Main line rail industry news – Page 1383
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News
Invensys Rail to develop ETCS
INTERNATIONAL signalling and braking specialist Invensys Rail has launched a strategy to develop technology to meet the parameters and specifications of the European Train Control Systems project. Whilst the company is involved with project management of the ERTMS on-board Kernel test programme in Spain, it was not a founder member ...
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Tags cut smart ticket cost
LOW-COST silicon tagging technology being developed for the airline and postal industry by Motorola offers the potential for cheap single-trip metro tickets compatible with smart card applications. With smart cards costing up to US$5·00 each, most rail applications to date have retained paper or magnetic-stripe tickets for single trips and ...
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Traction renewal heads investment drive
POLISH State Railways has announced plans to update its rolling stock fleet. Investment in 1999-2010 will include acquisition of 16 tilting trains from Fiat Ferroviaria, 42 Type EU11 locomotives from Adtranz-Pafawag, and eight dual-system EU43 units from the same supplier. The locos are already being assembled, and the first has ...
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One down, but so many to go
ON APRIL 22 President Menem of Argentina signed Decree 393/99, giving legal force to the contract renegotiated with Metrovías, concessionaire for the Subte metro and Urquiza commuter line in Buenos Aires. Confirming an extension to 2017 and an investment programme worth a total of 1·4bn pesos (RG 2.99 p65), it ...
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Active suspension trials head research objectives
THIS MONTH should see Alstom and French National Railways conclude a programme of trials with a TGV modified to demonstrate that ride comfort can be significantly improved in the 300 to 350 km/h speed range. Four cars of a TGV Réseau set have been fitted with a form of active ...
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Tense time in Taiwan
Council for Economic Planning & Development to seek ways to resolve THSRC’s problems, and that if the government received a formal request for funding, ’we would consider it carefully’.Given that a presidential election is due next March, the government is keen to keep the project moving forward, and Siew stated ...
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Market
Marketal six Class 57 conversions of Class 47 locos from autumn this year, with both orders financed by Porterbrook Leasing.Connex Rail has extended to 2011 a 10-year lease on 93 Networker EMUs owned by Angel Train Contracts, due to expire on March 31 2004. Under the new contract, the leasing ...
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DLR ticketing agreement
On June 9 Schlumberger announced that it had been selected to supply a new ticketing network for London’s Docklands Light Railway, following the rapid growth in patronage over the past seven years. The package includes 92 new vending machines at 36 stations, linked to a Windows NT-based central management system ...
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Trackwatch for Metrorail
South African commuter operator Metrorail has ordered a Trackwatch system from Solartron to monitor signalling equipment at the Maitland interlocking in the Cape Town suburbs. Data prepared using the system’s PC-based analysis software will be exported to assist with the implementation of a condition-based maintenance strategy.Within the modular Trackwatch system, ...
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Penn rebuild
US PRESIDENT Bill Clinton has formally inaugurated a US$484m project to develop a new main building for New York’s Pennsylvania Station, which currently handles almost 160 million passengers a year. In the ceremony on May 19 plans were unveiled to convert the neo-classical Farley Building, which was built for the ...
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Ticket offices to go by 2010
IN THE FACE of protest from consumer organisations and staff, NS Reizigers has postponed to 2010 the closing of staffed ticket offices across its network. Under a programme costed at 50m guilders, NS had hoped to replace these offices by 2003 with ticket vending machines, redeploying staff to assist passengers ...
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SNCF tests Aquazole
French National Railways has begun trials of Aquazole, developed by ELF Antar France to reduce diesel emissions. The fuel is being used by Class 8000 and 63500 shunting locomotives based at La Villette depot outside Paris Est, where local residents have complained about high levels of atmospheric pollution.Aquazole is an ...
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QR claims narrow-gauge record
On May 23 one of Queensland Railways’ two six-car tilting EMUs set a new world record speed for a passenger-carrying train on narrow-gauge tracks. The 1 067 mm gauge trainset reached 210 km/h near Bundaberg on the recently upgraded Brisbane - Rockhampton line.On board for the record run were QR ...
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Frame sleeper givescontinuous rail support
A GROUP of Austrian companies unveiled a frame sleeper design for ballasted track. It consists of a prestressed frame shaped like an H with two crossbars. These form a continuous longitudinal beam supporting the rails.Known as the RS95, the frame sleeper doubles the bearing surface, so halving the load on ...
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Rail milling may cut noise
TRIALS with a rail milling train suggest that the technique may have an assured future. Operated by German maintenance contractor Schweerbau, the prototype train was developed by Austrian machine tool specialist Linsinger Maschinenbau which exhibited at the VDEI event for the first time this year.According to Linsinger’s Prok Ing Walter ...
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Pointers
n Australia’s federal government has agreed that from July 2000 the railways will no longer have to pay the diesel fuel excise levy used to fund road maintenance and construction; this will cut A$70m from the railways’ tax bill in 2000-01 (RG 3.99 p127).n The Nigerian government has signed a ...
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Integral production grinds to a halt
WHEN Czech Railways ordered a fleet of 10 Class 680 tilting trains for high speed services in August 1995 from a consortium of CKD, MSV Studénka, Fiat and Siemens, the intention was to have the first Integral unit ready for trials in late 1997. Nearly two years later, there is ...
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Railtrack gets head start in PPP race
In return for a promise not to bid for London Underground’s deep tube lines, Railtrack has won exclusive rights to negotiate to take over the sub-surface lines which share a common loading gauge with its network. Announcing the deal on June 15, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott said ’for ...