Main line rail industry news – Page 1457
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News
Counting passengers by laser
The Transcomp trackside passenger-counting system from Eres Industrie comprises a laser transmitter unit and a counting unit installed on existing signalling or electrification masts facing each other across the track. Programmed with the operating timetable for the route in question and equipped with trackside vibration detectors, the equipment scans passing ...
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RZD eliminates regional boundaries
RUSSIAN Railways is implementing a sweeping reorganisation programme that sees the number of regional managements cut from 19 to six. Foreshadowed last May at a special railway congress held in Moscow (RG 7.96 p403), the restructuring has now been approved by both parliament and government. Each of the new regions ...
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Izmir LRT to open next year
INTRO: Faced with worsening traffic congestion, Turkey’s third largest city has embarked upon the construction of a light rail network that will eventually total 50 km. Under a turnkey contract awarded to the ABB-Yapi Merkezi-Adtranz consortium, the first 11·5 km is scheduled to open during 1998 BYLINE: Lennart GunnarssonProject ManagerAdtranz ...
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Abando rebuild out to tender
PLANS for the long-awaited rebuilding of Bilbao’s main station, Abando, are close to being finalised. Tendering for the Pts41bn project is now in hand, and construction is expected to start towards the end of this year on the railway stations, bus station and car parks. The privately financed commercial areas ...
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Reform is in, privatisation is out
INTRO: After a false start last year, France’s rail network is being restructured. A new national agency will own the infrastructure, with French National Railways managing and operating the network and providing the transport service. Louis Gallois, appointed as President of SNCF last July, reveals his strategy to Murray HughesHughes: ...
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Publications
Jane’s World Railways 1996-97The 800-page 38th edition of this substantial tome retains the usual format, with manufacturers listings followed by a gazetteer of world railways. It is liberally illustrated with photographs, loading gauge diagrams and tables. There are 197 new entries, and over 400 new photographs and drawings, including some ...
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Operators must be on board at the outset
INTRO: UITP Secretary General Pierre Laconte warns that consortia formed to design, build and fund light rail projects must have operating expertise available from the start or court financial disasterTHERE SEEMS little doubt that cities will face increasing difficulties in raising funds from traditional state sources for major light rail ...
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Letters
Green issuesSir - Articles in your November 1996 issue on train noise raise the issue of ’greens’ causing railway operators excessive costs, although they fail conspicuously to complain so vociferously about road noise. Here in the US the words are the same, the melody just a bit different. Too many ...
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IR projects edge forward
ISRAEL RAILWAYS has confirmed plans to step up the trial service on the Tel Aviv - Ashdod route, following encouraging loadings after the Rechovot service was extended in October 1996. The aim is to run five trains an hour once upgrading and double-tracking costing US$90m is completed.Another Tel Aviv commuter ...
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Intelligence
Australia: Westrail has been prosecuted by Worksafe Western Australia for failing to provide automatic train protection at Hines Hill crossing loop; two people died after a National Rail driver failed to stop at a red signal in January 1996.Formal approval has been given for National Rail to compete with V/Line ...
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SJ torpedoed by 60 tonne trucks
DRASTIC CUTS in passenger services are scheduled by Swedish State Railways for June 1, following losses in 1996 that could reach SKr1bn. Among many overnight sleepers to be abandoned are Stockholm to G
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Conrail stalemate
CHIEF EXECUTIVES David M LeVan of Conrail, John W Snow of CSX and Norfolk Southern’s David R Goode emerged from a private meeting on January 31 having failed to agree a formula for replacing the three major eastern US railways by two. On January 17, Conrail shareholders rejected overwhelmingly a ...
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Tube in deep trouble
LONDON Underground could be sold after a general election expected on May 1, although a memo from Transport Secretary Sir George Young to Prime Minister John Major warns that it will be ’a unique and very difficult privatisation to sell to the public’. Higher subsidies required to clear an investment ...
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French under fire from Korea
A BITTER row has erupted between France and South Korea that could see the 431 km Seoul - Pusan TGV line delayed by more than the four years already likely because of problems with civil engineering work (RG 12.96 p777). The problem stems from a decision last December by France’s ...
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West Rail priority is now Hong Kong domestic traffic
Hong Kong’s Executive Council approved a decision on December 10 to build the domestic passenger component of the West Rail scheme (RG 7.96 p418) and submit proposals for new links with China for further study. Under the revised schedule, the new line from West Kowloon to Yuen Long would open ...
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Intelligence
CAPTION: CPTM is taking delivery of 11 Series 101 EMUs being refurbished by Mafersa at a total cost of US$29m. The three-car units were originally manufactured for São Paulo suburban routes by Budd of the USA in the 1950sPhoto: E PiresCAPTION: GEC Alsthom’s Aytré factory is due to roll out ...
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Finance
China: The Ministry of Railways has announced plans for a US$422m bond issue to domestic investors including three- and five-year bills. China’s third railway issue would fund completion of the Houma - Yueshan and Nanning - Kunming routes, electrification of the Chengdu - Kunming line and work on the Beijing ...
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Economies needed
CANADIAN Pacific President Robert Ritchie announced on December 11 that major cost savings were essential if CP’s new eastern operating subsidiary St Lawrence & Hudson is to stave off the risk of sale or closure. Higher productivity and lower property taxes in Ontario and Québec have been identified as key ...
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EU to fund Portuguese revival
PORTUGAL’s railway network is to be modernised over the next three years at a cost of Esc600bn, according to plans announced on December 23 by Minister of Planning João Cravinho. To be funded by the government and the European Union, the package will build on the separate infrastructure and operating ...
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Sidetrack
Swiss precisionThieves with perfect timing held up a Swiss Federal Railways service on December 11, making off with 26 mailbags. They appear to have used similar tactics to those employed in Britain’s Great Train Robbery of 1963. At 22.30 two masked men ordered the driver of Train 744, a St ...