Infrastructure news – Page 187
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NewsHigh speed line to Essaouira planned
MOROCCO: The government has issued a Declaration of Public Utility for the development of a second high speed line, which would link Marrakech with the coastal city of Essaouira. National railway ONCF has been tasked with leading the planning and design of the railway, including assessing land acquisition requirements. Covering ...
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NewsTwo more LGV branches to go ahead
FRANCE: Transport Minister Alain Vidalies announced on September 26 that the government intends to proceed with plans to extend the high speed network from Bordeaux to Toulouse and Dax. The decision in favour of what is known as the Grand Projet Ferroviaire du Sud-Ouest reverses the negative finding of a ...
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NewsTrans-Pennine and Midland Main Line electrification by 2023 as work unpaused
UK: Work to electrify the trans-Pennine and Midland Main Line routes is to resume with completion envisaged by 2023, Secretary of State for Transport Patrick McLoughlin announced on September 30. Following significant delays and cost over-runs on the electrification of the Great Western Main Line from London to Bristol and ...
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NewsValladolid – León high speed line opens
SPAIN: Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy joined Development Minister Ana Pastor and Juan Vicente Herrera, President of the Castilla y León regional government, to officially open the 162⋅7 km high speed line between Valladolid and León on September 29. Built at a cost of €1⋅62bn for operation at up to 350 ...
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NewsTesting starts on LGV Est Phase 2
FRANCE: National operator SNCF has started test running on the second phase of LGV Est Européan. An instrumented EuroDuplex TGV decked out in a commemorative livery began running over the new section of the route on the morning of September 28. Running for 106 km between the end of Phase ...
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NewsEFE unveils US$7∙5bn masterplan
CHILE: Grupo EFE President Jorge Inostroza unveiled a US$7⋅5bn investment masterplan on September 23, which aims to increase traffic on the state railway from 30 million to 100 million passenger-journeys a year by 2022. ‘No predecessor of mine has ever presented a plan like this’, said Inostroza, noting that EFE ...
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NewsAshkelon – Be’er Sheva’ railway completed
ISRAEL: Israel Railways launched passenger services from Netivot to Be’er Sheva’ on September 19, two days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Transport Minister Israel Katz joined VIPs on an inaugural train marking the completion of the through route between Ashkelon and Be’er Sheva’. There are 25 ...
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NewsStandard gauge to serve Naivasha
KENYA: The 1 435 mm gauge railway now under construction between Mombasa and Nairobi is to be extended by 120 km to serve a new economic development zone at Naivasha in the Rift Valley. An agreement to develop Phase 2A of the standard-gauge project was signed between Kenya Railways Managing ...
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NewsHigh Speed 2 civil works tendering begins
UK: The government launched the bidding process for the construction of High Speed 2 on September 24, with the issuing of a pre-qualification questionnaire for the Tranche 1 main civils works contracts. The seven contracts with a total value of £11·8bn cover construction of the surface route and tunnels ...
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NewsDART Underground to be redesigned to reduce costs
IRELAND: The €3bn DART Underground project in Dublin ‘will not proceed as currently designed’ but will instead be ‘redesigned to provide a lower cost technical solution’, Minister for Transport, Tourism & Sport Paschal Donohoe announced on September 22. DART Underground is a proposed tunnel which would link the existing line ...
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NewsADIF awards €164m ETCS contract
SPAIN: Infrastructure manager ADIF has awarded a consortium of Bombardier (€77m), Alstom (€62m) and Indra (€25m) a contract to supply and maintain signalling on the 164 km Plasencia – Cáceres – Badajoz high speed line being built as part of the corridor from Madrid to the Portuguese border. ...
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NewsSwiss government funds more maintenance
SWITZERLAND: Swiss Federal Railways has secured a 15% increase in infrastructure funding from the government for the next three-year performance contract covering 2017-20. Due to be submitted to parliament after a hearing in September, the increase is justified by a predicted 9% rise in gross tonne-km and additions to the ...
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NewsInland Rail delivery plan released
AUSTRALIA: The final report of the Inland Rail implementation group was delivered to the federal government on September 11, along with a business case developed by Australian Rail Track Corp. The delivery plan outlines a 10-year timeframe for developing the proposed 1 700km corridor between Melbourne and Brisbane via Wagga ...
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NewsAbidjan – Ouagadougou enhancement launched
AFRICA: Work to rehabilitate the 1 260 km metre-gauge railway from Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire to Ouagadougou and Kaya in Burkina Faso was launched by Ivorian Prime Minister Daniel Kablan Duncan with a ceremony at the renovated Treichville station in Abidjan on September 9. Duncan said the aim of ...
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NewsEBRD signs Kosovo infrastructure upgrading loan
KOSOVO: The European Bank for Reconstruction & Development has signed a €39·9m senior loan with infrastructure manager Infrakos to finance a three-stage modernisation of the 148 km railway linking Macedonia with Serbia via Fushë Kosovë and Mitrovicë. EBRD will also support improvements to asset management, track access charges and workforce ...
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NewsUS$4∙8bn for freight renaissance
ARGENTINA: Minister of the Interior & Transport Florencio Randazzo announced on September 8 that China Machinery Engineering Corp had signed a letter of intent to double the amount of funding it is providing to revive Argentina’s rail freight network. ‘It is a second tranche of US$2⋅4bn which we will entirely ...
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NewsØstfold ETCS pilot line goes live
NORWAY: Services on an 80 km section of the Østfoldbanen southeast of Oslo are now running under ETCS Level 2, following the formal commissioning of the first phase of Jernbaneverket’s national ERTMS roll-out. The ETCS installation on the plot line between Ski and Sarpsborg was inaugurated by Transport Minister Ketil ...
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NewsMobile Maintenance Train enters service
UK: The first of eight self-propelled Mobile Maintenance Trains which Robel is supplying to infrastructure manager Network Rail has entered service. The key feature of the MMT is the extendable cover over the floodlit working area, which provides staff with protection from the weather and from trains passing on ...
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NewsWorld rail infrastructure market September 2015
Algeria: EMA has awarded a three-year contract to extend the Constantine tram line to a consortium of Alstom, Corsan, Corviam and Cosider. Austria: ÖBB-Infrastruktur has awarded Hochtief, Implenia and Thyssen Schachtbau a €457m contract for NATM construction of the 7·4 km twin bore eastern section of the Semmering base ...
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NewsMetrolinx orders computer-based integrated control system
CANADA: Regional transport agency Metrolinx has awarded Alstom a €113m contract to provide a computer-based integrated train control system covering the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area. Commissioning is scheduled for late 2018. Announcing the contract on September 10, Alstom said its Iconis technology would provide a single control centre ...