Main line rail industry news – Page 1356
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News
Five more years of maglev tests needed
CENTRAL JAPAN Railway has announced a ’technical development plan’ for its superconducting maglev test line near Ohtsuki in Yamanashi prefecture. JR Central says that the Maglev Technological Practicality Evaluation Committee concluded in March that ’the Superconducting Maglev technology has the practicality for an ultra-high-speed mass transport system’, but it is ...
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Izmir celebrates metro start
WITH a fanfare of music and fireworks, the Mayor of Izmir Ahmet Piristina formally opened the first stage of the city's light metro network on May 22. Other participants in the celebrations included Trade & Industry Minister Kenan Tanrikulu, Finance Minister Sumer Oral, former Mayor Burhan Ozfatura, and Izmir ...
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Smallest state in privatisation vanguard
Estonia is on course to be the first former Soviet state to transfer rail operations to the private sector. Richard Hope reports keen bidding for rapidly growing transit freight through the port of Tallinn, although thereis a tussle over passenger subsidies
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Letter
INTRO: Tilt troublesSir - The derailment of an ICE-T trainset in Berlin (RG 4.00 p212) was apparently caused by a sticking non-return valve, causing a hydraulic tilting actuator to block. As a result, the car body twisted and the bogie derailed. When the train was hauled away, the damaged coach ...
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Single axles to speed postal vans
LAST MONTH, Swedish State Railway’s workshops and maintenance subsidiary TGOJ ordered 70 sets of TF25SA single axle suspensions from Powell Duffryn Rail for around £2m. Derived from the company’s TF25 ’track-friendly’ bogies (RG 11.99 p739), the suspensions are to be used to uprate SJ freight vans for 160 km/h operation ...
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Products in Brief
Road-rail track maintenance vehicles being adapted from ERF road vehicles by Harsco Track Technologies for British infrastructure maintenance companies are now being fitted with control equipment supplied by Siemens Automation & Drives. The range includes Simatic S7-200 programmable logic controllers, Simatic HMI TP27 BERO inductive sensors, and 3SB1 push buttons.Ultrasonic ...
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TGV track reaches Marseille
WITH civil works including several major structures now complete, the latest addition to the French high speed network is due to open on June 1 2001. Tracklaying on the 250 km TGV Méditerranée to Marseille and Nîmes (RG 1.99 p43) began in May 1999, involving some 150 locomotives and 1600 ...
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Capacity issues not addressed
NS REIZIGERS, which operates Dutch passenger trains, is in a bind. Traffic is at record levels and rising by 6% a year on the principal lines. It is currently negotiating a concession with the transport ministry, which is demanding ambitious growth rates at higher levels of punctuality while stalling on ...
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Sidetrack
INTRO: Mirror, mirror on the floorCoy Japanese are starting to address the issues arising from a doubling in suicides over the last 20 years, particularly now that more and more people are choosing ’public’ methods such as jumping under trains. Faced with substantial costs when services must be halted to ...
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Metros
Egypt: A total of 22 companies applied to pre-qualify for the Giza extension of Cairo metro Line 2. The National Authority for Tunnels was expected to produce a shortlist by the end of May.Europe: The European Commission has appointed AEA Technology Rail to provide an overview and analysis of, and ...
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PEOPLE
Freightliner Ltd has appointed Operations Director Alan Galley as its new Managing Director in succession to David Rutherford who has left the company. In addition, four new board members have been named: Peter Maybury, Neil McLean, Eddie Fitzsimons, and Robert Goundry.Jon R Roy has been elected President & Chief Executive ...
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Private finance changes the investment rules
MOST SUCCESSFUL technological advances in recent years have focused on enabling people to communicate in new and sophisticated ways, breaking down geographical and cultural boundaries. However, face-to-face communication is still necessary and interaction between people is as important as ever in both social and economic terms. Rail travel, whether inter-city ...
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Market
Australia: Hamersley Iron has ordered 240 ore wagons from Smorgon Steel’s Bradken subsidiary at a cost of A$25m; first delivery is due in September.Canada: In May CPR signed a C$28m three-year contract with Bell Nexxia covering all its telecommunications needs.Bids closed on May 30 for seven diesel locomotives sought by ...
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Industry in Brief
Australia: Evans Deakins Industries has agreed to purchase the Powerlines, Telecommunications & Railways division of ABB for A$25m. PTR has maintenance contracts for rail installations in Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales, with a turnover of A$110m a year.British-based Rail Training International and French simulator manufacturer Corys jointly took ...
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Metropolitan taps the business market
NINE MONTHS after the launch on August 1 last year of Metropolitan services between K
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Passenger in Brief
Rail Gourmet has acquired 40% of SSG Speisewagen AG, the rail catering business of Passaggio Holding, which has long-term contracts with SBB and other Swiss railways, creating a new company Passaggio Rail AG. Passaggio will start to replace SSG as a brand name when SBB’s new Bistro cars are introduced ...
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Seven centres to manage the network
INTRO: This month sees the first application of passenger information systems being driven directly from the data provided to German Railway’s network management centre in Frankfurt. Six out of seven regional operations centres that will eventually take over signalling control functions have now been commissioned. Murray Hughes reports from Frankfurt ...
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NS starts ’basic service’ trials
FOLLOWING last year’s decision to withdraw staff from its smaller stations, Netherlands Railways is beginning trials at 12 locations of the basic facilities that are to be provided. After consultation with consumer groups, NS has designed a ’service unit’ that combines ticket vending and money-changing machines, a timetable poster, an ...
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Station systems automated
GERMAN Railway has adopted LonWorks networking technology to automate the management of station equipment and systems at its new Frankfurt Airport inter-city station. Escalators, lifts, fire alarms, smoke detectors, lighting and air-conditioning equipment are amongst over 1000 devices and 7000 data points connected to the network. There is a single ...
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Dynamic train scheduling on a national scale
INTRO: Automation of conflict resolution over wide geographical areas can speed up the timetable and train service planning process dramatically. The time to optimise infrastructure capacity, trains and crews to match business objectives can be cut from months to hoursBYLINE: Tom A Greaves CEng MIMechE MCITDirector, VST ComrecoRailHistorically, train schedules ...