Infrastructure news – Page 258
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NewsWorld infrastructure market March 2010
Austria: ÖBB has awarded the Alptransit Energie consortium of Rhomberg Bahntechnik and DB Bahnbau a €39m contract to supply electrical equipment for the quadrupling of the 41 km Kufstein - Innsbruck section of the Brenner corridor. Algeria: Dessau has a US$38·8m contract to undertake final design for reconstruction of ...
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NewsLondon - Birmingham starts high speed railway to the north
UK: Transport Secretary Lord Adonis published the government's high speed rail strategy on March 11, setting out details of a planned 400 km/h high speed railway between London and Birmingham which could open by 2026 as the first part of a Y-shaped network serving Leeds and Manchester. The route developed ...
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NewsHigh speed tunnels broken through
GERMANY: Federal Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer, DB Chief Executive Rüdiger Grube and Sachsen-Anhalt Transport Minster Karl-Heinz Daehre watched the breakthrough of the 6 466 m western bore of the Bibra tunnel on March 3. The 6 970 m Finne tunnel was also holed through on the same day. Three twin-bore ...
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NewsPlastic railway bridges
USA: Two short bridges on a freight line near the Fort Eustis Army Transportation Corps base in Virginia, USA, are to be replaced by structures consisting almost entirely of recycled plastic. The plastic materials should allow the weight limit of the structures to be increased to 118 tonnes, giving greater ...
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NewsNetanyahu’s rail expansion plans approved
ISRAEL: The Ministry of Transport & Road Safety announced on February 24 that the government had approved the US$7·2bn first phase of the ‘Israel Ways’ transport investment package, promoted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Transport Minister Yisrael Katz. The ambitious plan originally envisaged expenditure of US$14bn ...
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NewsPilbara heavy haul extension opens
AUSTRALIA: The first 163-wagon iron ore train left the Mesa A/Warramboo mine in the Pilbara on February 19, using a 49 km extension of the Deepdale heavy haul line from Pannawonica to reach the port at Cape Lambert. The train was driven by Shane Edwards, a local Aboriginal man, as ...
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NewsCaspian rail corridor funds agreed
TURKMENISTAN: Two funding agreements have been signed for construction of sections of the 686 km north-south railway which will link Kazakhstan and Iran via Turkmenistan, running inland parallel to the Caspian Sea. On February 18 the Asian Development Bank and the government of Turkmenistan signed a memorandum of understanding under ...
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NewsMeasuring the Expo extension
USA: Amberg Technologies has introduced its GRP track measurement trolley in the USA, where contractor Balfour Beatty Rail Inc is using it during tracklaying on Phase 1 of the Expo light rail line in Los Angeles. The trolley can be used for a range of alignment tasks, including as-built ...
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NewsCrash investigations underway in Brussels
BELGIUM: Domestic and international train services into Brussels Midi remain severely disrupted as investigations continue into the cause of the fatal train crash at Buizingen during the morning rush hour on February 15. The worst railway accident in Belgium for more than 50 years killed 18 people, including one of ...
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NewsDurflex rights acquired
TRACK: Bayer MaterialScience has acquired global marketing and usage rights to the Durflex trackform technology from Hyperion Verwaltung GmbH. The technology was developed by Hyperion in co-operation with track design specialist Frenzel-Bau. It is based on the use of Bayer's Bayflex polyurethane foam, which is fed into the space between ...
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NewsRFF signs GSM-R concession
FRANCE: Réseau Ferré de France signed its first public-private partnership concession agreement on February 18, covering the installation and operation over 15 years of GSM-R communications systems, which are to be rolled out on 14 000 route-km of the core network by 2015. Winning bidder is the Synerail consortium, bringing ...
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NewsHigh speed funding package agreed
MOROCCO: An allocation of 20bn dirhams for a high speed line between Tanger and Casablanca is included in the 2010-15 Contract Programme which ONCF Director General Mohammed Rabie Khlie signed with the government on February 1. During a ceremony presided over by King Mohammed VI, Lakhlie also signed an ...
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NewsRussia to announce high speed line plan
RUSSIA: Next month Russian Railways will unveil detailed proposals for a 'European standard' high speed line, RZD Vice-President Avtandil Gorgiladze told the EurasiaRail 2010 conference in Istanbul on February 10. The Siemens Velaro RUS trains which have been operating Sapsan services between Moscow and St Petersburg since December were designed ...
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NewsWorld infrastructure market February 2010
Argentina: Infrastructure authority ADIF has selected Grupo Roggio, Herso, Ferromel and a joint venture of Comsa, Iecsa and CPC to carry out US$200m of track renewals on 220 km of the Belgrano network. Comsa and Iecsa have begun on a three-year programme to renew track on the Sarmiento ...
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NewsCushioning the blow
VIBRATION: Huntsman Polyurethanes has introduced its Acoustiflex V MDI-based foam in combination with Trackelast pads produced by Edilon Sedra to provide better noise reduction for urban railways. Huntsman's Acoustiflex foam is widely used in a range of vibration-damping applications in the automotive and construction industries, and initial deployment on urban ...
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NewsRail construction joint venture
EUROPE: Russian Railways' construction subsidiary RZDstroy and Austrian civil engineering group Alpine Bau signed an agreement in Wien on January 29 establishing an equally owned joint venture to undertake railway construction work in Russia, Austria and elsewhere in Europe. According to RZD, the joint venture's first projects will be related ...
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NewsHigh speed line opens to the west
CHINA: The first Passenger-Dedicated Line between central and western China opened on February 6, with 456 km of new high speed line cutting the 505 km journey between Zhengzhou in Henan province and Xi'an in Shaanxi from around 6 h to less than 2 h. Construction was launched in September ...
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NewsLimerick – Galway reopens in March
IRELAND: Iarnród Eíreann confirmed on February 8 that passenger services on the Western Rail Corridor between Limerick and Galway line will resume on March 30, following an inauguration ceremony on the previous day. Through services between the two west coast cities were withdrawn more than 30 years ago, although a ...
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NewsMachu Picchu railway rebuilding begins
PERU: Engineers from Ferrocarril Transandino have begun repairs to the 914 mm gauge railway between Cusco and Machu Picchu which was cut by landslides after exceptional rain on January 23. No trains have run on the 42 km section between Ollantaytambo and Machu Picchu since then, but on February 3 ...
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NewsCrossing removed
AUSTRALIA: On January 11 Metro Trains Melbourne services began calling at the new Nunawading station which has been relocated as part of the A$140m Springvale Road Separation project to eliminate one of the busiest level crossings in Melbourne. The track has been lowered 8 m and a road bridge built ...