Main line rail industry news – Page 1439
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News
Industry
Germany: GE Capital Services has agreed to purchase Cargowaggon GmbH from Brambles Industries Ltd and Danzas Holding AG. Retaining its present name, Cargowaggon will become the first European component of GE Capital’s Railcar Services business.Great Britain: Construction group Miller has set up a specialist railway company called Miller Rail. It ...
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Metros
Argentina: Siemens has won a 12-year US$27·2m contract to refurbish and maintain 64 cars for Buenos Aires metro Line E.Czech Republic: Skoda AS is to refurbish a second batch of 10 T3 trams for Liberec, and fit them with IGBT chopper controls and regenerative braking. Seven T3s are being refurbished ...
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Intercity 2000 deliveries start this year
INTRO: The first of 10 tilting trainsets for Spanish National Railways’ Madrid - Valencia route will be delivered this month and enter revenue service at the end of May 1998 ORDERED on January 30 1996, the Intercity 2000 is derived from Italian Railways’ ETR460 Pendolino, and fitted with Fiat’s active ...
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Intelligence
Angola: Tor di Valle of Italy has begun work on rehabilitation of the Benguela Railway under a barter agreement that grants it the right to exploit 37000ha of eucalyptus plantations (RG7.97 p432). Argentina: Under a concession awarded by the province of Córdoba, Ferrocarriles Mediterr
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Valencia LRT under way
VENEZUELAN transport authority C A Metro de Valencia gave permission on September 4 for Siemens Transportation Systems to begin construction of the city’s US$80m light rail project. Phase 1 of the turnkey package covers the 6·2 km from Parque Recreacional to Avenida Cedeño (DM 97 p57), including eight LRVs to ...
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Finance
Canada: CN is to invest C$64m on its lines in British Columbia this year, including C$36·4m on track renewal, C$2m on signalling and C$2m on links to Vancouver’s Deltaport intermodal terminal. A six-year C$11m programme to upgrade the Terrace - Kitimat branch will finish this year.Ethiopia: The government has negotiated ...
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News
Simplex adds versatile track jack
A jack with a 100mm wide base has been introduced by Simplex to its range of Pow’r Claw¨ self-contained hydraulic track jacks. The Bridge & Trestle jack is sufficiently narrow to fit between double-set sleepers on bridges. One man can lift up to 10 tonnes from the toe or the ...
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Products In Brief
Thorn Security has completed a contract to install a CCTV secure access system for the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal. More than 50 cameras give complete surveillance, including pan/tilt cameras with motorised zoom lenses, and facilities to monitor trains entering or leaving the site.Polish State Railways has installed a Weighline ...
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News
Two in race for high-speed concession
INTRO: Next month is due to see the selection of a preferred bidder for a build-operate-transfer concession to build Taiwan’s long-planned Taipei - Kaohsiung high speed line. The government hopes to have the 340 km route open by 2003BYLINE: Dr Ching-Lung LiaoDirector General, Bureau of Taiwan High Speed RailWITH A ...
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World Speed Survey: Shinkansen regains speed honours as French cut back
In his biennial survey of the world's fastest timetabled start-to-stop trains, Dr Colin Taylor finds that Japan has regained the Number 1 spot it first won in 1965. Despite losing the lead, France continues to accelerate, with its best timings now well over 250 km/h
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Manufacturers must share the risk
INTRO: Higher power-to-weight ratios, tilting, and distributed power have become dominant features of orders for high speed trains over the last two years. But with railways facing growing commercial pressures, Gordon Pettitt obe fcit finds that manufacturers must take on more of the risk in delivering rolling stock to a ...
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Milano - Bologna will complete Italy’s north-south TAV corridor
INTRO: Formal authority has been granted for construction to start next year on the Milano - Bologna high speed line. This will form the last section of a high speed route which will transform rail travel in Italy’s primary north-south corridorBYLINE: Roberto RenonManaging DirectorTAV SpACONSTRUCTION work is due to start ...
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NewsPointers
Netherlands Railways' subsidiary NS Cargo is planning to launch next year an international network of services to Frankfurt-am-Main, Zürich, Basel, Paris and Milano for 'just-in-time' air freight traffic. Wheeled containers would speed loading and unloading. The British government is considering a partial privatisation of London Underground to raise funds for ...
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Budapest to build Line 4
PREQUALIFICATION bids were called at the end of August for preliminary engineering work on the long-planned fourth metro line in the Hungarian capital. Budapest Mayor Gabor Demszky later confirmed that the municipality had decided to push ahead with the project, which is now costed at HF95bn.Following earlier attempts to build ...
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Policy vacuum clouds a bright future
INTRO: A unique opportunity to restructure Australia’s fragmented and neglected rail network into a profitable industry providing cost-effective, reliable and safe transport will be lost if the federal and state governments fail to create the right framework for private investmentBYLINE: John KirkDirectorAustralasian Railway AssociationTHERE IS A HIGH level of optimism ...
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Rail takes lion's share of TEN funding
WELL OVER half of the Ecu352m allocated by the European Commission under the Trans-European Networks funding programme for 1997 is being spent on rail projects. Analysis of the Ecu352m made available for 125 schemes, as notified to 14 of the 15 EU governments by Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock on July ...
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Decision-makers seek a real financial return
INTRO: IRCA Secretary-General Antoine Martens briefed Murray Hughes on the aims of the XXVIIth IRCA-UIC Congress in MarrakechINTRO: XXVIIth IRCA-UIC Congress, Marrakech, October 6-10WHEN THE world’s most senior railway executives gather in the Moroccan city of Marrakech this month they bear a heavy responsibility. Railways everywhere are undergoing the most ...
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Publications
Jane’s Urban Transport Systems 1997-98Five ex-Soviet cities and Bamako, Mali, are the new city entries in the 16th edition of this illustrated annual. There are 12 industry sections featuring numerous additional companies, but there have also been many deletions. Detailed coverage of the bewildering variety of complete vehicles, components and ...
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Three groups take on AN remains
Winning bidders for the three main elements of Australian National offered for sale to the private sector were announced on August 28 by Federal Minister for Transport & Regional Development John Sharp.Combined gross value of the successful bids is A$95·4m, but Sharp said the government could have raised A$30m more ...
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More trains to beat the jams
NETHERLANDS Railways has announced plans to run additional fast passenger services from summer 1998 on routes where parallel roads are subject to acute traffic congestion. Within the Amsterdam - Rotterdam - Den Haag conurbation known as the Randstad, six to seven extra trains will operate each hour, giving a basic ...