple-units The contracts have a total value of €125m, with the work to be undertaken by ...
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Export drive expected as Chinese market loses momentum
CHINA: While the demand for railway technology is expected to continue at a high level for the next five years, the Chinese market has lost momentum and is not expected to grow, according to a new study by German consultants SCI Verkehr. This may put pressure on Chinese suppliers to ...
