Main line rail industry news – Page 1118
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Schwarzenegger tries to ditch HSR
REPEATED ATTEMPTS to build high speed lines in North America may have produced absolutely nothing to date, but Californians like to be different. Plans for a $37bn network carrying 350?km/h trains between Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego appear to be making some progress. On January 29, the ...
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Freight bottlenecks in focus
EU POLICIES deregulating European rail freight are forecast to generate significant growth in intermodal traffic over the next decade. Initiatives such as Singer (p164) are already demonstrating what may be achievable. But operators and infrastructure managers are becoming increasingly concerned that the continent’s rail network will not be able to ...
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Rail cuts CO2 emissions by 20%
UK OPERATORS have been criticised in recent years for buying trains that are heavier and use more energy per seat-km than those they replace. Key factors have been crashworthiness, retention toilets, air-conditioning and the need to accommodate wheelchairs. This, it is claimed even by transport ministers, has increased kWh/seat-km and ...
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Mega-trucks impugned
ADDRESSING around 400 delegates to the CER’s Eurailfreight conference in Brussels on January 30, German Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee, who under the German presidency of the European Union holds the chair at the Council of Ministers [for transport], indicated that giant lorries equivalent to Australia’s road trains would not be ...
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Channel Tunnel freight is collapsing
EUROPE: Two of the regular streams of freight traffic through the Channel Tunnel ceased at the beginning of February because the cost of using the Tunnel has increased substantially. Unilog based in Belgium has been forced out of business altogether, while GTS Trasporti in Italy stopped dispatching intermodal trains ...
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Line E extension contract
A CIVIL ENGINEERING contract for the extension of Buenos Aires metro Line E was officially awarded to Benito Roggio on February 16, with the expectation that construction would start within 90 days. The US$346m deal was announced by Argentina’s President N?stor Kirchner in a ceremony attended by the head of ...
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Bangkok growth goes ahead
A 165bn baht programme for expansion of Bangkok’s metro network has been approved by the government of Thailand. The latest package calls for construction of five routes totalling 118?km. The government’s final decision comes after the Cabinet gave its backing to the scheme at a meeting in November (RG 12.06 ...
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Green light for missing link
WORK IS DUE to begin during the second quarter of 2007 on the 1 km Parc - Sud section of the TEC light metro in the Belgian city of Charleroi, expected to open at the end of 2010 to complete a long-planned city centre loop. With one intermediate ...
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Madrid action plan
ON JANUARY 22 a package of measures to ease overcrowding and improve service reliability on Madrid Metro Line 6 was announced by Elvira Rodr?guez, Minister for Transport & Infrastructure in the Madrid regional government. On the busiest section of Line 6 between Plaza El?ptica and Avenida de Am?rica, 50 staff ...
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Two cities adopt smart tickets
TICKETING: Affiliated Computer Services announced on February 12 that it had won a US$14m three-year contract from Marseille Provence Metropole to implement a multi-operator and multi-modal contactless ticketing system across the city. ACS will deploy its Atlas multi-operator system in partnership with Spie. Implementation will allow a single smart card ...
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Second Avenue contract
Skanska USA Civil, Schiavone Construction and JF Shea Construction were due to sign a contract in mid-February to build the first section of the Second Avenue subway in Manhattan. The $333m agreement with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority paves the way for work to begin on the first of four planned ...
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Thales to resignal Piccadilly Line
LONDON Underground PPP contractor Tube Lines announced on January 29 that it had awarded Thales a ?160m contract extension covering the resignalling of the Piccadilly Line. Thales took over contracts to supply Seltrac signalling to the Jubilee and Northern lines when it acquired Alcatel-Lucent’s transport activities at the end of ...
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Santiago Line 5 grows
PRESIDENT Michelle Bachelet of Chile joined Transport Minister Sergio Espejo and Santiago Metro President Blas Tomic on January 25 to mark the start of work on a 14·2 km extension of Line 5 from Quinta Normal to Plaza de Maipú. Running for 10·2 km in tunnel and 4 km on ...
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Metro_Centro nears completion
NEXT MONTH is due to see completion of a 1?32?km light rail route in Sevilla, built in conjunction with a programme to pedestrianise streets in the historic core of the city. The first phase of Metro_Centro runs from Prado de San Sebasti?n to Plaza Nueva with two intermediate stops, and ...
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Veolia takes on Tri-Rail
Southern Florida Regional Transportation Authority has awarded Veolia a seven-year contract worth $64m to operate the Tri-Rail commuter service. The contract includes an option for a further three years at a cost of $33m. The French group will replace Herzog Transit Services on July 1. The Sfrta board has ...
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Grands projets now the norm
MARCH 15 will see the official inauguration by RFF of the first 300 km of TGV Est between Paris and Baudrecourt. Three months ahead of SNCF’s planned opening to traffic on June 10, the date leaves a slot for more ultra-high-speed trials (above). That the French government backs high speed ...
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Records fall as the French forge ahead
AN UNOFFICIAL world rail speed record of 554?3?km/h was set in France on February 13 during trials on TGV Est. This comprehensively beats the 515?3?km/h rail record that SNCF established on May 18 1990 and surpasses the 552?km/h achieved by the Japanese experimental maglev trainset MLX01 at Yamanashi on April ...
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UP reports record results
REPORTING its 2006 results on January 25, Union Pacific announced its best year ever’, with commodity revenues up by 15% to an all-time record of $14?9bn for the year. Operating income in the fourth quarter grew by 52% to nearly $810m. President & CEO Jim Young - who succeeded Dick ...
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UP in search of reduced emissions
UNION PACIFIC took its quest for reduced emissions technology onto the main line on January 17, when it unveiled a refitted EMD SD60M in the Los Angeles suburb of Commerce. The 3 800?hp locomotive will be tested in captive service around the Southern California basin. The 17-year old loco ...
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Industry in Brief
Railpower Technologies announced at the end of January that it had raised C$30m through a bought deal with a syndicate of Canaccord Adams, Sprott Securities, National Bank Financial, Paradigm Capital and Pacific International Securities. The hybrid loco technology company will use the proceeds to finance the fulfilment of current orders ...