Main line rail industry news – Page 1311
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Polish wheelset plant opens
BYLINE: Andrzej Harassek reports from WarszawaITALIAN steel group Lucchini inaugurated a new wheelset department at its Warszawa steelworks on August 29. The plant was formally opened by the President of the Polish Senate Marek Borowski, who was joined at the ceremonies by Warszawa Mayor Pawel Piskorski, Lucchini’s President Antonino Marullo ...
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Estonian privatisation completed
THE long-running privatisation of Estonian State Railways was finally completed on August 31, with the sale of a 66% stake in Eesti Raudtee (EVR) to the Baltic Rail Services OÜ joint venture for US$58m. The deal follows the signing on April 30 of a provisional agreement with the Estonian Privatisation ...
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Separation can be made to work - with state support
INTRO: This year Swedish State Railways’ operating divisions have become independent companies, marking another stage in the restructuring of Sweden’s railways. Rail’s share of freight hauled over more than 100 km beats that in all other EU countries, and passenger traffic is at a record high. Stig Larsson* offers an ...
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Train theft foiled
TEXAS police have arrested a man accused of attempting to steal a 107-wagon Union Pacific grain train. Seeing the train idling at a station, he boarded it and released the locomotive brakes. However, finding himself unable to release the train brakes, he radioed the crew of an oncoming train for ...
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SNCF forms on-line alliance
ON SEPTEMBER 5 French National Railways announced that it had signed an agreement with Expedia Inc to form a joint venture that will develop SNCF’s existing web presence at www.voyages-sncf.com to provide a wider range of travel services by the end of this year. The site will combine facilities for ...
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Low-floor trams arrive in Schwerin
BOMBARDIER Transportation has supplied the first of 28 articulated SN2001 70% low-floor bogie trams to the German city of Schwerin. The 2·65m wide unidirectional vehicles are from the same family as 27 trams built for Kassel and 34 for Essen. Costing DM3·2m each, the Schwerin cars are due to be ...
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Series Lirex likely to have bogies
INTRO: Harry Hondius reports on the first test trip of this experimental trainLIGHTWEIGHT Regional Express (Lirex) attracted intense interest at InnoTrans in Berlin in September 2000. Described in RG 11.00 p763, this experimental trainset is being developed by Alstom LHB in close collaboration with the Land of Sachsen-Anhalt and DB ...
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LA flyover opened
Pulling a ceremonial lever to switch a signal to green, US Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta inaugurated the Redondo Junction Grade Separation in southeast Los Angeles on August 21. Allowing speeds of 80 km/h, the double-track flyover carries Metrolink and Amtrak passenger trains into LA Union Station above the future ...
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Great Lakes rail study
PROPOSALS to develop a rail network serving Africa’s Great Lakes region have been unveiled by Uganda’s Ministry of Tourism, Trade & Industry, following a meeting of transport and communications ministers in the Common Market for Eastern & Southern Africa. Comesa has commissioned Makhosi Holdings of South Africa to undertake a ...
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GOVIA takes over South Central
THE GOVIA consortium of Go-Ahead and Keolis (formerly VIA-Cariane) took control of Britain’s Network South Central franchise on August 26, after Industry & Energy Minister Brian Wilson decided not to refer the deal to the Competition Commission. GOVIA already operates the Thameslink franchise which competes with South Central on the ...
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Corsican upgrade
THE REGIONAL government in Corsica has reached agreement in principle with French National Railways for a major upgrading of the 232 route-km network by 2005. Over €100m will be invested to cut 1h off the present 3h 40min journey time between Ajaccio and Bastia. SNCF has operated the metre-gauge network ...
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Gwadar link in PR plans
THE CONSTRUCTION of a 400 km rail link from Dalbadin on the Quetta - Zahedan line to the port of Gwadar forms a key element in an Rs6bn programme for developing the Pakistan Railways network. PR Chairman Saeeduz Zafar said on August 23 that surveys for the route had been ...
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Brava bid wins
SPANISH National Railways announced on September 14 that a special meeting of its administrative board that day had decided unanimously to order a build of 12 gauge-changing high-speed trains from a consortium of CAF and Alstom. Under the €115·5m deal, Renfe has reserved the option to undertake 20% of the ...
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Freight accord
FRENCH National Railways and German Railway announced on September 5 that they were forming a working party to study ways of improving cross-border rail freight between their networks. The team will be headed by Dr Helmut Draxler, whose term as Director General of Austrian Federal Railways came to an end ...
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Taurus spreads its wings
FOUR more rail operators are buying Taurus electric freight locomotives from Siemens, based on the 400-strong fleet being built for Austrian Federal Railways. Siemens has already built a batch of the Class 1116 dual-system version for the Dispolok leasing pool. On September 7, Siemens announced that it had signed a ...
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Pendolinos expand
FINNISH Railways will increase its range of Pendolino services on October 22, when new tilting EMUs will replace InterCity2 trains on three daily Helsinki - Tampere - Jyväskylä services.VR is taking delivery of eight more Italian-built Pendolino sets to augment its two locally-built prototypes. The first new trains entered service ...
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Jerusalem revival cleared
ISRAELI PRIME Minister Ariel Sharon approved US$85m of funding for the long-planned upgrade of the line to Jerusalem on August 22, and a contract is expected to be signed this month. Work will begin with the 21 km Na’an - Bet-Shemesh section, at a cost of US$24m. The second stage ...
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PEOPLE
The President of Rail World Inc Ed Burkhardt has been elected Chairman of the new Estonian Railways board (p654), and Railroad Development Corp Chairman Henry Posner III becomes a board member. Former Wisconsin Central Executive Vice President, Planning, Earl Currie becomes interim Managing Director of EVR, with former Tasrail Operations ...