Main line rail industry news – Page 1191
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News
Light rail study
PROPOSALS are being developed for a light rail line in Guatemala City, the country’s Ministry of Communications & Transport announced at the end of January. The project would form part of a US$100m expansion of the capital’s bus network now underway.The line would follow a disused railway alignment running 10 ...
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South Line start
A GROUNDBREAKING ceremony was due to be held in Charlotte, North Carolina, on February 26 to mark the start of construction for the city’s 15·4 km South Line light rail route. Serving 15 stops, it is due to open on December 31 2007.Charlotte Area Transit System scheduled the groundbreaking at ...
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Puerto Montt upgrade underway
CHILEAN state railway EFE has called tenders for a contract to upgrade and maintain over eight years the 567·4route-km of its Southern Zone between San Rosendo and Puerto Montt. Bids are due by June 8, and EFE hopes to sign a contract on September 3 so that work can begin ...
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Competitors emerge for Renfe freight
CONTINENTAL Rail has become the second company to apply to the Spanish Ministry of Development’s Railways Directorate for a licence to operate freight trains on the national network.Owned by construction group ACS, Continental Rail currently has 25 employees and operates construction trains for the Madrid - Barcelona and Córdoba - ...
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Running trials begin as civil works finish
CEREMONIES staged on January 27 at Tainan station on Taiwan High Speed Railway Corp’s 346 km high speed line between Taipei and Kaohsiung culminated in the arrival of a Series 700T trainset at the platform. Nearly 500 guests then boarded the train for a short ride at low speed.Participating in ...
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Line H car bids in
ON FEBRUARY 3 Buenos Aires metro construction authority SBASE formally opened the bids to supply rolling stock for Line H. It is now considering the technical content of the bids, with the financial offers to be considered at a later date.Bids have been received from Alstom and a consortium of ...
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Icebergs ahead on the European freight voyage
JEAN-PIERRE DUPORT, President of Réseau Ferré de France, warned delegates to a colloquium on freight infrastructure held at the headquarters of the International Union of Railways in Paris on February 10 that ’icebergs’ threatened the future of Europe’s rail freight business.Judging by the reaction of some delegates, the icebergs may ...
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Work starts on Metroeste
WORK HAS begun on the 8·3 km extension of Madrid metro Line 7 from Las Musas to San Fernando de Henares, due to open in March 2007 and expected to cost a total of €444m. Known as Metroeste, the extension will serve an area with a population of 120000.The route ...
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Vision of a freight revolution
JANUARY 1 marked the formal start of the New Opera study into the feasibility of developing a dedicated rail freight network in Europe (RG 7.04 p399). Speaking to around 250 freight specialists at an RFF freight infrastructure colloquium in Paris on February 10, Vice-Chairman of the European Freight & Logistics ...
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Dual-gauge trains to Lisboa
Portuguese Transport Minister Antonio Mexia has announced plans for a high speed line between Lisboa and Porto.Five options were examined by RAVE, the company responsible for planning and building high speed lines in Portugal, and Refer, the national rail infrastructure authority which owns 40% of RAVE. The ministry has chosen ...
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Mixed signals from the ministry
BRITAIN’S national railway must complete before Christmas its third major restructuring within a decade, assuming that the latest Railways Bill becomes law this month and is not derailed by a general election in May. Or maybe it is the fourth, depending whether you count the replacement in 2002 of infrastructure ...
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Bang in Bangkok
THE FAILURE of a driver to follow the correct procedure when isolating brakes on a failed three-car train that was being coupled to another unit sent to haul it back to the depot is believed to have led to the collision on Bangkok’s underground metro line at 09.15 on January ...
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Bush budget bashes Amtrak
ON FEBRUARY 7 the Bush government published the federal budget for 2006. Described as an austerity spending plan, it suggests that road and transit spending be cut by more than 3% to $59·5bn.Much of the reduction would come at the expense of Amtrak, which is allocated no funding next year ...
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NewsFreightlink reviews Darwin traffic
NO SOONER had we reported Freightlink's delight with the first year's performance on the Adelaide - Darwin route (RG 2.05 p70) than contractor Mowlem announced in London that it was not satisfied. In a statement on February 3 Mowlem said 'it is now apparent that freight volumes on the Alice ...
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Torque of the town
LAST MONTH saw Nord-Ostsee Bahn begin trials with a DE2700 locomotive. The first of 12 intended to take over the Marschbahn service between Hamburg and Westerland from December, it was built for Norwegian State Railways as Class Di6 by Krupp-MAK and Siemens in the 1990s.A series of problems prompted NSB ...
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Centenary Congress
As we prepare to celebrate our 100th birthday and mark 170 years of railway publishing, plans for our Centenary Congress on July 1 are well in hand.We have a first-class line-up of expert speakers who have been briefed to examine future developments in railway technology in the context of an ...
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Chemical alley
LAST MONTH the Canadian government announced that it had reached agreement with the US-based Nuclear Threat Initiative, which the US government describes as a public charity, to help fund construction of a 17·7 km railway to carry chemical weapons in central Russia.The line will link a weapons store near Planovy ...
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NewsKeeping Luas up to speed
INTRO: Maintenance of rolling stock and infrastructure on the two light rail routes in Dublin has been contracted to Alstom WELL BEFORE the first cars began running on Dublin's two light rail lines last year, Ireland's Railway Procurement Agency had put in place two contracts for the ...
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Angers confirms light rail plan
MAYOR OF Angers Jean-Claude Antonini announced on February 10 that the city had decided to adopt steel-wheeled technology for its north-south light rail line, after a study found that rubber-tyred alternatives were insufficiently proven. The 16th largest city in France hopes to get planning approval for the 12 km route ...
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Tanzania Railways Corp bids go in
TANZANIA: March 9 is the deadline for shortlisted bidders to submit proposals for a 25-year concession to operate the Tanzania Railways Corp network. Financial bids are to be opened on April 27, and the government hopes to name a preferred bidder in June 2005. The aim is to hand control ...