Main line rail industry news – Page 1241
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BART extends to the airport
THE LONG-awaited BART extension to San Francisco International Airport was opened on June 21 with a ceremonial ribbon-cutting at the airport station. Participating in the celebrations were California Governor Gray Davis, Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta, California Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, several local members of Congress, BART board ...
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Krakow upgrade
TURKISH civil engineering group Güris Insaat ve Mühendislik AS has been awarded a €31bn contract to rebuild a 3·7 km section of north-south tram route in Krakow as a segregated light rail line. Funded by EBRD and EIB, the contract was formally signed in Krakow on July 9. The work ...
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Trans-Hudson boost
JUNE 29 saw the reopening of PATH station at Exchange Place on the New Jersey waterfront, as the first step in restoring services on the cross-river line to lower Manhattan, which was flooded and heavily damaged on September 11 2001 following the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. The ...
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Oslo ring opens
CEREMONIES will be held on August 20 to mark the opening of the first stage of Oslo Sporveier’s metro ring line, although revenue services are scheduled to start on August 17. The 2·9 km section from Ullevål Stadion to Storo will be served by an extension of Line 5 which ...
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Mehdorn repeats ETCS concerns
GERMAN Railway ran a test train at 200 km/h using the European Train Control System for the first time on July 7. The trial took place between Jüterbog and Bitterfeld on the main line from Berlin to Halle and Leipzig, marking another step in the lengthy progress of ETCS towards ...
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Luas still on track
Sir - Your report ’Luas lags behind’ (RG 7.03 p424) gives a pessimistic, and at times rather sensationalist picture of the progress of the Dublin light rail project.The original cost estimates you quote from the Dublin Transportation Initiative strategic study of 1991-94 (in Irish pounds, not euros) referred to the ...
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Bandits nabbed
Police in Jersey City are celebrating the successful break-up of a gang that has been robbing freight trains for more than a decade. The Conrail Boyz used night vision binoculars and other modern technology whilst stealing consumer goods and designer clothes worth millions of dollars. According to Stephen Hanes, director ...
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TENs programme is revised
FORMER Transport Commissioner Karel van Miert presented a report on the future development of the Trans-European Transport Networks to the European Commission on June 30. Compiled by a group of experts appointed by transport ministers of the 15 current and the 12 future member states, the report includes recommendations on ...
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Plan agreed
ON JULY 2 the German cabinet approved the 2003 national transport infrastructure plan (BVWP). Setting a planning framework up to 2015, it includes numerous rail projects.There are 26 schemes already in hand requiring government funds totalling nearly €18bn. Most are upgrading projects such as Hamburg - Berlin and K
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KNR to go private
WIDESPREAD industrial action halted services on Korean National Railroad at the end of June as employees staged protests against plans to privatise all or part of the 3125 km network. Back in January the South Korean government had softened its line on privatisation, saying that it would opt for a ...
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Maglev lagging in high speed race
WHEN Peer Steinbrück, President of the Land of Nordrhein-Westfalen, sensibly decided on June 27 to dump plans to build a 79 km Transrapid maglev line between Dortmund and Düsseldorf, he was calling a halt to a project that had driven a deep rift in the local coalition of Social Democrats ...
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Alger metro contract
CONSTRUCTION of the next section of Alger metro Line 1 could start this year, following the award of an engineering contract on June 24. Entreprise du Métro d'Alger has selected a consortium of Systra and SGTE to design the 4·1 km Hamma - Hai El Badr section of the capital's ...
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Taipei metro funding deal
TAIPEI City Government has been promised NT$40bn to fund construction of two more metro lines over the next five years. The funding deal was announced by Premier Yu Shyi-Kun on July 3 during a meeting with the capital's Mayor Ma Ying-Jeou. Metro builder DORTS is now working on three ...
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Guangzhou Line 2 completed
JUNE 28 saw the formal opening of Guangzhou metro Line 2, bringing the city's network to 36·8 km serving 31 stations. Limited services had been introduced on the northern section of Line 2 between Sanyanli and Xiaogang on December 28, but these were suspended in May to allow final commissioning ...
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Tube transfers to TfL
AT 00.01 on July 15, responsibility for London Underground Ltd was transferred from the UK Secretary of State for Transport to Transport for London. The handover followed the award of 30-year concessions to Tube Lines and Metronet under the Public-Private Partnership, and saw the abolition of London Regional Transport, which ...
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Landbridge planning moves ahead
INTRO: A tri-national commission is finalising plans for the Trans-Asian rail link between Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and China, with the aim of signing a formal accord later this year and starting construction by 2005. Sergey Krivoruchko reviews the state of progress and the economic prospects for the new corridorGROWING COMPETITION between ...
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Smart card network
STOCKHOLM public transport authority AB Storstockholms Lokaltrafik has awarded a SKr250m contract to ERG for the introduction of smart card ticketing across the city’s metro, suburban rail and bus network over the next two years. The Resekortet project involves upgrading the existing magnetic ticketing equipment and gates at 150 stations ...
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High speed noses
COMBINED nose and coupling assemblies for the Talgo 350 trainsets to work Spain’s Madrid - Barcelona line are being supplied by the Scharfenberg subsidiary of Voith Turbo. The contract reflects a move by the main suppliers to contract out the supply of components as complete sub-assemblies, minimising interface issues.The power ...
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Rail Business Intelligence reaches 200
ON JUNE 19 we published the 200th edition of Rail Business Intelligence, our fortnightly newsletter for the UK railway industry. Rail Regulator Tom Winsor described RBI in a congratulatory message as 'authoritative, opinionated and always right' - other comments were 'incisive, insightful and easily digestible', 'well-read and respected across the ...
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Staff scheduling simplified
DANISH infrastructure authority Banestyrelsen signed a contract in May for the implementation of an automated staff management system from Trapeze Software. The system is already being used by Banverket in Sweden, and by the Roslagståg consortium of DSB and BK Tåg which took over Stockholm’s narrow-gauge Roslagsbanen suburban network on ...