Main line rail industry news – Page 1204
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Market
Argentina: The federal government and Ferrovías have signed an agreement to purchase 17 two-car DMUs from Portuguese Railways for 9·6m pesos, to be deployed on the metre-gauge Belgrano Norte commuter route from Buenos Aires to Villa Rosa. The first six trainsets are due to arrive in Argentina by the end ...
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Better ballast spreader saves 10%
CANADIAN Pacific Railway is increasing the efficiency of its ballast spreading operations with the introduction of the PLUS train. The Programmable Linear Unloading System cuts the time needed to drop ballast, reducing possession times and minimising the impact on revenue trains.A track maintenance supervisor in a road-rail vehicle surveys a ...
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Sidetrack
CAPTION: To raise between A$700m and A$1bn for refurbishing run-down parts of the rail network in New South Wales, State Transport Minister Michael Costa, who also holds the Forestry portfolio, has persuaded his government colleagues to sell off state-owned forestry reserves. Around 230000ha stretching from Lithgow and Oberon to the ...
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International sleeping car enters service
THIS MONTH Polish rolling stock builder Fabryka Pojazdów Szynowych will complete the last of a batch of 10 Type 305Ad sleeping cars ordered by PKP, the first six of which entered service in June on the Jan Kiepura Brussels - Warszawa service.Built to UIC 505-1 clearances, the carriages are designed ...
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Restructuring on course for 2006
Kazakhstan Temir Zholy has undergone significant changes in the past two years, as part of a restructuring that will see all train operations and ancilliary activities privatised by 2006.Under legislation approved in July 2001, KTZ was restructured as a joint stock company in March 2002, with all shares held by ...
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EWS spin-offs
UK FREIGHT operator EWS has launched two independent subsidiaries to provide vehicle acceptance and engineering consultancy in Europe.Engineering Support Group Ltd has offices in Crewe, Derby and Nottingham, which provide consultancy services including design, modification and reliability improvements, project management and auditing. Derby-based Railway Approvals Ltd specialises in the approval ...
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MTU expands
DIESEL engine builder MTU Friedrichshafen has taken over Dordrecht-based distributor MDB-Roodenburg from its former sole-shareholder J Roodenburg. The DaimlerChrysler Off-Highway distributor has been renamed MTU Detroit Diesel Benelux, and will supply the rail sector in the Benelux countries.MTUopened a €7m electronics centre (above) in Friedrichshafen on June 15, integrating its ...
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SNCF turns to Verse
FRENCH National Railways has recently bought a Vortok International Verse unit for non-destructive measuring of the neutral temperature of rails.Verse allows the stress-free temperature to be measured to an accuracy of
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Global’s good year
GLOBAL Railway Industries has reported record results for the year to December 31 2003. Consolidated revenues of C$26m were up 106% from 2002, with net earnings increasing by 82% to C$2·7m and EBITDA up 57% to C$3·9m. A major factor was acquisition of G&B Specialities Inc, which doubled the size ...
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Swedish testing
INTERFLEET Technology is carrying out testing of Alstom X40 and X60 trains being supplied to Sweden.During June three weeks of dynamic testing were carried out on X40 double-deck EMUs for SJ inter-regional services, using instrumented wheelsets with accelerometers to assess the behaviour of a moving train. ’We go all over ...
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Wagon backlogs up
HAMILTON-based rolling stock builder National Steel Car expects to take on an additional 500 staff this summer to cope with an upturn in wagon orders.In the first quarter of 2004 the company had a backlog of 42000 vehicles, up from 6400 for the period two years ago. First quarter orders ...
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Steel grades
Sir - In the article ’Winning the RCF battle on the production line’ (RG 7.04 p411), the caption to the photograph of the rail on p411 includes a technical error in that rail grades 400 and 900 are the wrong way round. It should read ’grade 400 (right) and grade ...
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Rail production agreement
VOESTALPINE Schienen and Egyptian Iron & Steel Co signed a memorandum of understanding on June 6 for the production of rails under licence in Egypt.Part of the state-owned Egyptian Metallurgical Industries group, EISCO would use technology and technical support from Voestalpine to produce 36m rails at an upgraded heavy-section rolling ...
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CD tastes the fruits of independence
Operating as a joint stock company since January 2003, Czech Railways is learning to cope with the challenges of independence and competition. Chairman & Director General Petr Kousal talked to Murray Hughes in Praha
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God at fault
RAIL privatisation in different countries has spawned a range of authorities and committees responsible for attributing responsibility for delays and incidents, so that operators and infrastructure managers can shuffle the penalty payments and compensation claims back and forth. Sidetrack hears that a new approach is being pioneered by one of ...
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Meeting the commuter challenge
INTRO: As the passenger market has opened up to competition, Connex has become one of the world’s major private-sector rail operators. The company operates over 6700 km in Europe, the USA, Australia and New Zealand, and provides commuter train service on 1120 km of routesBYLINE: Michel QuidortDirector of Corporate Communications, ...
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Trans-Kazakhstan link will complete standard-gauge transcontinental artery
An international consortium is to be formed to close the gap between the standard-gauge networks of China and Europe, and construction of an initial 320 km section has already started
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Putting the cart before the horsepower
BYLINE: Dave Meyer and Mark RickerbyCanadian Pacific Railway*INTRO: To get ahead in the capacity game and meet unprecedented growth in container traffic, CPR has introduced remote-control distributed power on its transcontinental intermodal trainsDURING THE first quarter of 2004, there was a huge surge in container imports at North America’s west ...
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Long Island Rail Road builds for the future
INTRO: As North America’s busiest passenger railway plans its investment strategy for the next four years, work is underway on the mammoth East Side Access project that from 2012 will bring LIRR services to Grand Central Terminal. William D Middleton reportsNOW CARRYING an average of 274000 passengers per weekday and ...