Main line rail industry news – Page 1316
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Jerusalem bids
On July 26 detailed tender documents for Line 1 of Jerusalem’s proposed LRT network were published by the municipality and Israel’s Transport and Finance ministries. Prequalified bidders Passim, Adanim, City Pass and Ariel now have six months to return their bids for a 30-year build-operate-transfer concession covering the 13·8 km ...
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Manila speed-up
WITH TRAFFIC congestion in Manila worsening, on July 18 Philippines President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo ordered the Department of Transportation & Communications to give priority to the construction of new LRT routes and increasing capacity on the existing network. Consultants are to be appointed this month to assist with a 10·5m pesos ...
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Freight EMU
JR FREIGHT is drawing up plans for a multiple-unit freight train able to travel at 130 km/h. Intended to permit more competitive timings against road haulage in the busy industrial and commercial corridor between Tokyo and Osaka, the train would shave around 1h off the present 7h trip over the ...
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Genesis boosts CPR as sale looms
AT THE END of this month, shareholders of Canadian Pacific Ltd should approve a plan to divide its holdings into five publicly-owned trading companies. Subject to favourable court and tax authority rulings, Canadian Pacific Railway expects to be trading as an independent entity in 2002.CPR results for April to June ...
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Fines not the answer
EVERY TIME an illegal immigrant arrives in Britain, the carrier responsible becomes liable for a £2000 fine. Introduced last March, this policy prompted English Welsh & Scottish Railway to threaten to withdraw its freight services through the Channel Tunnel, which had become a favoured means of access to Britain by ...
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Maglev radio
EUROPEAN Aeronautic Defence & Space Company subsidiary Racoms has won a €29m contract from Siemens to supply radio communications for the Shanghai Transrapid maglev project.A 38GHz range radio relay system will be provide real-time transmission of data between moving trains and the control centre, using highly-focusing antennae along the route. ...
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Danish local concessions
SEPTEMBER 17 is the closing date for bids to operate regional passenger services in Jylland from the beginning of 2003. The Danish Transport Ministry has called international bids for two concessions totalling 582 route-km. Around 10 consortia have expressed interest, including German Railway's local passenger business DB Regio. Preferred bidders ...
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Reshaping the passenger business
LAST YEAR CFR Calatori accounted for 54% of all domestic passenger-km, with the rest split between road and air. Chairman & CEO Valentin Bota describes the loss of traffic between 1990 and 1996 as ’serious’, but says the decline has now slowed, ’following the upturn in the national economy’. During ...
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October Railway speeds up business class
RUSSIA’S PLANS for high-speed train services took a step forward on June 11, when the Nevsky Express was launched between Moscow and St Petersburg. Formed from 12 of the 18 air-conditioned business class cars built at Tver for 200 km/h operation, the train is hauled by a refurbished CS-200 electric ...
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Ghan extension
WITH construction of the Alice Springs - Darwin line scheduled to start in July, Great Southern Railway has formulated plans to extend The Ghan cruise train beyond Alice Springs. GSR Chief Executive Officer Stephen Bradford said that The Ghan would run weekly to Darwin between December and February and twice ...
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SF6 switchgear
SIEMENS Transportation Systems has received Railtrack product acceptance for Sitras 8DA 25 kV AC SF6 gas insulated switchgear. Later this year 44 panels will be commissioned as part of Skanska Rashleigh Weatherfoil’s power reinforcement project at Corey’s Mill on the East Coast Main Line.Sitras 8DA is the latest generation of ...
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Dieter
Over 500 passengers were left wandering on the concourse at Marseille when staff forgot to put a TGV service to Paris on the departure board. The empty train was stopped at Aix-en-Provence TGV, and the passengers taken there by coach, finally arriving over three hours late. A run of bad ...
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Station redevelopment
Hungarian Railways has prepared a 10-year HF24·5bn plan to rebuild 25 major stations. This will require a doubling of MAV’s present investment budget.Intersite Property Management Services of South Africa has received 140 tender proposals for the R30m project to rebuild Pretoria station, which was burnt down on February 19 by ...
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Industry in Brief
On July 2 Westinghouse Signals Ltd changed its name to Westinghouse Rail Systems Ltd to reflect its new and wider product range.Patentes Talgo SA recorded a turnover of €182m in 2000, up 62·8% from the previous year. EBITDA was €17·6m, with 51% of group revenue coming from manufacturing and 38% ...
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Pilbara peace deal will take tracks to West Angelas
TRAINS COULD be hauling iron ore out of the West Angelas mine in the Pilbara, northwestern Australia, ’early in the second half’ of next year, thanks to an agreement reached on July 2 between Rio Tinto and the Robe River Joint Venture Partners. A year ago Rio Tinto successfully pushed ...
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BHP breaks its own ’heaviest train’ record
ON JUNE 21 BHP Iron Ore set a new world record by running the longest and heaviest freight train, between Yandi mine and Port Hedland in the Pilbara region of Western Australia (below). The run was the latest manifestation of BHPIO’s ongoing programme of leading-edge research. Vice-President Mike Darby said ...
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Refurbished stock heads east
ITALIAN RAILWAYS’ rolling stock maintenance arm UTMR - now a Trenitalia subsidiary - is offering a range of refurbished coaches to railways in eastern Europe. The basis for the conversions are UIC-standard Type X vehicles dating from the early 1970s which have been replaced on Italian domestic inter-city services by ...
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Door contract
A partnership of Parker Pneumatic and Fersystems has been selected to supply complete automatic internal door operating mechanisms for the upgrading of SNCF regional trains.Reader Enquiry Numbers Parker Pneumatic148Fersystems149
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Loans fund corridor upgrades
CFR has negotiated several international loans to fund the modernisation of its two main international corridors. European Investment Bank financing worth €200m was negotiated in 1998 for the 160 km core section of Corridor IV between Bucuresti and Brasov, which is shared over the 59 km to Ploesti by Corridor ...