Main line rail industry news – Page 1431
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New lines face funding hurdle
WHEN Britain’s Transport Secretary John Prescott made an ’emergency statement’ to the House of Commons on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link on January 28, he triggered a frantic 30-day scramble to try and put together a financial package that would rescue the 108 km line from collapse (p151). The latest ...
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Finance
Canada: CN and CPR both claimed 1997 to be their best year to date. CN’s performance included a profit of C$421m, while CPR made a profit contribution of C$469m to CP group’s overall record C$1·26bn.Europe: GEC Alsthom has appointed Credit Suisse First Boston and Goldmann Sachs to manage its flotation ...
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Metros
Australia: Victoria’s Public Transport Corp has called tenders for construction of 1·6 km of tram route in Melbourne, along Exhibition Street to connect with the Wattle Park line.Bulgaria: Sofia Metro opened a 5 km section of its first line on January 28. China: Creative Star Ltd had sold 3·7million Octopus ...
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PEOPLE
George Chen has been appointed Chairman of BC Transit.Mike Kinski has been named Chief Executive of Stagecoach Holdings, a post relinquished by Chairman Brian Souter, who will concentrate on business development.Joseph E Arsenault has been appointed Director, Systems Development, for Norfolk Southern. Carlos Roman of Spanish National Railways has been ...
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Channel Tunnel Rail Link concession collapses
In an emergency statement to the House of Commons late on January 28, Britain's Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, said London & Continental Railways had notified him at 20.00 that it could not finance the Channel Tunnel Rail Link to London. The day before, LCR had asked for a further ...
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Industry News
Australia: Gilbert Lodge Australia has been appointed by Swiss manufacturer PMA AG to market its nylon cable protection products in Australasia.France: A December 17 liquidation order instructed Remafer to devise a recovery plan and deliver three wagons currently under construction.Germany: Bombardier Inc has concluded an agreement with investors advised by ...
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Aqaba concession
THE GOVERNMENT of Jordan has invited prequalification bids by January 25 for a concessionaire to run the 292 km Aqaba Railway. This follows the appointment of CPCS Transcom of Canada to assist with the process. Secretary-General for Transport Issa Ayyoub said in December that a 20 to 25 year concession ...
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Pre-coated tram rails
STREET running sections of Manchester Metrolink’s Salford Quays - Eccles extension will make use of track featuring polyurethane elastomer insulation that is bonded to the rails before they are laid. Installing the elastomer at the same time as laying the rails can lead to bad weather weakening the bonding and ...
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Dock line development
Heads of agreement for a 25 km north-south rail service in Buenos Aires have been signed by the Argentinian government, the city administration and suburban concessionaire Ferrovías, which hopes to complete the first phase of the Tren del Este project from Aristóbulo del Valle to Caminito within 12 months ...
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PR to split next month
PAKISTAN Railways is to be divided into four state-owned corporations next month, ready for privatisation from June. Rail Passenger Corp, Railways Infrastructure, Rail Freight Corp and Railways Mechanical Works Corp will be auctioned separately during the second half of this year.The existing Pakistan Railways Board has been split away from ...
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Ankara opens
REVENUE services on Ankara’s 14·6 km metro serving the western portion of the capital began on Monday December 29, following inauguration ceremonies the previous day. The first heavy metro in Turkey, the US$1bn line started in 1991 was completed almost a year late.Running below Atatürk Boulevard, the metro links the ...
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Angel worth £395m
BRITISH rolling stock leasing company Angel Train Contracts was sold on December 19 to Royal Bank of Scotland by the GRS Holdings consortium of Nomura International, Babcock & Brown and Prideaux & Associates which bought it debt-free from the government in November 1995 for £696m. Debt funding worth £690m for ...
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Iranians to build AC diesels
ISLAMIC Iranian Republic Railways (RAI) has ordered 100 diesel locomotives from GEC Alsthom to haul 140 km/h passenger trains and freights at up to 110 km/h. The 4300hp AD43C Co-Cos will be powered by Ruston 16RK215 diesel engines using Onix IGBT-based asynchronous traction drives. Under the US$125m contract announced on ...
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Berlin cross-city links
GERMAN Railway is to launch a network of cross-city regional express routes in May to integrate services radiating from Berlin. Following completion of reconstruction work on the city’s Stadtbahn core (RG 1.98 p22), regional services feeding the outer ends of the S-Bahn network will be extended into the city centre ...
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Next shinkansen approved
ON JANUARY 9 the Japanese government announced a go-ahead for construction of three further sections of shinkansen high-speed line. The decision was taken by an executive committee of the ruling LDP and their coalition partners, which had commissioned a report last year into future shinkansen priorities (RG 2.97 p69).The government ...
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Ma On Shan link approved
THE HONG KONG regional government has given the go-ahead for construction of a 10·3 km elevated rail line to serve the Ma On Shan development area in the east of the Kowloon peninsula. Costed at HK$6·7bn, the ’medium capacity’ link will interchange with Kowloon - Canton Railway Corp’s East Rail ...
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Ringsted expansion launched
DANISH rail infrastructure authority Banestyrelsen launched a public consultation on January 12 into options for increasing capacity on the 64 km København - Ringsted main line running west from the capital. The Folketing passed a law last May authorising the start of planning for the project.With the opening of the ...
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BART automates
SAN FRANCISCO’s Bay Area Rapid Transit District has awarded a Letter of Intent to Harmon Industries Inc for installation of Advanced Automatic Train Control equipment over the next three years, at a cost of approximately $40m. The work will be done in conjunction with construction of BART’s airport extension, which ...
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JR-East seeks ’lean and flexible’ EMU
EAST JAPAN Railway has started planning its next generation of commuter trainsets for Tokyo suburban services to follow the Series 209 ’half-life’ EMUs introduced five years ago. An experimental prototype will be developed over the next two years, with series production starting around 2003.The Series 209 launched on the Yamanote ...
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Investing in punctuality
NS Reizigers has announced a package of measures to improve punctuality that will require the investment of an additional 50m guilders a year. Punctuality figures have not been published for several years, and some consumers’ organisations believe that on-time performance has dropped as low as 50% on some routes during ...