All Railway Gazette International articles in March 2002
All articles published this month.
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News
Bilbao to invest i1·5bn
AIMING to increase the number of passengers using public transport in Bilbao from 90million in 1999 to over 200million by 2025, the Basque regional government has unveiled an infrastructure investment programme totalling €1·5bn. Expansion of the metro, expected to carry over 134million passengers a year, has been allocated €115m; projects ...
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First 20-year franchise
M40 Trains has secured the first 20-year franchise awarded by Britain’s Strategic Rail Authority. The new Chiltern Railways agreement was signed on February 18 and starts this month. M40 won the original seven-year Chiltern franchise in July 1996, but the SRA called bids for a longer replacement and chose M40 ...
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News
TransRussia 2002 focuses on transit corridors
INTEREST in the potential of Russia’s Trans-Siberian rail landbridge is growing considerably, and the topic will be one of several up for debate at TransRussia 2002, the seventh International Transport & Logistics Conference being held on March 25-26 at Moscow’s Renaissance Hotel. Speakers at the plenary session will include newly-appointed ...
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Intelligence - March 2002
Afghanistan: Plans to build a 1815 km rail network, based on a scheme drawn up in the 1970s (RG 6.76 p204), were revived at January's International Conference on Reconstruction Assistance held in Tokyo. Australia: Freight Australia's request for the Commonwealth government to take control of access to Victoria's rail network ...
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CFL plans i3bn spend
LUXEMBOURG Transport Minister Henri Grethen signed an accord with the board of the national railway on January 24 approving a long-term development strategy known as mobilitéit.lu. The aim is to boost public transport’s market share from 13% to 25% by 2020.Following the abandonment of plans to develop a dual-mode light ...
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News
Class 377 order
GOVIA announced on March 11 that it had ordered 460 more Electrostar EMU cars from Bombardier Transportation for its South Central franchise. The deal follows a renegotiated contract for 240 similar vehicles transferred from Connex with the South Central franchise last August (RG 10.01 p654), lifting the total investment to ...
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Tehran Line 4
DURING a visit by Iranian President Mohammad Khatami to Austria last month, Siemens secured a letter of intent worth around €1bn for work on Line 4 of the Tehran metro.Line 4 will run on an east-west alignment, providing interchange with both the north-south Line 1 and with Line 2, which ...
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LA seeks 50 light rail cars
SPEEDY delivery of 50 articulated LRVs is sought by Los Angeles MTA, together with two options for a further 33, in an invitation to bid issued last month. With traffic burgeoning on the Blue and Green lines and higher ridership estimates for the new Gold line (formerly the Pasadena Blue ...
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News
Chapter of accidents
FEBRUARY saw four serious accidents that killed a total of 405 people in Africa and Europe, with Egypt’s worst rail disaster capturing the headlines. Transport Minister Ibrahim al-Demeri and ENR Chairman Ahmed el-Sherif both resigned after fire gutted seven out of 16 coaches of a stopping train that left Cairo ...
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News
Border accord
CEREMONIES were held at the Dresden Friedrichstadt yard on February 14 to mark the start of cross-border freight working between Germany and the Czech Republic. Czech Deputy Transport Minister Pavel Stoulil and Sachsen Land President Stanislaw Tillich greeted the first rolling motorway service which arrived from Lovosice behind a CD ...
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News
NECMS keeps Acela rolling
DESPITE the uncertainty over the future of US passenger services, Amtrak is continuing to expand the number of high speed trains in its Northeast Corridor. Further Acela Express diagrams were introduced on January 28, giving 13 trains/day each way between Washington DC and New York, and nine per day each ...
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News
Final act nears in Amtrak epic
IN THE FACE of unrelenting political opposition, the National Railroad Passenger Corp has proved a remarkable survivor since its inception in 1971. Whether a national network of passenger trains in the USA will exist at all next year is now a major question, as the December 2002 deadline approaches for ...
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News
Adtranz value in dispute
MONTRéAL-BASED Bombardier Inc announced on February 14 that it had notified DaimlerChrysler that it will file a claim for damages of around €1bn in connection with its takeover last year of Adtranz, formally known as DaimlerChrysler Rail Systems GmbH. Bombardier said that discussions with DaimlerChrysler AG in Germany had failed ...
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Utah plans ahead
ON JANUARY 17, the Utah Transit Authority board ratified a $185m deal with Union Pacific which paves the way for commuter rail services from Salt Lake City to Ogden, Brigham City, and eventually Payson. UTA is buying 281route-km from UP, including the main line between Payson and Brigham City and ...
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News
Beware the low-cost airlines
EUROPE’S low-cost airlines, mainly based in Britain, are a growing threat to inter-city passenger rail services. These airlines are currently enjoying an unprecedented boom in traffic and are nurturing ambitious expansion plans.When a large number of landing and take-off slots became available at Paris Orly airport recently, easyJet, Go, Ryanair ...
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News
Ammendorf plant survives
BOMBARDIER has revised its European manufacturing strategy following Deutsche Bahn’s December announcement of a €10bn rolling stock investment programme (RG 2.02 p64).The ex-DWA plant at Ammendorf, which had been proposed for closure (RG 12.01 p859), will be retained for vehicle final assembly. As orders now underway are completed, the factory ...
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No tools left in Amtrak’s box
TESTIFYING to the Congress House Appropriations Committee in a hearing about the future of Amtrak, President & Chief Executive Officer George Warrington said ’we’ve run out of tools in the toolbox to keep the service together’. Shortly afterwards, on March 7, he resigned (p176).Warrington joined Amtrak in the mid-1990s to ...
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Commander managesstation announcer
CALGARY-based Interalia supplies a range of passenger information systems to urban and main-line rail operators around the world, including on-board and station announcement systems and vehicle monitoring equipment. The digital Commander station announcement system has been installed at London Underground’s busy interchanges at Oxford Circus, Bank/Monument, Embankment and Earls Court, ...
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Desiro UK demands a pit stop approach
INTRO: As part of its £1·5bn contract to supply 785 Desiro UK EMU cars to South West Trains, Siemens will be responsible for maintenance of the fleet for 20 years under a complex performance regime. Key to this task will be a purpose-built maintenance depot now taking shape near ...
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Atocha expands
Spanish National Railways has allocated €4·5m to the first phase of works to increase capacity at Madrid Puerta de Atocha station prior to opening of the high-speed line to Lleida in 2003. This involves reconstruction and enlargement of the concourse above the platforms, where new refreshment facilities, shops and a ...