Main line rail industry news – Page 1351
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News
Interoperability moves closer
AT ITS ANNUAL meeting in Paris on June 30, the Union of European Railway Supply Industry Associations (Unife) signed a formal accord with the International Union of Railways (UIC) and the Community of European Railways (CER) to establish a permanent secretariat for the European Association for Railway Interoperability (AEIF). Since ...
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Regional AVEs
SPANISH National Railways has called tenders for a fleet of high speed trains for short distance services. The Madrid - Ciudad Real shuttles worked by the original AVE fleet have proved very popular, and Renfe plans to introduce similar services between other city pairs such as Córdoba - Sevilla and ...
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Melbourne - Brisbane study
AUSTRALIAN Transport Minister John Anderson announced on July 15 that he had approved an A$5m feasibility study into the construction of a 1800 km high-capacity rail freight link between Melbourne and Brisbane. Promoted by the private sector, the Australian Transport & Energy Corridor is costed at A$1·4bn; Macquarie Bank announced ...
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Leasing innovations
ON JULY 14 British rolling stock lessor Angel Trains, now owned by Royal Bank of Scotland, announced it was forming a European subsidiary in co-operation with German equipment supplier Vossloh AG. Trading as Locomotion Partners, the new venture will be formed as two companies. London-based Locomotion Capital, 90% owned by ...
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St Louis boost
UPGRADING of Amtrak’s St Louis - Chicago corridor is set to get under way, with the award of a contract for the installation of Positive Train Control equipment under the AAR-led joint test programme (RG 6.00 p359). On June 21 the federal Department of Transportation announced that a consortium led ...
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SSRA redraws franchise map
THE SHAPE of Britain’s privatised rail industry for the next 20 years was unveiled on June 20, when the Shadow Strategic Rail Authority unveiled its proposed franchise map. This would see the 25 Train Operating Companies created for privatisation reduced to 22 (table). According to Executive Director, Franchise Management, Nick ...
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Pacific revival
THIS MONTH is due to see the start of work on the renovation of Colombia’s Pacific rail network, serving the port of Buenaventura. The work is being done by a consortium of four local engineering firms, with Rites of India. Rites stepped in to replace the Spanish engineering firm Sacyr, ...
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Railcar deal
THE NETHERLANDS government has allocated 31m guilders for upgrading the rural branch from Zutphen to Winterswijk and Doetinchem, ready for the introduction of lightweight railcars next year. The route was one of 33 unprofitable NS lines identified for transfer to regional operation. It became the responsibility of the province of ...
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Workshops restructured
SWISS Federal Railways has decided not to hive off its workshops to an external supplier, but to reorganise them into service centres to trim SFr100m off the current rolling stock maintenance budget of SFr600m a year by 2005. The programme, dubbed ’Redesign Service Rollmaterial’, will mean cutting the number of ...
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Tussle over iron ore
WITH Pacific Rim economies recovering swiftly from the 1998-99 recession, pressure is mounting to open up new sources of iron ore in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Two of these are located at West Angelas and Hope Downs, both 400 km from the sea but within easy reach of ...
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PEOPLE
JR East President Masatake Matsuda becomes Chairman in succession to Shuichiro Yamanouchi, who has been appointed President of Japan’s National Space Development Agency. Vice President Mutsutake Otsuka steps up to the Presidency. In a separate move, Chief Rolling Stock Engineer Yoshihiko Sato has joined JR East’s affiliated company Nippon Rolling ...
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LA completes Red line
THE FINAL 10·1 km of the Los Angeles Red line heavy metro from Hollywood & Vine to North Hollywood was dedicated on June 23, ending a troubled project that has taken 13 years to complete (MR 99 p15). During the ceremonies at North Hollywood, Mayor Richard Riordan described the occasion ...
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ATB tangle hits Dutch
THIS is the year by which Railned was to fit automatic train protection throughout the Dutch network, and all trains down to the level of track maintenance machines were to be equipped. It is not going to happen, but the transport ministry’s bungling attempts to impose deadlines, coupled with draconian ...
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Wake-up call on the Betuwe Route
ALTHOUGH work is under way, the 9·5bn guilders project to build a high capacity freight railway from Rotterdam to the German frontier appears to have turned sour. The financial press pointed out in June that discussions with 74 companies had failed to produce one willing to invest - not even ...
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Madrid heads south again
ON JULY 11, the Transport Secretary for the Madrid regional government, Luis Eduardo Cortés, announced plans for a further suburban rail branch, linking Atocha with the town of San Martín de la Vega, approximately 22 km south of the capital. Due to be built over an 18-month period at a ...
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Beijing extends
REGULAR services began running on the Beijing metro eastern extension to Bawangfen with effect from June 24, completing an eight-year project costed at 7·5bn yuan. The line had originally been intended to open in 1996, but was delayed by funding problems. Test running began on the 10·7 km section between ...
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Smart cards arrive in Paris
PARIS Transport Authority and French National Railways’ Ile de France business announced on July 11 that they had selected two suppliers for a programme to introduce smart card ticketing across the city’s metro, rail and bus networks.RATP has awarded a Fr60m contract to Ascom for the conversion of around 2000 ...
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SA concessions
AFTER four years of debate, South Africa’s Transport Minister Dullah Omar announced on June 20 that the government was ready to start concessioning the operation of rail services administered by South Africa Rail Commuter Corp. A pilot project covering the East Rand network will be launched by the end of ...
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Six in Jerusalem race
THIS MONTH is due to see the shortlisting of between three and five consortia for the build-operate-transfer concession to develop the first of eight light rail lines in Jerusalem (MR00 p36). These firms will then be required to submit final tenders during September.On June 21 the municipality announced that six ...
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Polish Citadis rolls out
THE FIRST of 17 steel-bodied Citadis 100 low-floor trams for the Polish city of Katowice was rolled out at Alstom’s Konstal plant on June 30 (above). The cars are destined to operate PKT’s 20 km route from Katowice to Bytom via Chorzów, which is being upgraded to light rail standards ...