Infrastructure news – Page 194
-
NewsConstruction Act brings Fehmarn tunnel civil works closer
DENMARK: Construction of the Fehmarn Belt fixed link road and railway tunnel moved a step closer on April 28 when the Danish parliament adopted the proposed Construction Act for the project. The fixed link will comprise an 18 km immersed tube tunnel between Rødbyhavn on Lolland and Puttgarden on the ...
-
NewsSiemens opens signalling research centre
SPAIN: On April 27 King Felipe VI officially opened a signalling research and development centre at the headquarters of Siemens España, located in Tres Cantos to the north of Madrid. Employing 350 staff, the new global centre of competence for signalling and train control will channel an annual investment budget ...
-
NewsBelgrano upgrading funded
ARGENTINA: Regional development agency Fonplata has agreed to provide 59% of the US$60m cost of upgrading 80 km of the Belgrano network between Perico in Jujuy province and Pocitos in Salta. The remaining 41% is to be provided by local sources. Aiming to restore the rail link between northern Argentina ...
-
NewsABB wins Swiss substation contracts
SWITZERLAND: ABB has received turnkey contracts worth US$30m from Swiss Federal Railways and private operator Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn to supply three traction substations by 2018. The manufacturer says that this will help the operators to increase capacity by strengthening and stabilising their power supplies. The SBB order covers 132/66/15/11 ...
-
NewsEnlarged Rail Hub Milano opens
ITALY: An opening ceremony for the enlarged Rail Hub Milano was held in Melzo, to the east of Milano, on April 23. The rail yard has been enlarged from 160 000 m2 to 260 000 m2 and four new 750 m long tracks have increased the internal rail length ...
-
NewsTennant Creek – Mount Isa railway study
AUSTRALIA: The Northern Territory government has committed A$1m to undertake a feasibility study for the construction of a 600 km line from Tennant Creek, NT, to Mount Isa in Queensland. The study is expected to take two years to complete. The east-west link connecting the Alice Springs – Darwin ...
-
NewsWorld rail infrastructure market April 2015
Austria: EIB is providing track contractor Swietelsky with a €50m loan to support the development of faster and cheaper maintenance methods. The project is being undertaken at Swietelsky’s R&D centre in Fischamend and includes the construction of two prototype maintenance vehicles. Egypt: National Authority for Tunnels has awarded Alstom, ...
-
NewsElectric Traction - Motive Power and Energy Supply
by Andreas Steimel BOOK REVIEW: This 400-page book is a compilation of lectures held at Ruhr-Universität Bochum over the past 20 years, and is intended for readers with a solid knowledge of electric motors and electronics. After a short historical review of electric traction and mechanical drives, the ...
-
NewsChina backs Jakarta – Bandung high speed proposal
INDONESIA: On the fringes of the Asian-African Summit on April 22, President Joko Widodo and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding for the two countries to co-operate on the development of a high speed line between Jakarta and Bandung. Provisionally costed at US$6·7bn, ...
-
NewsA Coruña - Vigo upgrade completed
SPAIN: Renfe introduced a new timetable on the A Coruña – Vigo route on April 18, featuring express services operated with Class 121 EMUs which according to the national operator have increased capacity by 40% and cut journey times by up to 58%. Renfe reports that 6 200 tickets ...
-
NewsERTMS User Group adopts formal specifications tool
EUROPE: The ERTMS Users Group has decided to use the ERTMSFormalSpecs open source tool as part of its process to manage change requests in the ERTMS specifications. Under a contract signed with the tool’s developer ERTMS Solutions on April 13, the ERTMS Users Group will make use of the ...
-
NewsCross-border railway study commissioned
CZECH REPUBLIC: Infrastructure manager SŽDC has appointed a joint venture of Mott MacDonald and Sudop Praha to undertake studies for a proposed be 200 to 350 km/h cross-border line connecting Litoměřice and Ústí nad Labem with Dresden in Germany. The electrified route through the Krušné hory/Erzgebirge mountains would bypass the ...
-
NewsMyHSR Corp to oversee high speed project
SOUTHEAST ASIA: The Malaysian government has approved the establishment of MyHSR Corp, a state-backed project delivery company which is to manage Malaysia’s share in the 38bn ringgit Kuala Lumpur – Singapore high speed project. As a first step, the Malaysian finance ministry is to be issued with 10 million ...
-
NewsX-ray backscatter looks deep inside sleepers
USA: Georgetown Rail Equipment Co and the University of Florida’s Nuclear Engineering Department have developed Aurora Xi, a method of using X-ray backscatter technology to look deep inside sleepers to reveal internal flaws which traditional inspections might not discover. As well as identifying decay in wooden sleepers and cracks in ...
-
NewsCN announces Western Canada feeder line investment
CANADA: CN announced a multi-year programme to invest C$500m in infrastructure improvements on feeder rail lines in Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan on April 16. CN said freight volumes in Western Canada have increased by more than 50% over the past five years, and the lines are handling rising volumes of ...
-
NewsAll Aboard Florida selects GE signalling
USA: Private inter-city service promoter All Aboard Florida has selected GE Transportation to supply signalling equipment for the 375 km corridor it plans to use between Miami and Orlando. GE Transportation said its sites in Melbourne and Jacksonville, Florida, would lead the design and engineering, with manufacturing in Warrensburg, ...
-
NewsOstrava airport rail link opens
CZECH REPUBLIC: Ostrava became the first city in the country with a rail link to its international airport when a single-track electrified line to Leoš Janáček Airport in Mošnov was inaugurated on April 13. The KC553m project was 85 % funded by the European Union, with the remainder from the ...
-
NewsA new infrastructure company by 2017
VOSSLOH: Vossloh AG will be transformed into a ‘new rail infrastructure company’ by 2017, the company said when presenting its results for 2014. The year’s financial performance was impacted by restructuring and realignment. ‘We took forward-looking, far-reaching decisions in 2014’, said Chairman Hans M Schabert. ‘In 2015, we are ...
-
NewsCutting edge technology
UK: Following two years of development, Terock Ltd has received Network Rail approval for its TRS330 rail shear, purpose-designed for cutting and clearing scrap rail. The road-rail vehicle mounted shear has a 1 000-tonne cutting force for breaking 65 kg/m rail quickly and efficiently, with 360° rotation which enables ...
-
NewsPlasser & Theurer delivers ballast profilers
POLAND: Plasser & Theurer has supplied infrastructure manager PKP PLK with two USP 2010 SWS-U universal ballast distribution and profiling machines. The P-IC 2.0 Plasser Intelligent Control system offers a clear touch-screen menu with access to all machine functions from one place. The machines have a centre plough, shoulder ploughs ...