Main line rail industry news – Page 1342
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Citadis orders placed
ON OCTOBER 6, Alstom Transport confirmed that it had signed contracts worth 67m euros to supply and maintain Citadis 300 low-floor light rail cars for Melbourne franchise operator Yarra Trams. Under the deal Alstom will supply 31 cars with options for a further five, and maintain them for 15 years. ...
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NY joint venture
SIEMENS Transportation Systems Inc has formed a joint venture with Union Switch & Signal and RWKS Comstock to undertake a $100m programme to install Automatic Train Supervision on Division A of the New York City Transit subway network. ATS is intended to integrate central train traffic control, wayside signalling, automatic ...
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3rd Street LRT under way
GROUNDBREAKING ceremonies were held in San Francisco on September 27 for Phase I of the city’s $500m 3rd Street Light Rail Project. This will extend the Muni Metro network by 8·7 km into the south-eastern suburbs. Mayor Willie Brown and Muni General Manager Michael Burns wielded the shovels at the ...
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FGV goes underground
VALENCIA metro operator FGV and the region’s department of public works reached agreement in October to put two more sections of the city’s metro and light rail network underground.The bigger project covers the reconstruction of a section of the existing north-south Line 1 through the town of Torrent, capital of ...
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São Paulo signs Line 5 turnkey
BRAZILIAN suburban rail authority Companhia Paulista de Trens Metropolitanos announced in October that it had selected the Sistrem consortium to equip the 9 km section of São Paulo metro Line 5 between Capão Redondo and Largo Treze. Due to be completed by 2002, the line is being built by CPTM ...
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Ankara extension bids in
BIDS for infrastructure and electromechanical works on three additions to the Ankara urban rail network were submitted on September 21. Seven consortia of local civil engineering firms have bid for the 18 km metro extension from Batikent to Sinkan and T
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C5 to Humanes
ON SEPTEMBER 29 the Spanish government approved the award of a contract for extension of Madrid suburban line C5 from Fuenlabrada to Humanes. The 6·2 km extension is costed at Pts4·6bn. The work includes double-tracking, electrification and resignalling of the single track line forming part of the Madrid - Valencia ...
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CPR outsources maintenance
MORE THAN 75% of Canadian Pacific Railway’s diesel loco fleet will be maintained and repaired by contractors, following an expansion of the programme announced on September 25. CPR has contracted OmniTRAX Locomotive Canada to supervise ’field servicing’ of about 175 diesel locos, most of them low-horsepower units assigned to yard ...
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Praha extends again
CZECH Prime Minister Milos Zeman and the Mayor of Praha Jan Kasl ceremonially laid the foundation stone for an extension of metro Line C on September 21. Running 3·9 km north from N
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Fortunes revive at SNCF
FREIGHT TRAFFIC on French National Railways has begun to grow again, with this year’s target of 53·8 billion tonne-km now looking attainable following 9% growth in the first half year compared with 1999. The positive trend continued through the summer, and Freight Director Francis Rol-Tanguy is particularly pleased that intermodal ...
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Pointers
n Spain’s Andalucía region has proposed that the Ministry of Development takes back responsibility for infrastructure spending on the east-west routes that the region has supported since 1985. A regional passenger service may emerge when Andalucía negotiates a new agreement with Renfe from January 2001.n Turkish Transport Minister Enis Oksuz ...
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Colour coding
PORTLAND light rail operator Tri-Max hopes to break ground this month for its 9·3 km Red line along Interstate Avenue, connecting the Rose Quarter and Expo Center. Scheduled to open in September 2004, this is costed at $350m. On September 20 Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater signed an agreement to provide ...
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Complex structure of Britain’s railway starts to crack
PUNCTUALITY and on-time performance on Britain’s rail network were sacrificed on the altar of safety on October 19, when Railtrack imposed 81 emergency speed restrictions on main lines. It followed the derailment at Hatfield of Great North Eastern Railway’s 12.10 inter-city service from London to Leeds two days earlier. The ...
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STB debates merger strategy
THE FUTURE SHAPE of North American railroading was signalled on October 3, when the US Surface Transportation Board issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on proposed mergers. Releasing its proposed regulations for public and industry comment, the STB said the package ’represents a major shift in basis from the pro-merger ...
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Joint venture held up
WHEN proposals were first put forward for a joint venture between the freight businesses of Swiss Federal Railways and Italian State Railways, observers were not slow to raise their eyebrows. SBB has an enviable reputation for punctuality and reliability, whereas FS has a less complimentary image.No surprise then, that the ...
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Outback link set
THE PENULTIMATE piece in the Alice - Darwin jigsaw was slotted into place on October 18. Australian Prime Minister John Howard, Northern Territories Chief Minister Denis Burke and South Australian Premier John Olsen met in Adelaide to sign an agreement committing A$480m of public funds to the project to build ...
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ETCS Level 2 replaces flawed vision
Roger Ford reports on the progress with Railtrack's latest plans for resignalling the West Coast Main Line, following the collapse of the company's original transmission-based signalling strategy
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Blue line partnership
BANGKOK Metro Co Ltd has selected the Nippon-Euro Subway Consortium as a partner in its 25-year concession to build and operate the city’s Blue line heavy metro. Tunnelling is already well advanced for the 20 km line between Hualampong and Bang Sue, which is scheduled to open in 2004. The ...
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Watching paint dry faster
REPAINTING of French National Railways’ refurbished TGV Sud-Est trainsets has been speeded up by the development of a new paint drying tunnel using infrared radiation. The Sunkiss Thermoreactor is a catalytic radiant panel which produces infrared radiation and convection currents through the catalytic combustion of natural gas or propane. ...
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TV on the metro
MADRID Metro has joined e-Media Group and Urbaser in a new venture that is to install TV screens across the network by the end of 2002. Costing Pts7bn and expected to create over 300 jobs, the Canal Metro Madrid project will see 1200 42in plasma screens installed on platforms and ...