Main line rail industry news – Page 1298
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News
Irish passengers reach an all-time high
RECORD numbers of passengers were carried on Iarnród éireann during 2001, with 37·2 million journeys made. The inter-city, DART and suburban sectors each saw their highest ever individual traffic figures. In 2001 over 11·1 million inter-city journeys were made, continuing the upward trend of recent years. The Dublin - ...
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Four ZR bids in
FOUR consortia had submitted bids for the concession to manage and operate the 1273 km Zambian Railways network when the tender closed on December 7. Following an initial evaluation during December, Zambia Privatisation Agency expected to select a preferred bidder in January and complete detailed negotiations by the end of ...
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Belgian M6 cars take to the rails
INTRO: Belgian National Railways expects to put its first M6 series double-deck inter-city coaches into service in MayPASSENGERS on the busy peak-hour services from Brussels to Oostende and Kortrijk are in for a treat. From mid-2002, Belgian National Railways will start to phase in the first of its M6 ...
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Publications
Nahverkehrs-Taschenbuch 2002A useful three-volume directory of the German public transport industry covering both passenger and freight. Details of operators, institutions and research centres are given in Volume I, consultants and suppliers are listed in Volume II, and Volume III is an alphabetical directory of key personnel in all sectors of ...
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PEOPLE
Netherlands Railways President & Director-General Hans Huisinga and Director of External Relations Roy Lantain resigned on January 2, together with the company’s entire Supervisory Board under Chairman Jan Timmer. Wim Meyer has been appointed Board Chairman, and Karel J Noordzij Acting President for six months (p59).Indonesian Railway Public Corp President ...
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Second thoughts at Roissy
BACK in 1992 Aéroports de Paris rejected a Fr410m bid from Matra to build a rubber-tyred driverless VAL mini-metro to ferry passengers between terminals at Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport. Instead ADP chose Soulé’s SK-6000 cable-powered peoplemover, but after a lengthy testing period decided this was not sufficiently reliable. It called a halt ...
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Two traction fleets modernised
WITH the economy of Croatia starting to grow again following the war with Serbia in 1991-95, Croatian Railways (HZ) is gradually restoring services as demand builds up. HZ has secured loans from the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development to fund a modernisation programme, and some ...
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INTELLIGENCE
Australia: Victoria state government has decided not to build a rail link to Melbourne airport in the next 10 years, following the prediction of low patronage in a report by Booz·Allen & Hamilton. However, the proposed alignment is to be reserved for future rail use.South Australia began negotiations last month ...
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In favour of vertical integration
Sir - Please count me as a ’vertical integrationist’ (RG 1.02 p3). The brave reforms of Great Britain’s railways have quite obviously not produced the intended results. One can admire the courage of the proponents, and the political will for implementation, but objectively one cannot dismiss the negatives. These include ...
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Restructuring the French reforms
A SITE NEAR Baudrecourt in Lorraine has been chosen for a ceremony on January 28 to mark the start of work on TGV Est, France’s next high speed line. For the first time infrastructure company Réseau Ferré de France rather than SNCF will be responsible for managing construction. It is ...
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Amtrak reform proposals published
FOLLOWING its ruling that Amtrak could not become self-sufficient by December 2002 (RG 12.01 p799), the Amtrak Reform Council unveiled on January 11 its proposals for the future of the US national passenger rail operator, which had been adopted by an 8:1 vote. It recommended that the federal government should ...
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Umtata upgrade proposed
SOUTH AFRICA’S Eastern Cape provincial transport department has called bids for the refurbishment of the 282 km railway to the former Transkei capital Umtata. The department’s Director for Policy & Projects Lan Situma expects to award a contract next month for a turnkey package, which would include infrastructure and signalling ...
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IR studies network wiring
ISRAEL RAILWAYS has called tenders for a preliminary design study into the electrification of its entire network, totalling 700 route-km. Previous proposals had only envisaged wiring the 320 route-km passenger network radiating from Tel Aviv, but the new plan would include the heavy-haul freight routes in the south of the ...
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Koreans to accelerate high speed construction
SOUTH KOREAN President Kim Dae-Jung has instructed Transport Minister Lim In-Taik to bring forward construction of the second phase of the country’s high speed line programme by two years, with the aim of completing the Seoul - Pusan route in 2008 instead of 2010.KTX trains have been running on the ...
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Electrification upgrade
CROATIAN Railways awarded design contracts on December 12 for renovation and upgrading of electrification equipment on its two sections of the Budapest - Sarajevo - Ploce Corridor Vc, which total 129 km. VPS Design of Zagreb will be responsible for the northern section linking Beli Manastir on the Hungarian border ...
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Master Plan approved
LAST MONTH Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai approved a 20-year programme to upgrade the metre-gauge national rail network at an estimated cost of 161000bn dong. The government has agreed to provide credit loans from its development fund, and assist with negotiating soft loans from international suppliers.When DSVN sent its ...
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NS spending trimmed
MORE MAINTENANCE and fewer major investment projects is the essence of Norfolk Southern’s capital improvement budget for 2002, announced by Chairman, President & CEO David R Goode on December 13. Planned spending totals $705m, compared with $806m in 2001.The programme provides $482m for infrastructure projects, including $366m for track and ...
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High speed laboratory
SPAIN’s Ministry of Development is to establish a high speed research facility that will test components as well as signalling and control systems. Work will also be directed towards ensuring interoperability across the Spanish high speed network. Funding to establish the facility will be provided by Cedex, the ministry’s research ...
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Argentina in crisis
THE FINANCIAL crisis that went on to engulf the nation before Christmas had spread to Argentina’s railways on December 12, when the first freight concession to be let to the private sector also became the first to suspend operations. The 660 staff at Ferroexpresso Pampeano (Fepsa) had not been paid ...