Main line rail industry news – Page 1318
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News
Czech corridor energised
ELECTRIC services began running between Ceske Budejovice and the Austrian border at Horni Dvoriste in southern Bohemia on June 10, following the inauguration of the 25 kV 50Hz wiring three days earlier (below). Part of Czech Railways’ north-south Corridor 4 linking the German and Austrian borders (RG 6.95 p377), the ...
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Work begins on Tibet line
CEREMONIES were held in Lhasa and Golmud on June 29 to mark the start of work on the 1118 km Qinghai - Tibet railway (RG 5.01 p319). The two cities were decorated with bunting, flags and balloons for the ceremonies, with auspicious Tibetan designs displayed prominently. Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji ...
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Red Revolution launches high speed tilt tests
INTRO: On July 9 Virgin Trains staged a high speed publicityrun with its first Pendolino Britannico tilting trainset at the Alstom test track. Murray Hughes reports RED WAS the colour of the day on July 9, when Virgin Trains and Alstom demonstrated 200 km/h running with a pre-series Class 390 ...
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QR’s Tilt Train wins the business
SO SUCCESSFUL have Queensland Railways’ 1067mm gauge tilting trains been that airlines flying betwen Brisbane and Rockhampton have found they have a strong competitor. Queensland Transport Minister Steve Bredhauer said last month that rail patronage on the 639 km route had risen by 66% since the trains were introduced in ...
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Intelligence August 2001
Australia: Western Australia government is to spend A$1m building a 1·5 km link to a wood chip mill in Albany. Westnet is to construct the line, with the state meeting interest costs over four years. Victorian Transport Minister Peter Batchelor has identified regauging the Mildura line next year as a ...
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Funding collapse ends long-term investment hopes
THE RESPECTED Institute of Economic Affairs must have been aghast. Its June 26 conference on The Future of UK Rail was intended to celebrate the first anniversary of a 10-year funding package that would see £63bn of public cash and private capital pour into Britain’s privatised railway, leading to 50% ...
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Intermodal faces capacity constraints
EFFORTS to surmount obstacles to international freight crossing Europe’s rail frontiers are making headway at last, though it would be premature to claim that the tide has turned against road competition. UIC reports that European freight tonne-km was 7% higher in 2000 than in 1999, with the international component up ...
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Cool comfort comes to the Paris metro
PARIS Transport Authority has awarded a contract worth €695m to a consortium of Alstom, Bombardier and Technicatome for 161 five-car MF2000 steel-wheeled metro trainsets. The order follows a long evaluation process - bids originally had to be submitted to RATP in April 1998.The order will replace about half the MF67 ...
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Perpignan - Figueres accord
MEETING in Toulouse on July 12, French Transport Minister Jean-Claude Gayssot and his Spanish counterpart Francisco Álvarez-Cascos agreed that the two countries would share equally the €709·2m public-sector contribution towards building the 45·5 km Perpignan - Figueres cross-border route. Expressions of interest in a concession to build and operate the ...
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Open access boosts IKEA Rail
SEPTEMBER 1 will see the start of IKEA Rail AB’s first open-access freight services between Sweden and Germany, following the signing of the necessary track access contracts on June 29. The Swedish-based furniture supplier decided earlier this year to form its own rail division, which is headed by the former ...
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Wires go west
FRENCH infrastructure authority RFF is to electrify the 114 km from Nantes to La-Roche-sur-Yon and the resort of Les-Sables-d’Olonne by 2007. An agreement for the Fr537m project was signed with the government, the region of Pays de la Loire and the departments of Vendée and Loire-Atlantique on July 10.At present ...
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Link revived
THROUGH PASSENGER services between Kolkata and Dhaka are set to resume by the end of this year, following a trial run from Tangail to Kolkata and back on July 11-12. The Joint Secretary at the Bangladesh Communications Ministry M Ataur Rahman signed an agreement with Indian High Commissioner M L ...
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ETCS Level 1 ordered
SWISS FEDERAL Railways has approved its first commercial application of ETCS Level 1 train control on lower-density routes. On June 27 a €9m contract was awarded to Alcatel Transport Automation for resignalling of the 30 km Seetalbahn between Lenzburg and Eschenbach. As well as 24 colourlight signals, 26 point motors ...
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Restructuring cuts FS costs
THE RESTRUCTURING of Italian State Railways took a further step on July 1, with the legal formation of infrastructure company Rete Ferroviaria Italiana. Part of the process to meet European directives on the separation of infrastructure and operations, the move also paves the way for wider implementation of open access ...
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Landbridge accord signed
A MEMORANDUM signed in Ostrava on June 22 will pave the way for construction of a 1524mm gauge rail link across southern Poland from Katowice to a multimodal terminal at Bohumín in northern Moravia by the end of next year. The US$300m project envisages the extension of the existing ’Sulphur-Steel ...
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High speed contracts
THESPANISH cabinet has given its approval for tenders to be called for civil works on the 12·8 km Santaella - Puente Genil section of the Córdoba - M
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Swedish cut-off
AUGUST 20 will see the completion of a new double-track cut-off to boost capacity and shorten journey times on the Stockholm - Västerås line. Banverket inaugurated the SKr1·6bn route on June 5, although with only one track at first. Replacing a tortuous single track along the shores of Lake Malaren ...
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Silk Road study
SEVEN groups of consultants have been shortlisted to undertake detailed design studies for the planned Silk Road rail corridor linking Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and China (RG 4.01 p223). Work on the project is expected to get under way shortly, following the signing of a formal accord by Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev ...
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SNCF orders
FRENCH National Railways has ordered a further 180 Prima electric freight locos from Alstom, with an option for another 120. As with the existing order for 120, the locos will be split between dual-system Class 427000 (25 kV 50Hz/1·5 kV DC) and three-system variants: Class 437000 with 15 kV 162/3 ...
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Tranz Scenic sale
THE BREAK-UP of Wisconsin Central’s overseas operations moved ahead at the end of June with the selection of a preferred bidder for the Tranz Scenic long-distance passenger services in New Zealand. Tranz Rail has signed non-binding heads of agreement with Australia’s West Coast Railway, which operates services between Melbourne and ...