All Railway Gazette International articles in March 2003
All articles published this month.
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News
Somport study
SPAIN’s Ministry of Development has awarded AEPO a contract worth €809911 to study the technical feasibility of reopening the 7·9 km Somport tunnel under the Pyrenees, closed to rail traffic since 1970. To be completed within 20 months, the study will also consider the remodelling required at Canfranc to ...
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Rapid recording
THE EFFECTS on the track geometry of rail wear and sleeper movement can be measured at up to 30 km/h using DataTaker DT800. Track twist angles are measured every 3m, and transmitted to a laboratory by GSM network. Readings are compared with previous measurements to establish if the angle meets ...
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Road rail shunter
TNT Logistics has put into service a Mercedes-Benz Unimog U400 road-rail shunter at its warehouse in Staffordshire to handle wagonloads of spare parts arriving by rail from Germany. The vehicle is equipped with automatic couplers and a front-mounted brush for site cleaning at the rail terminal or warehouse.Unimog, United KingdomReader ...
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PUBLICATIONS
Le Grand Livre du TGVby Claude Soulié and Jean TricoireThis French-language 350-page hardback about France’s high speed lines and the trains that run on them is informative and comprehensive. Starting with the world speed records of 1955 and trials in the early 1970s using the gas turbine powered TGV001, the ...
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Sprinter refit progresses
NEARING completion at Bombardier’s Randers works is a Sprinter EMU for Netherlands Railways, being refurbished as a prototype for a mid-life fleet refit under a 200m guilders contract awarded in July 2001 (RG 8.01 p503). The unit was dispatched to Denmark in April 2002, and is due to re-enter service ...
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PEOPLE
Michael Ward has been named Chairman & CEO of CSX Corp in place of John Snow, who resigned to become US Secretary of the Treasury (RG 1.03 p19). Ward was previously President of CSX Transportation.Alex Hynes has been appointed Senior Economist at the UK’s Office of the Rail Regulator. He ...
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Northwest STAR
CHICAGO commuter rail operator Metra unveiled plans on January 29 to develop an 88·5 km orbital rail corridor from Joliet to Des Plaines and O’Hare airport in the city’s northwestern suburbs over the next 10 to 12 years. The US$1·1bn Suburban Transit Access Route would be worked by diesel multiple-units ...
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Murcia suburban
THE Ministry of Development has unveiled a €552m programme to develop suburban services around the city of Murcia in southeastern Spain, with the aim of increasing rail usage from 4·8 to 9·3 million passenger-journeys a year. Increasing frequencies on Renfe routes to Alacant, Cieza and Aguilas, as well as Feve’s ...
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Metros
China: Hong Kong’s Executive Council has authorised the start of detailed planning for MTR Corp’s proposed HK$10bn South Island Link, including a review of alternatives to the monorail being advocated by MTR. Project Director Russell Black hopes to start work in 2005 for opening by 2010.Shenzhen Metro Corp has ordered ...
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Market
Czech Republic: CD has called tenders for the supply of 20 four-axle 200 km/h tri-voltage electric locos. Financed by Eurofima, they are due to enter service in 2004.China: Scott Wilson Railways is to carry out design for Hong Kong’s fourth cross-harbour rail tunnel, carrying KCRC’s East Kowloon line between Kowloon ...
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Phosphate link
WORK IS expected to start shortly on the 22·5 km branch from Jordan’s Aqaba Railway to the phosphate mines at El Shediyah. ARC Director-General Abdullah Khawaldeh said on February 5 the line would be funded by the government at an approximate cost of US$15m.Khawaldeh predicted that the two existing mines ...
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Italian profits
Sir - Trenitalia Chief Executive Roberto Renon is reported as saying that his company’s profit ’was the first profit in the whole history of FS’ (RG 11.02 p689).This is not so. Up to 1939 Italian Railways was profitable. Editions of The Railway Year Book in the late 1930s show that ...
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INTELLIGENCE
Australia: Seven people died and 15 were seriously injured when the 06.24 CityRail EMU from Sydney to Port Kembla derailed at 07.14 on January 31 near Waterfall. The first of four double-deck Tangara cars was severely damaged when the unit slewed around and struck a sandstone rock face. Nothing was ...
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Madrid - Lleida ready to go
SPANISH National Railways has finalised its commercial strategy for the opening of the Madrid - Barcelona high speed line as far as Lleida. It will be operated with two AVE trainsets and 12 Talgo Altaria loco-hauled sets running at up to 200 km/h until ERTMS signalling is commissioned. Before the ...
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Galicia upgrade
PUBLIC CONSULTATION has begun in Spain on proposals to upgrade the 117 km Ourense - Lugo route for high speed operation, including the construction of four cut-offs that would shorten the distance to 103·3 km at a cost of €364·3m. The Ministry of Development says that the route will be ...
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UK research group founded
FEBRUARY 25 sees the formal launch in London of a new centre for railway research. Rail Research UK is being set up by the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council to provide a ’one-stop shop of knowledge’ encompassing 12 research groups from seven universities. It will work alongside the rail ...
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Finance
Europe: Eurotunnel has reached cash breakeven, and is able to pay the interest on its debts. It recorded a 3% rise in operating profit during 2002 to £194m.France: Having agreed a five-year syndicated credit worth €1·5bn in December, RFF was planning to launch a 20-year bond issue worth up to ...
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Ferronor for sale
RAILAMERICA announced on January 29 that it is looking to sell its 55% stake in Ferronor of Chile, as part of an ongoing US$100m asset rationalisation programme. Credit Lyonnais Securities (USA) Inc was due to issue an ’offering memorandum’ at the end of February.RailAmerica acquired its stake at privatisation in ...
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TGV heads east
Civil works are now well underway on the first 300 km of new line between Paris and Strasbourg, due to open in 2007 when the best journey time between the two cities will be cut by almost half. Jean-Paul Masse reports on progress with the first high speed line project ...
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Transport for London drops PPP fight
OPERATIONAL control of the London Underground network is on course to be transferred to Transport for London within the next two months, following the announcement on February 4 that TfL and the Mayor of London Ken Livingstone were dropping their legal fight against the UK government's 30-year Public-Private Partnership. In ...