Main line rail industry news – Page 1157
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News
Heavy haul study
AUSTRALIAN mining group Murchison Metals Ltd announced on December 22 that it had reached a preliminary agreement for ’industrial partners’ to undertake a feasibility study for a 380 km heavy haul railway in Western Australia.The line would link the Jack Hills deposits to a new port at Okajee, 23 ...
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Spanish projects make progress
SPANISH INFRASTRUCTURE authority ADIF has awarded the last civil works contract for the Córdoba - M
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Europeans to dissect the British Experiment
A SEMINAR has been organised in Brussels on February 23 for the purpose of dispelling myths and misconceptions that have gained currency among the ranks of senior rail managers in Europe about the outcome of Britain’s unique privatisation experiment in the mid-1990s.This event was triggered by letters sent last autumn ...
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Montréal spends
A THREE-YEAR programme of renewals and upgrading for the Montréal metro was announced by Société de Transport de Montréal on December 12. Total value of the capital programme is put at C$1·1bn, of which 57·4% will go on the metro.According to STM Chairman Claude Dauphin, ’in 2006 customers will see ...
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Auckland upgrade financed
INVESTMENT worth between NZ$450m and NZ$600m to upgrade Auckland’s suburban rail infrastructure was announced on December 20 by Finance Minister Dr Michael Cullen and Transport Minister David Parker.At present Land Transport New Zealand and Auckland Regional Transport Authority share the cost of the suburban network 60:40. Under the latest agreement, ...
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East London Line shortlists
MARCH 31 has been set as the bidding deadline for the £500m main works contract to build the East London Line extensions. Part B of the tender documentation was issued by Transport for London to four shortlisted consortia in December. The E-link consortium is led by Laing O'Rourke Civil Engineering, ...
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Chuo Line renewal
EAST JAPAN Railway has announced plans to order a new fleet of 10-car EMUs to operate Tokyo’s busy Chuo suburban lines. The first of 688 Series E233 cars are expected to enter service in December, starting the replacement of 710 Series 201 vehicles.The E233 trainsets are derived from the Series ...
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Guangzhou grows as two lines open
TWO FURTHER sections of the growing metro network in Guangzhou were put into operation on December 26.Revenue services started on the first section of Line 3, six months ahead of schedule. Trains are operating between the Line 1 terminus at Guangzhou Dongzhan and the interchange with Line 2 at Kecun, ...
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Intermodal sale
SYDNEY-based Babcock & Brown has acquired Swiss intermodal operator Crossrail AG, with all shares and staff transferred on January 1.Crossrail was the brand name used since January 2004 for unaccompanied intermodal services operated by the Logistics & Freight Traffic business of Burgdorf-based Regionalverkehr Mittelland. This included five trains a week ...
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'Constructive debate' sought over DB sell-off
PRESENTING a study on options for privatising Deutsche Bahn AG to the Transport Committee in Berlin on January 17, Germany's Federal Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee called for 'a constructive debate' between the Bundestag, the Lãnder, transport associations and the railway. The government is anxious to take a decision by the ...
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Palermo awards LRT contract
A CONSORTIUM INCLUDING Bombardier Transportation, AMEC Spie and SIS (a subsidiary of Spanish construction group Sacyr Vallehermoso) has been awarded a €192m turnkey contract to build a three-line LRT network totalling 15 km in the Italian city of Palermo. The contract includes detailed design, civil works, mechanical and electrical systems ...
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Israel plans massive expansion
DURING 2005 nearly 27 million trips were made on the 853 route-km Israel Railways network, more than three times as many as in 1999. If that sounds a spectacular increase, consider what ISR envisages in the future: no fewer than 65 million trips are expected in 2010. The freight forecast ...
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Regulator rules Toll bid anti-competitive
ONJANUARY23 Toll Holdings wrote to shareholders in its rival Patrick Corp extending the deadline for its A$4·6bn hostile bid (RG 1.06 p5) to February 13.Toll said it had also agreed to ’certain procedural undertakings in order to facilitate its ongoing discussions’ with the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, after ACCC ...
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Police reinforced
IT IS hard to say for sure what happened on board TER train 17430 from Nice to Lyon on New Year’s day, but numerous offences, including theft and sexual assault, seem to have been committed.The 10-coach train left Nice at 06.00, conveying among its 600 passengers a number of inebriated ...
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Green Tulip blooms in bulbland
ON JANUARY 17 Dutch Transport Minister Karla Peijs signed a contract with the Green Tulip consortium for operation of the Betuwe Route. Consisting of Babcock & Brown (which has just purchased Swiss intermodal operator Crossrail AG, p60), TowRail, national network manager ProRail and the port authorities of Rotterdam and Amsterdam, ...
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Lok Ma Chau Spur Line offers a quiet route to China
Noise mitigation is integral to the design of the 7·4 km Lok Ma Chau Spur, a second rail link between Hong Kong and the mainland which will relieve congestion at the Lo Wu crossing point
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KL plans to grow
PLANS TO expand both of Kuala Lumpur's urban rail networks were unveiled on January 3 by the Chief Executive Officer of the state-owned holding company Syarikat Prasarana Negara Bhd, which was formed to integrate the bus and rail network in the Malaysian capital. Shaipudin Shah Harun said work would get ...
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Edmonton extends light rail line
NEW YEAR'S Day saw the start of revenue operation on the first addition to Edmonton's light rail line in 14 years, although formal inauguration ceremonies were not held until the following day. Costing C$100m, the 600m extension from University to the Health Sciences station is the first part of the ...
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Modernising Montréal metro cars
THE FIRST two refurbished MR-73 metro cars were unveiled in Montréal by STM Chairman Claude Dauphin and Québec Transport Minister Michel Després on November 18. They entered service on the Orange Line the following week. Over the next three years STM will spend C$35·6m refurbishing 423 MR-73 cars, which are ...