All Railway Gazette International articles in March 1998
All articles published this month.
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News
Tramway upgrade
POLISH tramway operator PKT of Katowice has awarded a US$53·4m contract to GEC Alsthom and its local subsidiary Konstal for modernisation and re-equipment of its principal route from the city to Bytom (RG 2.98 p122). The project is expected to halve journey times on routes 6 and 41 and boost ...
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News
Subte transfer
ARGENTINIAN President Carlos Menem has instructed Transport Secretary Armando Carnosa to transfer responsibility for the 20-year Subte metro operating concession to the city government. Detailed negotiations began on January 13, and by January 19 the federal government was understood to have accepted the city’s main demand - that 380m pesos ...
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News
U-Bahn stock
STADTWERKE München has ordered 10 new U-Bahn trainsets for DM170m, to enter service at the end of 2000. The 115m long six-car trains will be fully open-plan inside with wide inter-car gangways for improved security and passenger flows. Consortium leader Siemens will supply the electrical equipment; mechanical parts will come ...
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News
Roscos under review
ON FEBRUARY 3 Britain’s Rail Regulator John Swift QC began to examine whether the rolling stock leasing companies, Angel Trains, Forward Trust Rail and Porterbrook, should be subject to tighter controls. Acting at the behest of Transport Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, Swift invited responses by March 2 ...
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News
Stop on Red
The Los Angeles metro - the Red line which celebrated its fifth birthday on January 30 - became a byword for delays, political interference and cost over-runs.On January 15, the board of the LA Metropolitan Transportation Authority accepted the recommendation of acting Chief Executive Officer Julian Burke that planning work ...
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News
Railtrack to the rescue
AS SOON as it became evident that LCR’s planned flotation in 1998 had little chance of success, discussions with Railtrack began last autumn in an effort to put a rescue package together. The original consortium members saw this as a way of preserving their interest in LCR.On February 12, Railtrack’s ...
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News
Railcars rejected
A RATHER different tale involves a contract for 16 diesel railcars for Finnish State Railways. The contract was won by GEC Alsthom Transporte of Spain, which duly shipped the first car to Helsinki for evaluation and tests. It turned out to be too heavy, although we are told that performance ...
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News
Punches pulled
Sir - In Rail Business Report 1998 in the article, ’Infrastructure Separation: What Have We Learned So Far?’, it seems to me that the authors have seriously understated the advantages of not separating the infrastructure but keeping it with operations under one management, as has traditionally been the practice of ...
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News
PUBLICATIONS
Optimisation of single horizontal railway curvesThis 92-page thesis summarises four reports. It demonstrates how passenger comfort on curve transitions can be optimised for tilting and non-tilting coaches. Forces and climbing ratios are simulated using models of the X2000 and a Eurofima standard coach, each with 46 degrees of freedom.Railway Technology, ...
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News
Procurement politics
WE SHOULD by now be seeing some evidence that European directives on public procurement are generating a positive effect, n’est-ce pas? Yet rolling stock procurement practice looks depressingly familiar. In Britain, nearly all orders in the last few months have gone to the local plants of GEC Alsthom and Adtranz, ...
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News
Points on a roll
THE Austroroll system for moving switch blades developed by Enzesfeld-Caro Metallwerke AG has been tested by main line, regional and metro operators throughout Europe, with recent trials conducted by Eurotunnel, Danish State Railways and Wiener Verkehrsbetriebe.Austroroll has been adopted as standard for Type B and C points by Austrian Federal ...
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News
Pointers
n The Railtrack board is due to consider a business case in the next few weeks for concentrating control of the British railway network into nine management centres, starting with an installation in Manchester to be built between 2001 and 2005.n Argentina’s interior ministry and the provinces of Chubut and ...
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News
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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News
Tough restructuring starts to pay off
INTRO: Siemens Verkehrstechnik is mid-way through a programme of restructuring and divestments designed to return the business to profitability. Chris Jackson spoke to SVT President Dr Wolfram Martinsen in Sacramento last month ’THERE IS no shortcut or painless way to address the challenges we are facing ... the railway business ...
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News
Olympic S-Bahn revived
BERLIN S-Bahn trains returned to the city’s famous Olympiastadion station on January 16, with the reinstatement of a further 4·8 km section of the network disused since 1980. The Westkreuz - Pichelsberg line serves the Charlottenburg quarter in the northwest of the city, with intermediate stations at Eichkamp, Heerstra§e and ...
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News
Midwest Rail Upgrade nears mid point
INTRO: In preparation for the planned break-up of Conrail between CSX and Norfolk Southern, CSX is investing US$220m in upgrading 435 route-km of main line between central Ohio and ChicagoTHIS MONTH will see further progress towards completion of the first phase of a major route upgrading programme in western Ohio ...
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News
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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Market
Australia: On February 10 Queensland Rail ordered 38 heavy-haul diesel locos from Evans Deakins’ subsidiary Clyde Engineering for A$132m to work coal trains in the Bowen basin; EDI’s Manufacturing & Construction Division will supply 350 coal wagons for A$34m. ANI will build 700 wagons and supply bogies and components for ...
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News
Seattle makes a start
CENTRAL Puget Sound Regional Transit Authority has awarded a $23m contract for conceptual and preliminary engineering for Seattle’s planned Link light rail network (RG 1.98 p33). This will connect the communities of Seattle, Tukwila and SeaTac airport, with a separate route joining central Tacoma with Tacoma Dome commuter rail station. ...
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News
Managing maintenance on the world’s longest rail network
INTRO: Dense traffic, a difficult climate and an 87000 route-km network mean that maintaining Russian Railways’ track and infrastructure is a major challenge. Modern management methods and up-to-date machinery are being introduced, but the need to cater for fast passenger trains means that possession times on heavily used corridors will ...