Main line rail industry news – Page 1444
-
News
Second concession awarded
On June 26 the Mexican government accepted the bid by Grupo Ferroviario Mexicano SA for a 50-year concession to run the Ferrocarril Pacifico - Norte. As expected, GFM was the sole bidder, offering 4·197bn pesos for the 6200 km network and the Ojinaga - Topolobampo section of the Chihuahua - ...
-
News
Island network
RARELY today are railway investment projects justified solely as tools for regional development. Even rarer are ones as ambitious as the 2000 km network proposed on the Philip-pine island of Mindanao. Despite the considerable problems afflicting PNR’s main lines on Luzon, the government rightly believes that rail can play a ...
-
News
SNCB to renew diesel fleet
Belgian National Railways is to purchase a fleet of 80 two-car diesel multiple-units for its non-electrified secondary routes. SNCB’s Board of Directors decided on June 27 to award the contract to GEC Alsthom Transporte of Spain, following a Europe-wide bidding process which started in January 1996.To be delivered in 1999-2002, ...
-
News
PR turned over
THREATS to put Pakistan Railways through the mill of change were imple-mented last month when the cabinet ruled that PR be separated from the railway ministry and its management board replaced. The announcement was timed to coincide with the start of a new financial year and marked the opening of ...
-
News
RDC to revive Guatemala Railways
ON JUNE 6 the government of Guatemala awarded a 50 year concession for the restoration, reopening and operation of the country's 914mm gauge national rail network to Compañía Desarrolladora Ferroviaria SA, an affiliate of Pittsburgh-based Railroad Development Corp. The government will receive 5% of gross income for the first two ...
-
News
Market
Australia: Ove Arup & Partners is to study options for a 40 km rail link to serve the coastal resorts of Caloundra and Maroochydore north of Brisbane.Austria: ÖBB has ordered 1314 electronic door mechanisms from Faiveley, which is also supplying 120 doors to LHB for LINT railcars being built for ...
-
News
Flexible Thalys supplements
WITH the aim of making Thalys services more accessible to passengers travelling between the Netherlands and Belgium, a Flexi Supplement valid for two months is available until December 13. With the new product, passengers holding full-fare international tickets can board a Thalys service where the train manager will allocate them ...
-
News
Coruña tramway
JUNE saw the inauguration of a 4 km tramway in the Spanish city of A Coruña, linking the castle of San Antón and the Tower of Hercules. A 15min interval service is provided by two ’heritage’ trams built in the 1920s which have been rebuilt by CAF at Zaragoza.The line ...
-
News
JR-West
BYLINE: Nariyasu MatsuokaChief Engineer, Rolling Stock DepartmentWest Japan Railway CoECONOMIC and financial circumstances facing JR-West mean that the Rolling Stock Department must give its highest priority to providing passengers with high-quality trains at low cost. Plans are well in hand to develop better trains for the Sanyo shinkansen (RG 5.97 ...
-
News
Pizza express car
ITALIAN Railways has taken delivery of a prototype ’Pizza Express’ restaurant car conversion from Fervet of Castelfranco Veneto, developed in conjunction with train caterer Agape. The ex-TEE vehicle now has seats for 44 customers, divided between an area with 12 stools and a second with tables for two or four. ...
-
News
VHST shortlist
NEW SOUTH WALES Premier Bob Carr announced on July 3 that six groups had been shortlisted for the next stage of the planned Sydney - Canberra Very High Speed Train project. They have been given six months to prepare detailed proposals, after which the VHST Project Team will evaluate the ...
-
News
Out for the day
AVAILABLE until September 27, Passbask offers a day’s unlimited second class travel on French, Spanish and Basque Railways services between Bayonne and San Sebasti
-
News
Making concessions
DECREE 605 signed by President Menem and published on July 3 opened a 120-day window for the government and Argentina’s five private freight railways to renegotiate the 30-year operating concessions signed between 1991 and 1993. Some months ago the operators suspended payments for use of Argentine Railways’ infrastructure and rolling ...
-
News
Lake Titicaca bypass
PERU’S Ministry of Transport has invited tenders for consultants to review the technical and economic feasibility of building a standard-gauge railway between Puno and Desaguadero to replace the present train ferry across Lake Titicaca. The bi-weekly ferry severely constrains capacity on Enafer’s main link to Bolivia, and recent droughts and ...
-
News
Industry
Austria: Knorr-Bremse is taking a 49% shareholding in door specialist IFE.Great Britain: GEC Alsthom Signalling Ltd has moved to new offices at Trafford Park, Manchester.India: Konkan Railway Corp plans to establish a subsidiary to tender for railway construction projects overseas; revenue from this business will help with international loans taken ...
-
News
Faster through the curves on JR-Central
INTRO: Since Japanese National Railways was divided into separate companies in 1987, JR-Central has put into service around 600 new vehicles for its 1067mm gauge network that carries over half a million passengers a day. Tilting trains have helped cut journey times on key routesBYLINE: Kazuhiro YoshikawaManager, Rolling Stock DepartmentConventional ...
-
News
Something old, something new
DESPITE the gloomy lessons of the past and the more recent financial problems of Río Negro province’s Sefepa venture, local initiatives to resurrect passenger trains continue to appear in Argentina. Under a one-year operating concession granted by the province of Tucum
-
News
Gas tensioner supports JR Central wires
Spring and balance-weight tensioners have been superseded by a gas-cylinder model developed by JR Central, offering a smaller, lighter unit with improved performance.Whereas conventional tensioners absorb the slack produced when overhead line cables expand in the heat, the gas cylinder model actively tensions in response to changes in temperature. As ...
-
News
Metros August 1997
Brazil: The federal government has backed proposals for a 15 km extension of Trensurb's Porto Alegre commuter line from Mercado to Triângulo. A 3·9 km extension to Estação Unisinos is expected to open later this year. Germany: German Railway has commissioned the first 11 km of the Hannover ...
-
News
Technology transfer spearheads Indian inter-city renewal
INTRO: IR operates around 29000 all-steel lightweight vehicles to a common basic design. Now the Rail Coach Factory is poised to launch an up-to-date inter-city coach under a technology transfer deal with Linke-Hofmann-Busch. R C Acharya reports on IR’s inter-city business that handled over 404million passenger train-km in 1995-96IN A ...