Main line rail industry news – Page 1423
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DB plans night train revival
GERMAN Railway’s long distance passenger business has charged its DB Autozug GmbH subsidiary with developing night services so that they run at a profit.Autozug’s main responsibility until now has been to develop Germany’s motorail services, for which it is refurbishing couchettes and sleeping cars (RG 4.98 p232). Karl-Dietrich Reemtsema, Head ...
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Development line strategy
THREE NEW RAILWAYS totalling around 1300 km may be built to open up the potentially prosperous interior of northeast Peru, between the Andes Cordillera and Brazil’s Amazon basin. A multi-sector committee has been formed under the chairmanship of the prime minister to look at the practicality of building the lines ...
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SBB to adopt ETCS Level 2
SWISS FEDERAL Railways has awarded the first contract for transmission-based signalling equipment to the standards set out in the European Rail Traffic Management System. Under a contract awarded to Adtranz Signal at the beginning of April, ECTS equipment is to be installed on 32 km of the Olten - Luzern ...
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Wires head north
RUSSIA’S Northern Railway is pushing ahead with 25 kV 50Hz electrification of its Vologda - Archangelsk line, under a project started two years ago. Following energisation of the 90 km from Konosha to Nyandoma in November (RG 12.97 p837), work has switched to the 120 km Nyandoma - Plesetsk section. ...
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Izmir electrification bids
TURKISH State Railways was due to call tenders last month for the electrification of 79 route-km of double-track lines radiating from the port of Izmir, at a cost of around US$35m. Bids are expected to be opened in July or August. TCDD is looking to award a turnkey contract for ...
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BHP picks ECP brakes
BHP Iron Ore is to start installing electronically-controlled air brakes on 240 wagons for its Mount Newman mineral railway in Western Australia, using radio to transmit braking signals along the train. It has selected EPx Direct Braking equipment and TrainTalk radio technology from GE Harris Railway Electronics of Florida. ...
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New Minister of Railways boosts Chinese investment
JUST 10 days after taking over as China’s Minister of Railways on March 18, Fu Zhihuan announced at a conference in Beijing that rail investment would be stepped up by 30% this year from 34·9bn to 45bn yuan. Spending on construction and upgrading over the next five years will be ...
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Via safety drive
VIA Rail Canada has launched a drive to improve its safety management, following the completion of a four-month investigation by two international experts on March 20. The wide-ranging, independent review was commissioned following a derailment of Via’s premier train, the Canadian, near Biggar, Saskatchewan, last September. Conducting the study were ...
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Berlin interchange rebuilt as Stadtbahn reopens
FROM May 24 German Railway reinstates full services over the 9 km Berlin Stadtbahn between Zoo and Hauptbahnhof, which from the same day reverts to its former name of Ostbahnhof. All four tracks, reconstructed using a ballastless design (right), will return to service, with main line and S-Bahn trains each ...
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Swedes to manage ZR revival
ZAMBIAN Transport & Communications Minister Rev Anoshi Chipawa confirmed on March 19 that a Swedish consultancy had been selected to manage and restructure Zambia Railways over the next 2 1??2 years. He revealed that an agreement with Hifab International AB had been signed in December, after four years of negotiations ...
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Transalpine freight accord signed
ON MARCH 30 Swiss Federal Railways signed an agreement with Italian State Railways at the Italian embassy in Bern, marking the formation of a joint venture rail freight company. Under the terms of an accord reached last August (RG 9.97 p572) the two operators will merge their two freight operations ...
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Shinkansen under way at last
CEREMONIES were held in Japan at the end of March to mark the formal start of work on three more shinkansen extensions, following their approval by Transport Minister Takao Fujii on March 12. Construction of the three routes is expected to be spread over 20 years because of limitations on ...
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More discounts and better service
FRENCH National Railways has changed its portfolio of discounted fares. This follows an initial step last June, when SNCF simplified its basic fares structure and launched two railcards designed to attract young people to travel by train. The latest changes are being made after a market research campaign in November ...
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Master Plan will add 900 km to IR network
ISRAEL RAILWAYS, encouraged by the public’s enthusiastic response to a steady programme of rolling stock modernisation and service expansion, has drawn up a Master Plan that could see nearly 900 km of new lines built by 2020 at a total cost of around US$3·7bn. The present 610 route-km network is ...
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MetroLink heads east
CONSTRUCTION work is getting under way on the first phase of the extension of the St Louis MetroLink light rail network to serve St Clair County (Illinois), following a ceremony at Belleville on March 6. Scheduled for completion in 2001, the 28 km line will run east from the existing ...
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Line 7 extended
MARCH 13 saw the inauguration of services on a 1·2 km extension of Madrid Metro Line 7 from Avenida de América to Gregorio Marañón, built at a cost of Pts3·7bn. The new section forms the first part of a 9·5 km extension west across the city centre and then northwest ...
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MF2000 proposals go in
APRIL 15 was the deadline for tenders to supply up to 1400 steel-wheeled metro cars to Paris Transport Authority, under an invitation to bid published in the Official Journal of the European Community on February 12. The MF2000 project covers a fleet of five-car trainsets to replace the existing MF67 ...
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Security restricts Tunnel’s potential
EUROTUNNEL’s financial restructuring was finally completed on April 8, 30 months after the company suspended interest payments on £8bn of bank debt. Executive Chairman Patrick Ponsolle said ’restructuring provides financial stability for the years to come’, but warned that ’this in itself is not sufficient’. The first quarter of 1998 ...