Main line rail industry news – Page 1259
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Transport for London drops PPP fight
OPERATIONAL control of the London Underground network is on course to be transferred to Transport for London within the next two months, following the announcement on February 4 that TfL and the Mayor of London Ken Livingstone were dropping their legal fight against the UK government's 30-year Public-Private Partnership. In ...
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Beijing Line 13 completed
JANUARY 28 saw the start of full operation on Beijing's City Rail light metro line, following four months of partial services. Trains had begun running on the western portion of the 40·6 km horseshoe route at the end of September (RG 10.02 p609). The line has cost 6·57bn yuan to ...
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Competition is coming to the French network
Speaking to Murray Hughes in Paris, Transport Minister Gilles de Robien dismissed the previous government's target of doubling tonne-km hauled by rail by 2010 as 'completely unrealistic'. Whether the advent of open access competition from March 15 will generate more rail freight business remains to be seen, but de Robien ...
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Civils complete on CTRL Section 1
LONDON & Continental Railways marked completion of civil engineering work on Section 1 of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link between the Channel Tunnel and Fawkham Junction on January 21 with a ceremony at Mersham near Ashford. Transport Minister John Spellar unveiled a plaque in a meadow created on a structure ...
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BDZ restructures
THE BULGARIAN Transport Ministry awarded a contract on December 18 for a team of consultants led by Systra of France, CIE Consult of Ireland and Railplan of the Netherlands to advise on the restructuring of Bulgarian State Railways.BDZ has already been split into three state-owned entities in line with European ...
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Remote barrier controls
DEFECTIVE or non-machine readable tickets, bulky luggage and restricted wheelchair access can provide potential problems for passengers using a station’s automatic ticket barriers. To tackle this, Help Point and Cubic Transportation Systems have developed Help Zone, which allows staff situated elsewhere on a station to provide help to passengers at ...
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Railtrack agreements
AS PART of its voluntary liquidation process, RT Group plc (formerly Railtrack) reached an agreement with Marconi Corp in December covering the Ultramast joint venture. This was established in December 2000 to construct and operate telecommunications masts for use by mobile and fixed wireless networks. Marconi provided cash and the ...
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ERTMS under review
ONJANUARY 14 theUKHealth &Safety Executive released three reports into the ERTMS implementation plans put forward last April (RG 6.02 p314). Both the review of economic aspects by the NERA consultancy, and the NEL Consortium study into technical aspects roundly condemn as impractical and unjustified on safety grounds the Uff/Cullen Joint ...
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225 km/h diesel option
WITH more than 90 High Speed Trains dating from 1976-79 still in use by four British operators, decisions must be made soon on a replacement for these pioneering 200 km/h diesel trainsets. MAN B&W based near Manchester has re-engineered its 18-cylinder VP185 engine for rail traction specifically to address this ...
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Fare balancing
GREAT North Eastern Railway is to plan the numbers and types of tickets it offers in different fare categories using software and consultancy services from Manugistics. Controlling passenger demand through differential ticket pricing is well established, but Bruce How of Manugistics believes that the more sophisticated demand management techniques which ...
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Digital entertainment
THE Velaro E high speed trainsets being built by Siemens for the Madrid - Barcelona line will be equipped with the AudioTainment modular audio entertainment and information system developed by Focon using standard elements (RG 9.02 p471).AudioTainment is based around Focon’s Intercity·Net platform that has been tested on four railways ...
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Metrosur live
On January 15 the first test run was made on the Metrosur ring route in the southwest suburbs of Madrid. The first metro line in the Spanish capital to be electrified at 1·5 kV DC from new, supplied through a rigid overhead, the 40·5 km ring serving 28 stations is ...
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Engineering firm launches
YORK-based Lancsville Rail Ltd has been founded to provide cable route works and light civil engineering expertise to the railway industry. The firm is led by Managing Director Phillip Sash and Business Development & Systems Director Sarah Czarnecki, who were formerly with JacksonEve. Financial backing is provided by Lancsville Construction ...
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Dynamic wagon weighing
DYNAMIC weighing of coupled wagons can be carried out using Solar, a modular in-sleeper measuring device from Pfister Waagen Bilanciai. To install Solar, a set of around seven sheet steel sleepers are embedded in the existing ballast. The sleepers’ load cells are linked through an amplifier and optic fibres to ...
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National portal
BRITAIN’S Department for Transport has awarded a £15m three-year contract to a consortium of Atkins, BBC Technology, ESRI and Real Time Engineering to deliver Transport Direct. SchlumbergerSema is project manager.Transport Direct is a planned national multi-modal transport information portal. A website will be set up later this year, and ...
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Czech co-operation finalised
AN AGREEMENT for ’extensive co-operation in the field of rail vehicle manufacture for Eastern Europe’ has been reached by Bombardier Transportation and Appian Group, owner of ??Skoda Holding.On January 16 the companies announced plans to work together on a three-system electric locomotive designed for use in the Czech Republic ...
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Eurofima profits
EUROFIMA’s annual results for 2002 showed a net profit of SFr47·1m. Cash flow was up 3·1% on 2001, to SFr62·4m. Compared to 2001, net interest income increased 6·1% to SFr51·8m. Commissions income fell 4·9% to SFr15·4m. Income from other financial operations decreased by 8·4% to SFr2·9m, and total operating costs ...
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Cabling under the Alps
NEXANS has been awarded a €30m contract to supply power cables and optic fibre links for the L
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Kirow crane picks up order
BALFOUR Beatty Rail has ordered a Kirow 1200 rail crane. With a capacity of 125 tonnes, it will be the largest rail crane in use on the British rail network.Based around the Kirow 810 design, features of the 1200 include self-levelling, swivel and full slew duties and a counterweight boom. ...
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Planning for robustness
TIMETABLE robustness in the event of delays and disruptions can be automatically analysed using a software package developed by Vossloh System-Technik. TTRA dynamically generates simulated train delays across a network according to random or predetermined patterns. The impact on planned services is predicted, with conflicts automatically resolved and aggregated delays ...