Main line rail industry news – Page 1398
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News
Konkan Ro-Ro
INDIA’s Konkan Railway Corp announced in January that it was to launch a piggyback service to carry lorries between Kolard, south of Mumbai, and Suratkal near Mangalore. The 700 km trip is expected to take around 20h, compared to three days for a road journey on the congested coastal highway.KRC ...
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RZD launches Blue Arrow
RUSSIAN Railways has put into traffic a second ER200 high-speed train, and accelerated the premier inter-city service between Moscow and St Petersburg. Introduction of the additional 200 km/h trainset, known as the Blue Arrow, on January 14 has allowed the original ER200 to be taken out of use for a ...
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Gayssot completes TGV Est funding package
CONSTRUCTION of the long-planned high-speed line between Paris and Strasbourg will begin next year, with revenue services expected to start in 2005-06. On January 29 French Transport Minister Jean-Claude Gayssot signed an accord with other partners in what is now known as TGV Est-Européen. This sets out the funding for ...
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Darwin bidders get serious
All three groups chosen to submit bids by March 31 to build and operate the 1410 km railway from Alice Springs to Darwin have recruited new members, raising hopes that the project may finally go ahead. The successful bidder would also lease the line from Alice to Tarcoola on the ...
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DB Cargo - MThB pact
GERMAN Freight operator DB Cargo signed a co-operation agreement with Switzerland’s Mittelthurgau Railway on February 2. MThB operates the 40 km line from Konstanz on the German border to Wil, which already carries 1 million tonnes of freight a year.Both railways see considerable potential for growth, and the agreement is ...
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Ibara Railway inaugurated
JAPANESE Transport Minister Jiro Kawasaki attended ceremonies on January 11 to mark the opening of the 38·4 km Ibara Railway, linking Kiyone on JR West’s Hakubi line with Kannabe on the Fukuen line Also attending were Governor Masahiro Ishii of Okayama Prefecture, and the President of Japan Railway Construction Public ...
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Kashmir link heads IR plans
INDIAN RAILWAYS Construction Corp (Ircon International) has been instructed to start work on a rail link to Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir. Railways Minister Nitish Kumar says that construction of the 90 km Kashmir Valley section linking Baramula, Srinagar and Qazigund near Anantnag should get under way in the current ...
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Octra concessioned
GABON: Belgian consultancy Transurb Consult, part-owned by SNCB and Brussels transport authority STIB, is to operate the 650 km Trans-Gabon railway under a 20-year concession awarded to a multinational private-sector consortium. The Gabonese government announced on January 6 that it had selected the Transgabonais consortium as preferred bidder to take ...
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NEWS
Spanish National Railways is to invest Pts68·9bn during 1999, including Pts17bn for new and refurbished passenger rolling stock, principally for its Main Line, Suburban and Regional business units. Of the Pts26·8bn earmarked for infrastructure projects, Pts17·8 is to be spent on upgrading main lines and suburban networks.
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Taiwan tendering starts
THIS MONTH is due to see the start of pre-construction works for the 345 km Taipei - Kaohsiung high speed line, paving the way for civil engineering to begin in earnest at the end of May. During January BOT concessionaire Taiwan High Speed Rail Consortium issued tender documents for the ...
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AlpTransit's first blast
A CEREMONY on February 4 marked the start of work on the 800m Sedrun access shaft for the Gotthard base tunnel. Railway Gazette International joined invited guests to witness chief engineer for the Sedrun tunnel section Jakob Blickenstorfer detonate the first explosive charges deep within a mountainside near Sedrun. A ...
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NEWS
China’s Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Research Institute has ordered traction equipment from Adtranz Switzerland for 10 new generation passenger locos to be built in 2000-01. The streamlined locos rated at 4·8MW will operate on the Guangzhou - Shenzhen quasi-high-speed line.Spain’s Valencia regional government has unveiled a programme costed at Pts14bn that ...
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HZ loan deal
CROATIAN Railways General Manager Marjan Klaric announced on January 18 the award of a US$101m modernisation loan from the World Bank. HZ will use this to launch a further investment programme later this year, as part of a recstructuring and renewals package.The biggest elements are US$33·4m to cover the redeployment ...
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More Madrid - Barcelona contracts let
On February 12 the Spanish government gave its approval for the letting of a Pts4·4bn contract for civil works on the 23 km Aldeanueva de Guadalajara - Gajanejos section of the Madrid - Barcelona high speed line. The contract is expected to take 14 months.High speed infrastructure authority Gestor de ...
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Wien avoiding line under way
LAST MONTH was due to see work start on a long-planned chord through the southwest suburbs of Wien, allowing freight trains to avoid the city. Starting at Hadersdorf-Weidlingau on the Westbahn, the line runs in the 13 km Lainzer tunnel to Hetzendorf on the Südbahn. A spur continues southeast to ...
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PEOPLE
Adtranz board shuffleFollowing the conformation of Rolf Eckrodt as President & CEO of Adtranz, the following board member responsibilities have been announced (p141). Christer Badholm heads the new Mass Transit division and Jürgen Lochmann the Main Line Rail division. Joachim Gaissert, previously responsible for Manufacturing & Technology, takes responsibility for ...
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EMA fault detection
Alstom Train Services, the British-based maintenance, overhaul and technical support division of Alstom Transport, expects by the middle of this year to be able to offer a wheel and axle inspection service using electro-magnectic array technology. The planned Electro-Magnetic Metal Fatigue & Crack Inspection Service (EMMFaCIS) would be based on ...
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Renfe rolls out Arco and Alaris
FEBRUARY 16 saw Renfe introduce Alaris tilting trains on the Madrid - Valencia inter-city corridor. The 10 sets built by Alstom-Fiat are based on the Pendolino design, and were formerly known as IC 2000 (RG 10.98 p693). Six trains a day each way will run at up to 200 km/h, ...
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Berlin S-Bahn offers panoramic tours
CAPTION: A three-car Panorama S-Bahn trainset converted from 1943-built Class 477 vehicles has been unveiled at the S-Bahn Berlin GmbH main workshop at Sch
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DB sells itself
GERMAN RAILWAY is to launch a series of marketing offensives aimed at keeping passengers on trains following an increase in the base kilometric tariff. This sees a unified structure applied across all Länder for the first time since reunification.To counterbalance the fares increase, DB is changing a number of ticketing ...