Main line rail industry news – Page 1370
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Link restored
A TAPE cutting in the Land of Sachsen-Anhalt on December 18 marked the completion of the latest rail reunification project to be completed by Verkehrsprojekt Deutsche Einheit. The 113 km Stendal - Uelzen route was originally part of the so-called Amerikalinie between Berlin and Bremerhaven, carrying up to 64 trains ...
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Ben Gurion airport rail link construction agreed
ISRAEL Railways has reached agreement with the Ministry of Finance and the Airports Authority for construction of the long-planned rail link to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport. The government will fund the US$25m cost of the 2 km branch, and the Airports Authority will provide the station and connections to ...
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Mexico City opens Line B
THE FIRST PHASE of Mexico City’s latest metro line began carrying passengers on December 15. The 23·7 km Line B links Buenavista in the city centre with Ciudad Azteca in the northeastern suburbs, with 21 stations. Services are currently operating on 13·5 km serving 13 stations, but metro operator STC ...
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Tax breaks revive Bondi branch
AUSTRALIA’s Federal government has backed proposals to extend Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs Railway to Bondi Beach, by approving tax concessions worth A$15·6m over five years. The move was announced on December 19 by Transport Minister John Anderson, and should allow construction to get under way this year. A consortium of Lend ...
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CalTrain vote
TWO major investment schemes to boost San Francisco’s CalTrain commuter operation were approved by the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board on January 6. The board unanimously approved the revival of plans for a 2·4 km extension from the 4th & Townsend terminus into central San Francisco, near the Transbay Terminal ...
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Beijing light rail start
BEIJING Mayor Liu Qi and local Communist Party chief Jia Qinglin were guests of honour at a ceremony on December 11 marking the start of light rail construction in the Chinese capital. Costing 5·8bn yuan, the initial 40·8 km line is due to be completed by the end of next ...
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MetroSur gets under way
ON JANUARY 11, the Madrid regional government invited tenders for construction work on the MetroSur ring line in the capital’s southwestern suburbs. The project has been split into 12 sections, with a total cost of Pts163bn. Bids are due by February 21, with contracts to be awarded in March or ...
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EDSA launched
PHILIPPINES President Joseph Estrada officially inaugurated the first section of Manila's light rail Line 3 on December 15. After cutting a ribbon at the North Avenue terminus in Quezon City, he rode one of the CKD-built articulated LRVs along the 10 km route along Epifanio de los Santos Avenue to ...
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Berlin revival continues
A FURTHER 3 km section of Berlin’s S-Bahn ring was reopened to traffic on December 19. Completion of renewals in the northeastern sector has allowed the extension of route S4 from Jungfernheide to Beuselstrasse and Westhafen, where the station has been resited to provide convenient interchange to U-Bahn Line U9. ...
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Adtranz threat boosts orders
FOLLOWINGlast November’s announcement that Adtranz planned to shut six production plants, several European railways have rallied round to save their local suppliers.Portuguese Railways has selected a Siemens- Adtranz consortium to supply 34 suburban EMUs, with a stipulation that they must be assembled in Portugal. Adtranz is to build the stainless-steel ...
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Marmaray consultancy and engineering services shortlist
TURKEY: General Directorate of Railway, Port and Airport Construction shortlisted three consortia in December for consultancy and engineering services on the Marmaray cross-Bosporus rail link in Istanbul. The three were to be vetted by the Japanese Bank for International Co-operation, before the final tenders were issued in January. The three ...
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Franco-German accord
ON December 16 German Railway and French National Railways signed an agreement in Strasbourg to co-operate on several joint projects. The accord was initialled by SNCF President Louis Gallois and DB Chairman Hartmut Mehdorn, on his first day in office.Among rolling stock proposals were plans to draw up a common ...
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Shinkansen choice stings Eurotrain into legal battle
FOUR civil engineering contracts were initialled on January 10 for construction of around a third of the 345 km Taipei - Kaohsiung high speed line. They will come into force when the financial package for the project is agreed, which is expected before the Chinese New Year starting on February ...
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Årsta fuels crashworthiness concerns
REMARKABLE parallels have emerged between the collision at Årsta in Norway on January 4, in which 19 people died, and the Ladbroke Grove collision near London Paddington on October 5 1999 which killed 31 (RG 11.99 p703).In both cases, a train headed by a diesel locomotive met a DMU head-on ...
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Euro-Interlocking starts Project 2
A CORE TEAM of signal engineers assembled in Zürich on January 17 charged with drafting common railway requirements for standardised interlockings. This is the second of five projects that should see life cycle costs reduced significantly by 2005 through the standardisation of interfaces and functionality. This in turn is expected ...
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Connex offers £1bn spend
ON JANUARY 18 Connex Rail unveiled its ’vision’ for an extended 20-year South Central franchise, comprising £1bn of investment in rolling stock, stations and infrastructure to deliver a ’complete step change’ in the quality of its services. Local authorities in southern England and other stakeholders are being consulted over the ...
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Pointers
n Look for Spanish high speed construction authority GIF to award the civil works contract for the Soto del Real - Segovia section of the Madrid - Valladolid route after the general election on March 12. Four consortia have submitted bids ranging from Pts149·8bn to Pts180bn for GIF’s largest single ...
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Kogan makes a fresh start
AFTER a spell at the World Bank, the architect of rail privatisation in Argentina has returned home to take up a weighty portfolio. Appointed as Secretary of Transport in December last year, Jorge Kogan was soon briefing journalists on how he intended to tackle the thorny issue of renegotiating the ...
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Trouble at start-up
THINGS did not go too swimmingly on January 6 when the CityPendeln consortium formed of Via GTI, Go Ahead and BK Tåg began operating Stockholm’s commuter services. The biggest problem appears to have been a shortage of drivers and other staff who decided at the last minute that they did ...