Main line rail industry news – Page 1277
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Asean boost
CHINA’s Minstry of Railways has allocated funding to start work on its share of the Trans-Asia rail link in 2003. This will allow upgrading of the 660 km metre-gauge Kunming - Hekou line, which forms part of the 5600 km corridor to Singapore via Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia (RG ...
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Turkish plans
BIDS WERE opened on June 17 for a feasibility study of the planned Polatli - Afyon cut-off in Turkey. Lowest bidder is Akum Mimarlik, at 162 000bn lire. Together with upgrading between Afyon and Usak, the link is intended to shorten the route from Ankara to Izmir (RG 12.94 p808).The ...
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Sydney circle
CONSTRUCTION WORK is expected to get underway later this year on the northern section of Sydney’s orbital suburban rail link, following the award of a contract at the end of June. The 14 km between Chatswood and Epping is to be built by a consortium of Thiess, Hochtief and Alstom, ...
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Santiago launches Line 4
CHILEAN President Ricardo Lagos formally started work on Santiago’s fourth metro line on July 2, in a ceremony at Plaza de Armas in the southern suburb of Puente Alto. Due to be completed in the second quarter of 2005, the line is expected to carry 325000 passengers a day, or ...
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Hired Gunn starts firing
ON PAGE 423 you can read David Gunn’s views on how he plans to turn Amtrak round. On July 10 he appeared before the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Surface Transport, noting that he expected the operating loss for the year to September 30 to be about $1bn, roughly equal to ...
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Boardroom farce
READERS following the political tragi-comedy being played out in Brussels will recall that we left them in suspense at the end of the last act (RG 6.02 p281). Candidates for the post of Managing Director of Belgian National Railways had been invited for the third time, with the hero of ...
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Delhi subcontract
Korean rolling stock builder Rotem has awarded Bharat Earth Movers a US$8·6m subcontract to manufacture 180 electric multiple-unit cars at its Bangalore plant. The steel-bodied vehicles for Delhi Metro Rail Corp will have glass fibre-reinforced plastic interiors, and BEML hopes to use the production line to supply similar vehicles to ...
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Tenerife bids
TENDERS will be called later this year for a 16·7 km light rail line on Tenerife in the Canary Islands. Costing €178m, the 12·5 km first phase will link Intercambiador in central Santa Cruz to La Laguna. An extension to the airport and a branch from Hospital Universitario to La ...
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Millennium line ready
THIS MONTH is due to see the start of full services on Vancouver’s second SkyTrain line. The initial section of the 20·9 km Millennium line from Columbia to Braid opened on January 5 (RG 2.02 p65). The remainder from Braid to Commercial Drive will open on August 31, adding nine ...
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PPP progress is mixed
THE UK Health & Safety Executive announced on July 10 that it had accepted Version 3.1 of London Underground’s Railway Safety Case. This contains the necessary modifications to the existing Version 3.0 to permit the transfer of the three infrastructure companies to the private sector under the Public-Private Partnership proposals ...
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AATC approved for revenue service
ON JUNE 28 the California Public Utilities Commission formally approved the use of Advanced Automatic Train Control on the Bay Area Rapid Transit network in Oakland and San Francisco. Safety certification for revenue operation came after five years of design and testing on the communications-based train control system (RG 6.02 ...
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Ultra light rail
THE TOWN of Kalamata in the southern Peleponnese, which has 55000 inhabitants, has backed plans to build a metre-gauge ’ultra light rail’ line, using equipment from the UK-based Sustraco consortium. Funding for the £5m scheme will come from the Greek government and European Investment Bank, including money allocated for earthquake ...
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Tonnage records fall
QUEENSLAND Rail finished its financial year at the end of June with more than 153 million tonnes of freight hauled. This was more than 6% up on 2000-01 and an astonishing 50% increase over the 91 million tonnes hauled just five years ago.The vast majority of QR’s freight is export ...
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Incheon airport link
PLANS are being drawn up to operate through services from Seoul metro Line 9 onto the express rail link to Incheon airport. The Ministry of Construction & Transport announced on July 10 that discussions were under way with KNR and Seoul Metropolitan Government over the proposals. A through service would ...
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US streetcars delivered
TWO EXTRA low-floor trams for the successful Portland Streetcar line arrived at the port of Vancouver, Washington, on July 3; they are due to enter service next month. The first five Czech-built Astra 10T trams are carrying an average of 4500 passengers a day, and the city expected that the ...
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TramMet wins in Barcelona
BARCELONA transport authority ATM announced on July 4 that it had selected the Alstom-led TramMet consortium for a 27-year concession to build and operate the city’s second light rail network. The same consortium is currently building the 16·8 km Baix Llobregat network in western Barcelona under a 25-year concession awarded ...
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Renfe buys more
THE MINISTRY OF DEVELOPMENT has given its approval for Spanish National Railways to invite bids for the supply of 80 commuter EMUs within a budget of €344m. As the Madrid network extends to Colmenar Viejo, gains a new cross-city tunnel between Atocha and Chamartín and faces increased demand as routes ...
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Why using contractors has triggered a cost explosion
OF THE many problems that have beset Britain’s national rail network since privatisation in 1996-97, the most serious today is a frightening leap in the cost of renewal and enhancement projects. A routine doubling or trebling in real terms above pre-privatisation costs was firmly established by 2000, but the cost ...
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Track inspection moves up the agenda
DETAILED technical presentations on a wide range of track and civil engineering topics were given to over 300 delegates who attended the Railway Engineering 2002 conference in London on July 3-4, organised by ECS Publications and sponsored by Railway Gazette International. Many of the 117 papers explored the application of ...
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KCRC wins Sha Tin link
ON JUNE 25 Hong Kong’s Acting Secretary for Transport Paul Tang Kwok-wai announced a feasibility study into the merger of MTR Corp and Kowloon - Canton Railway Corp. A merged company would have net assets worth HK$148bn, and analysts estimate that savings worth up to HK$100m a year would be ...