Main line rail industry news – Page 1295
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KTM port branch opens
MALAYSIAN Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad joined the ceremonies on January 21 to inaugurate a new freight branch in the south of the country. The 31·5 km link to the container port of Tanjung Pelepas leaves the KTM main line at Skudai, north of Johor Baru.The line was built by ...
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Cross-border freight boost
BUILDING on an earlier agreement to work towards a doubling of rail freight between France and Germany within five years (RG 10.01 p655), the two state railways have now agreed an initial package of measures designed to remove obstacles that impede the movement of cross-border freight. At a meeting in ...
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Rail tops Austrian investment
RAIL projects will account for two-thirds of the Austrian government’s transport investment over the next decade, under the terms of a plan unveiled by Transport Minister Monika Forstinger on January 29. This envisages a total spend of €17·3bn, of which up to €8bn will be allocated by October 2003.Of the ...
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Intermodal boost
SHIFTING the equivalent of the annual increase in road freight to other modes is the goal of the Marco Polo programme outlined by the European Commission on February 4. It aims to improve services and logistics in rail, short-sea and inland waterways freight so as to attract an additional 12 ...
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Mexican merger deal
PROPOSALS to bring two of Mexico’s three principal rail concessionaires under common ownership were announced on January 25. The plan is to transfer all the shares in Ferrocarril del Sureste to a subsidiary of the mining company Grupo México, known as Infraestructura y Transportes México. FerroSur is currently controlled by ...
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Neubaustrecke link planning starts
GERMAN Railway announced at the end of January that it had started the formal planning process for a 75 km high speed line between Frankfurt and Mannheim. Due to be completed by 2008, the line would connect the existing Mannheim - Stuttgart Neubaustrecke with the K
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CFL plans i3bn spend
LUXEMBOURG Transport Minister Henri Grethen signed an accord with the board of the national railway on January 24 approving a long-term development strategy known as mobilitéit.lu. The aim is to boost public transport’s market share from 13% to 25% by 2020.Following the abandonment of plans to develop a dual-mode light ...
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Training interoperable drivers
DECADES must pass before use of ERTMS becomes universal, even within the present EU borders. During a transition that will span a working lifetime, drivers of international trains such as Thalys and Eurostar therefore need higher levels of professional competence to cope with different signalling systems, operating rules and languages. ...
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Utah plans ahead
ON JANUARY 17, the Utah Transit Authority board ratified a $185m deal with Union Pacific which paves the way for commuter rail services from Salt Lake City to Ogden, Brigham City, and eventually Payson. UTA is buying 281route-km from UP, including the main line between Payson and Brigham City and ...
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ZSR split formalised
SLOVAK Republic Railways emerged from restructuring on January 1 as two separate businesses. State-owned ZSR continues to manage the national rail infrastructure and assets such as real estate, while ancillary businesses will be divested in three stages to 17 service companies for eventual sale. Operations and commercial affairs have passed ...
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DEMU order
ROLLING stock leasing company HSBC Rail confirmed on February 14 that it is to buy 127 diesel-electric multiple-unit vehicles from Bombardier. They will be leased by UK operator Midland Main Line, under a two-year franchise extension to 2008. Capital value is £154m, and the spares and maintenance provision for the ...
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Final act nears in Amtrak epic
IN THE FACE of unrelenting political opposition, the National Railroad Passenger Corp has proved a remarkable survivor since its inception in 1971. Whether a national network of passenger trains in the USA will exist at all next year is now a major question, as the December 2002 deadline approaches for ...
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Curitiba funding
JAPAN BANK for International Co-operation is to provide a loan of US$274·6m to fund construction of a 13 km surface metro route in Curitiba, capital of the state of Paran
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WTC rebuilds let
NEW YORK Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced on February 14 the award of a US$92m contract to rebuild the tunnel carrying IRT subway Lines 1 and 9 under the site of the World Trade Center. Tully Construction and AJ Pegno Construction are expected to reopen the route to South Ferry by ...
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First 20-year franchise
M40 Trains has secured the first 20-year franchise awarded by Britain’s Strategic Rail Authority. The new Chiltern Railways agreement was signed on February 18 and starts this month. M40 won the original seven-year Chiltern franchise in July 1996, but the SRA called bids for a longer replacement and chose M40 ...
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Singapore grows
REVENUE services on the Singapore metro extension to Changi Airport began on February 8, two days after the line was handed over to Singapore MRT Ltd by the Land Transport Authority.Construction of the two-station branch began in January 1999. The first section as far as Expo was opened on January ...
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Adtranz value in dispute
MONTRéAL-BASED Bombardier Inc announced on February 14 that it had notified DaimlerChrysler that it will file a claim for damages of around €1bn in connection with its takeover last year of Adtranz, formally known as DaimlerChrysler Rail Systems GmbH. Bombardier said that discussions with DaimlerChrysler AG in Germany had failed ...
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Beware the low-cost airlines
EUROPE’S low-cost airlines, mainly based in Britain, are a growing threat to inter-city passenger rail services. These airlines are currently enjoying an unprecedented boom in traffic and are nurturing ambitious expansion plans.When a large number of landing and take-off slots became available at Paris Orly airport recently, easyJet, Go, Ryanair ...
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Spain moves closer to reform
THE SEPARATION of infrastructure from operations as required by European Union directives will be implemented in Spain by the end of 2003, according to Development Minister Francisco Álvarez-Cascos. This year, the government aims to reach agreement with the unions on how to proceed, and with other political parties on what ...
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Turnround in Italy
ANNOUNCING Italian State Railways’ preliminary financial results for 2001 on February 12, President & Chief Executive Giancarlo Cimoli proudly stated that the national railway had made a ’net profit’ of €20m compared with a loss of €683m in the previous year. The preliminary figures give FS a gross operating margin ...