Main line rail industry news – Page 1165
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Wagon revival
RENOVORail Industries has been formed to build wagons at a former Pennsylvania Railroad workshop in Renova, Pennsylvania. The company will take over one of the few remaining buildings in the complex, which was built in the 1890s to service locomotives and rolling stock. RenovoRail Industries plans to produce high-sided gondolas ...
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SRT restructuring approved
THE TRANSPORT and Finance Ministries have approved plans for the restructuring of State Railway of Thailand. On August 22 Transport Minister Pongsak Raktapongpaisal said the ministries had signed off the plan to deal with SRT’s liabilities and debts. The Finance Ministry will write off accumulated debts currently standing at 42·7bn ...
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Funding accord
FRENCH Transport Minister Dominique Perben signed three agreements with his Swiss counterpart Moritz Leuenberger on August 25 confirming Switzerland’s participation in financing French rail infrastructure projects.The Swiss are to contribute €65m towards the construction of the 189 km eastern section of TGV Rhine-Rh
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Dispatching software upgrade
ON AUGUST 22, Union Switch & Signal announced that it had entered into ’one of the largest software agreements in railroad history’, to upgrade train planning and computer-aided dispatching for Union Pacific.As well as implementing its Next Generation Computer Aided Dispatch System across the 53000 km UP network, US&S will ...
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Terminal expanded
SWISS intermodal operator Hupac held celebrations on September 9 to mark the expansion of its Busto Arsizio-Gallarate terminal near Milano. Italian Transport Minister Pietro Lunardi and his Swiss counterpart Moritz Leuenberger participated in the event.Hupac has invested SFr75m to increase capacity from 15 to 23 train pairs per day. There ...
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Remodelling to start next year
PLANNING approval for the second phase of the ambitious Stuttgart 21 remodelling programme was granted by the Federal Railway Office on September 6, paving the way for DB to start construction in the second half of 2006.EBA has approved the technical specifications for the 9·5 km Filder tunnel, which ...
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Open access challenge
BRATISLAVA-based regional operator BRKS is planning to launch open-access inter-city services from the capital to cities in eastern Slovakia, including Kosice.BRKS is the most successful new operator on the Slovak network. As well as regional passenger services between Bratislava, Zohor and Zahorska Ves, it runs domestic and international freight services ...
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Russian market to boom, but high speed plans slow down
RAILWAYS in Russia are recovering from the shock of a sudden transition to a market economy (p633). Significant progress is being made with a massive backlog of repairs and rehabilitation, but the demand is huge and is unlikely to be satisfied in the near future.According to a report from Finmarket ...
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Smartcard deal
DENMARK is set to become the second country in Europe to introduce a national smartcard ticket accepted by all rail, metro and bus operators. The Travel Card project is being managed by Rejsekort A/S, a joint venture company set up by all Danish public transport operators. On September 13 Rejsekort ...
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China picks EMD
ON SEPTEMBER 7 Electro-Motive Diesel Inc announced that it had signed a contract to supply 300 locomotives to China’s Ministry of Railways.The 6000hp locos are to be assembled by Dalian Locomotive Works under a technology licensing agreement. Powered by the latest version of EMD’s 265H series engine meeting EPA Tier ...
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Five bids for Line H
BUENOS AIRES metro construction authority Sbase has received five bids for a contract to build the second section of Line H, running from Caseros to Hospitales via one intermediate station at Parque Patricios. The lowest bid of 71·9m pesos was submitted by Cartellone, followed by Dycasa (86·3m pesos), Benito Roggio ...
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Research pinpoints ways to prevent unzipping of aluminium welds
’Weld unzipping has been mastered.’ Dennis Schut of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research made this bold assertion on September 7 at a conference on the crashworthiness of aluminium rail vehicles held at the UK’s National Railway Museum in York.Noting that ’even now we are learning from analysing what remains ...
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Nanjing metro inaugurated
ON SEPTEMBER 3 Nanjing became the sixth Chinese city with an operational metro, when the first section of Line 1 was formally inaugurated by the Governor of Jiangsu province Liang Bao-Hua. The governor was joined at the inauguration by Nanjing mayor Jiang Hong-Kun, local Party Secretary Li Yuan-Chao, and Nanjing ...
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Mumbai BOT tenders submitted
THERE HAS been a 'great response' from bidders for the build-operate-transfer contract to build the first section of the planned Mumbai metro, according to Project Director G R Madan from Mumbai Regional Development Authority. Madan confirmed on September 5 that technical bids had been received from five consortia for the ...
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City News in Brief
Ottawa’s municipal government has shortlisted three consortia to build the 31 km north-south light rail line from Rideau Centre to Barrhaven at an estimated cost of C$675m. They are SNC Lavalin with Bombardier, Kiewit-Ellisdon with Kinki Sharyo and PCL Constructors Canada and Dufferin Construction with Siemens. A bidder is to ...
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Delhi Phase II approved
THE GOVERNMENT of India has approved plans for the second phase of the Delhi metro, which will add a further 53 km and 45 stations to the network by 2010. Following the formal go-ahead, Delhi Metro Rail Corp announced on September 12 the planned completion dates for the six extensions ...
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Ing concedes THSRC will be late
TAIWAN High Speed Rail Corp has finally conceded that it will not be opening its 345 km line for business this month. Although trial running has made good progress, with 200 km/h attained at the end of August and engineers anticipating 300 km/h during October, THSRC Chairman Nita Ing was ...
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Betuwe line could be privately run
IN AN ATTEMPT to break the impasse over charges to use the Betuwe Route after it opens in 2007 or 2008 (p605), a group comprising ProRail, TowRail and the port authorities of Rotterdam and Amsterdam announced a plan on September 19 that would see a company established to maintain and ...
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CAF wins in Mexico
MEXICO’s Secretariat of Communications & Transport announced on August 24 that a consortium led by CAF of Spain had been awarded a 30-year concession to upgrade, equip and operate the 27 km commuter route between Buenavista and Cuautitl
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La Paz light metro out to tender
ON AUGUST 31 Mayor of La Paz Juan Del Granado formally launched a bidding for a 35-year concession to build and operate a 10·6 km elevated light metro route in the Bolivian capital.Expected to cost US$73m to build, the route would run from Cotacota in the south to Calle Colón ...