Main line rail industry news – Page 1319
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News
More tilting TRDs
SPANISH National Railways has awarded CAF a contract worth Pts15·8bn to supply and maintain 21 TRD tilting DMUs for its Regional business unit. As with recent high speed orders (p517), Renfe has reserved the right to undertake up to 20% of construction and 50% of maintenance.Each powered by four 338 ...
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BA to build three more lines
THE Buenos Aires city council has approved plans for three more metro routes totalling 22 km. Bringing a metro station within 400m of some 2 million residents or 70% of the city’s total population, Lines F, G and I are likely to be taken forward as build-operate-transfer projects. The aim ...
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Catalan trams
BARCELONA’s Autoritat del Transport Metropolità has approved plans for two more light rail lines, serving the eastern suburbs. With a total of 31 stops, the two lines will cost around Pts30bn. One will connect Gorg de Badalona with Barcelona Nord. The second will link the Renfe station at Sant Adrià ...
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C-Train growing
THREE of 32 new Siemens SD160 LRVs entered service in Calgary on July 4. Equipped with IGBT controls and AC drives, they are to be delivered in two batches, 15 this year and 17 in 2003, at a cost of C$112m. The bodyshells are being built in Siemens’ Carson plant ...
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Delhi on course
THE FIRST section of Delhi’s northwest line is to be ready by December 2003. Delhi Metro Rail Corp announced on July 8 that it was starting utilities diversion for the route, which will run entirely on viaduct 12m above ground. The 8·5 km first section links the junction at Tri ...
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Praha automates
PRAHA Metro has awarded a contract worth €7·6m to Matra Transport International for the installation of automatic train control equipment on 47 trainsets by 2004. Operator DphmP has been developing proposals for automatic operation over the past five years, and this contract for automatic speed control and supervision equipment marks ...
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Low-floor fleet
ON JUNE 27 Istanbul Ulasim AS awarded a €86m contract to Bombardier Transportation for supply of 55 low-floor cars, to be delivered from September 2002. Derived from the K
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Line A car deal
ONJULY 4 the Comune di Roma selected CAF of Spain to supply a fleet of 33 six-car trains to boost capacity on metro Line A. The €231m deal includes an option for a further 12 sets, and provision for a five-year maintenance agreement. Delivery of the first train to Metro.Ro ...
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More productivity gains in prospect
SINGLE COMMODITY railways have several advantages over mixed traffic railways when it comes to productivity comparisons. All trains, for example, may be of the same formation and same weight, allowing the best use of line capacity. Nonetheless, it is instructive to see just what is being achieved by the iron ...
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Kazakhs open northeast link
JUNE 19 saw the opening to traffic of the first new railway to be completed in Kazakhstan since it gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The 184 km Aksu - Konechnaya line connects the existing branches from Pavlodar to Ermak and Semipalatinsk to Degelen, providing a direct link ...
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PR seeks concessionaires
THE PAKISTAN government has ruled that there is no question of full privatisation of the country’s 7791 km network, but private concessionaires have been invited to run passenger trains on selected routes. Initial response has been mixed, with some companies reluctant to bid for fear that they would face unfair ...
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Kiley sacked in PPP fiasco
ON JULY 17 Britain’s Secretary of State for Transport Stephen Byers dismissed Bob Kiley as Chairman of London Regional Transport, parent company of London Underground. In his place Byers reappointed Sir Malcolm Bates, who had held the post until Kiley was named as his successor on May 10 by Deputy ...
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Mail & Express
Sir - I was interested to read the letter from Christophe Boisseau about mixed passenger and freight traffic (RG 6.01 p382). However, I expected a more detailed exposition of Amtrak’s experience with non-passenger operations. Amtrak has been handling small, time-sensitive freight on much of its passenger network for several years, ...
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Straits bridges
WE REPORTED last month that Russian Railways’ plans for construction of a link to the island of Sakhalin were firming up. Head of the Sakhalin Department of Transport & Communications V Romanov confirmed last month that a bridge rather than a tunnel will be built, crossing the Tatar Strait between ...
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Shinkansen comes to York
THE FIRST Japanese Shinkansen carriage to be exhibited outside Japan was unveiled at Britain’s National Railway Museum in York by His Excellency The Ambassador of Japan Sadayuki Hayashi on July 12.Built in 1976, Series 0 car number 22-141 was withdrawn in 2000 after travelling over 10 million km. It was ...
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No let-up in German spending plans
ONE OF German Railway’s ICE fleet reached a speed of 393 km/h during trials of a Japanese-designed bogie on the Hannover - Berlin high speed line on July 13. The test was part of DB’s programme to develop trains fit for commercial service at 350 km/h - for the moment ...
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Maglev all the rage again
ON JULY 16 Nexans announced an order from ThyssenKrupp Transrapid GmbH for supply and installation of the long stator motor winding for the 30 km guideway of the world’s first commercial maglev project in Shanghai, and the first cables arrived in the Chinese city from Germany last month.Although the ...
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Sirio goes north
GÖTEBORG Transport has ordered a fleet of 40 Sirio low-floor light rail cars from AnsaldoBreda for SKr600m, plus an option for a further 80 vehicles. The 29m long unidirectional cars are 2650mm wide and will have seats for 83 passengers and room for 96 standees. Two prototypes are due for ...
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PKP starts the privatisation process
The restructuring of Polish State Railways reaches a crucial phase on October 1 this year when new companies responsible for regional passenger services, freight, traction power supplies, telecommunications and IT begin trading as wholly-owned subsidiaries of PKP. With various measures planned to reduce the state railway's historic debt, some operations ...
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Metros try moving adverts
MOTIONPOSTER has agreed terms with BKV to install four moving image advertising units in Budapest metro tunnels. An agreement has also been signed for two sites in Athens, and MotionPoster is negotiating with 14 other operators.Each unit has 168 A2-sized back-illuminated posters arranged along 100m of tunnel. Electronic controls automatically ...