Main line rail industry news – Page 1000
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NewsAbuja backs concessioning strategy
NIGERIA: After more than two decades of abortive attempts to patch up or reconstruct NRC’s ailing 1 067 mm gauge rail network, the government is now looking to hand the whole lot to the private sector. According to Transport Minister Alhaji Ibrahim Bio, legislation is being prepared that will pave ...
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NewsReaching up
PANTOGRAPH: Indian Railways needed a pantograph suitable for contact wires at 7 450 mm as well as the standard 5 500 mm when assessing electric haulage of double-stack container trains. Kolkata-based Stone India responded by developing the Universal Intelli-Panto. It has features which will be incorporated into Stone India’s standard ...
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NewsSpotting soft spots
USA: Researchers from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln are testing prototype wagon-mounted equipment designed to identify trackbed soft spots where there is risk of rail distortion leading to derailment. The project has received $150 000 from the FRA. The prototype is mounted on a Union Pacific coal wagon which ...
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NewsNew York orders flywheel energy storage
USA: Long Island Rail Road is to use carbon fibre flywheels to store energy regenerated during braking for reuse when trains accelerate, helping to lower energy consumption and reduce the peak power demand which can impose high power supply costs on rail operators. The $5·2m pilot project on ...
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NewsAmbitious investment plans face cash shortfall
UK: The announcement on July 23 by Secretary of State for Transport Lord Adonis that the Great Western Main Line linking London, Bristol, Cardiff and Swansea is to be electrified at 25 kV 50 Hz comes almost exactly 25 years after the go-ahead for the UK’s last main line electrification. ...
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NewsAlabama Warrior Railway launched
USA: Short line company Watco Transportation Services launched Alabama Warrior Railway on August 7. The 24 km railway in Birmingham, Alabama, connects with BNSF, Norfolk Southern and CSX. The main traffic is coal for Walter Coke Inc, with other customers including LaFarge, US Pipe, Cemex, Harrison Gypsum and Performance Minerals. ...
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NewsTaiwan high speed rail refinancing agreed
TAIWAN: When it opened in May 2007, the Taipei - Kaohsiung route was hailed as ‘the world’s first privately-funded high speed line’, but Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp has been finding times tough. Whilst traffic has risen steadily to an average of 87 000 passengers/day for the first half of ...
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NewsSkoda wins Slovak push-pull orders
SLOVAKIA: National operator ZSSK has awarded Skoda Transportation the first export order for the 109E locomotive design which was unveiled last year. As well as two locomotives, the Czech firm will also supply 10 three-car double-deck push-pull trainsets and modernise 10 existing electric locomotives for Slovakia. Contracts totalling €83m ...
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NewsHigh speed scramble
USA: As expected, the decision by the Obama administration to allocate $8bn of stimulus funding for high speed rail development, followed by $5bn from the transport budget over the next five years, has triggered a flood of interest across the country. Earlier this year the federal government invited proposals ...
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NewsDB assault forces Eurostar reform
EUROPE: Five years after the collapse of Project Jupiter, another attempt has begun to transform Eurostar from an unincorporated tri-national partnership into a single coherent entity. The operator confirmed last month that negotiations were underway to position the business ready for the introduction of competition in the international passenger sector ...
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NewsBerlin U55 metro line opens
GERMANY: Berlin’s U55 underground metro line between Brandenburger Tor and Hauptbahnhof finally entered service on August 8, following inauguration by the city’s mayor Klaus Wowereit. Passengers were able to travel for free to mark the occasion. The 1·8 km line and its three stations cost €320m to build and took ...
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NewsRZD approves Finnish freight joint venture
EUROPE: The Russian Railways board has given the go -ahead for a planned joint venture between its First Freight Company subsidiary and Finnish national railway VR. An equally-owned joint-stock company is to be incorporated under Finnish law, and will be responsible for marketing and organising rail freight services between ...
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NewsSydney Metro construction shortlist announced
AUSTRALIA: Three consortia have been shortlisted for the contract to build the Permanent Route Infrastructure for Phase 1 of the CBD metro line between Central and Rozelle in Sydney. The names of the successful consortia, selected from the five groups which submitted detailed expressions of interest last June, were announced ...
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NewsS70 enters revenue service in Portland
USA: TriMet placed the first of its new Siemens S70 Avanto LRVs into revenue service on August 6, following a VIP trip from Pioneer Square to Hatfield in Hillsboro. The transit agency has purchased 22 cars, which it calls the Type 4, the last of which had been delivered ...
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NewsFour shortlisted for BART Oakland Airport connector project
USA: The Bay Area Rapid Transit District has prequalified four teams to bid for the US$522m 5·2 km Oakland International Airport Connector Project. The design, build, operate and maintain contract covers construction of an automated peoplemover linking BART’s Coliseum station with passenger terminals at the airport. OAC is scheduled ...
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NewsBanerjee warns of tighter times
INDIA: Internally-generated funding is likely to fall sharply this year, according to the Indian Railways budget for 2009-10 presented on July 3 by recently-appointed Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee. Noting the ‘continuing trend of recession’, she announced ‘more realistic’ projections than those set by her predecessor Lalu Prasad in his interim ...
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NewsNPL provides accurate measurement
UK: Britain's national measurement institute is measuring sample gear cases from trains on London Underground's Central and Waterloo & City lines every three months to ensure that they remain within specified tolerances. The National Physical Laboratory has been working for two years to validate the geometry of final drive ...
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NewsSiemens railway test site equipped for Galileo trials
GERMANY: Eight 'pseudolite' signal generators which are being installed at Siemens Mobility's Wegberg-Wildenrath railway test centre will allow practical trials of railway applications of the Galileo satellite navigation system before the real signals are available in 2013. Signal generators on 50 m masts will provide a Galileo signal across ...
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NewsFirst CityRail double-deckers delivered
AUSTRALIA: The double-deck commuter trains being built for Sydney under the Reliance Rail PPP contract were officially named 'Waratah' when Minister for Transport David Campbell unveiled four pre-production cars at Newcastle on July 29. Waratah is a shrub native to southeast Australia, and the floral emblem of New South Wales. ...