Main line rail industry news – Page 1423
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News
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 ...
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INTELLIGENCE
CAPTION: Pierino Piffaretti (left), Managing Director of Switzerland’s Schindler Waggon, hands over a symbolic key for the company’s Pratteln works to Swiss Adtranz chief Beat Müller, to mark the change of ownership of the rolling stock business at the beginning of January CAPTION: BAA director Michael Maine (2nd from left) ...
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Industry Extra
Great Britain: On December 23 FirstBus plc shareholders approved a change of name to FirstGroup plc, reflecting the widening scope of its transport operations with the Great Eastern rail franchise.Switzerland: Stadler Group has bought the remaining 30% of Stadler Altenrhein from Adtranz subsidiary Schindler Waggon.
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Upgrading QR’s North Coast artery
INTRO: Faster journey times, higher axleloads and lower maintenance costs will all follow from a A$590m upgrading programme between Brisbane and CairnsAROUND 118 km of new alignment have been laid on QR’s 1681 km North Coast line from Brisbane to Cairns. A series of deviations has been built to ease ...
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INTELLIGENCE
Via Rail Canada. Although management had done an excellent job in downsizing, he said he would find it difficult to ask the federal cabinet to fund new rolling stock.CN signed an agreement on January 19 for GEC Alsthom AMF Transport Inc of Montreal to maintain 50 rebuilt SD40-3 locos used ...
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Stations to be modernised
THISYEAR German Railway will spend DM1bn on modernising 27 major stations. Around 60% of the funding is expected to come from private firms, which will be encouraged to buy or lease retail space. DB plans to offer a wide range of services, with lounges, cafés and play areas. Medical services ...
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Gel applicator
LAYING a gel to combat wheel-slip or slide on slippery rail surfaces is now possible using a portable applicator weighing just 5 kg. Available from Chipman Rail, the Handite applicator is pushed manually along the rail to distribute a Sandite gel evenly on the rail surface.The gel is supplied in ...
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Dismantled by robot
CENTRAL Japan Railway has installed equipment in a rolling stock depot at Osaka that automates the process of dismantling shinkansen bogies in preparation for maintenance work.The equipment comprises a six-axis articulated general purpose robot with a bogie positioner and a range of tools including position detectors, socket wrenches, and a ...
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MARKETPLACE
Bangladesh: Canarail and Systra have won a US$14·5m construction supervision contract for 99 km of new line and the upgrading of 250 km more for the Jamuna Bridge Railway Link Project, funded by the government, the Asian Development Bank, POEC, Spain and France.Brazil: Demetr