All Railway Gazette International articles in March 2015 – Page 7
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NewsUnderstanding better bogies
RUSSIA: Following the inauguration of an initial facility in Chelyabinsk in 2013, wagon manufacturer United Wagon Company and Russian Railways have established five further bespoke training centres for advanced wheelset maintenance. Located on RZD’s Oktyabrskaya, Krasnoyarskaya and Zapadno-Sibirskaya railways, the jointly-managed facilities are intended to provide maintenance staff with detailed ...
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NewsSerco to sell Great Southern Rail
AUSTRALIA: Serco Group plc has agreed to sell its Great Southern Rail business to Sydney-based private equity firm Allegro Funds for an enterprise value and cash consideration of £2·5m. GSR operates tourist-focused passenger services including The Ghan, Indian Pacific and Overland, and Serco said a review undertaken last year ...
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NewsSiemens Convergence Creators opens telecoms test lab
CROATIA: Siemens has opened a Railway Telecommunications Test & Integration Laboratory in Zagreb. The facility contains various types of main line and urban rail telecoms infrastructure, which can be adjusted to assist with developing and testing equipment or used for customer demonstrations and training. The equipment includes GSM-R and ...
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NewsAutomatic EMU inspection system in new maintenance contract
UK: National Express Group has awarded Bombardier Transportation a contract to maintain the 74 Bombardier Class 357 Electrostar EMUs operated under the Essex Thameside franchise, which is branded c2c. The current franchise began in November 2014 and runs for 15 years. Bombardier’s contract was announced on March 30. It runs ...
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NewsPrototype EMU on test
RUSSIA: The first of two prototype EG2Tv electric multiple-units developed by Transmashholding’s Tver Carriage Works has arrived at the Shcherbinka test circuit near Moscow, where it is to undergo certification trials ready for potential series production. TMH is developing the EG2Tv as the basis for a new generation of EMUs ...
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NewsLevel crossings to go as Harderwijk rebuilding approved
NETHERLANDS: Infrastructure manager ProRail has confirmed that the station at Harderwijk is to be rebuilt by the end of 2016, under an accord signed with national passenger operator NS, the town council and Gelderland province on March 26. As well as improving passenger facilities, the reconstruction will eliminate two level ...
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NewsGE names President
GE Transportation has appointed Thomas Konditi to head its Sub-Saharan Africa business as President & CEO. Having joined GE in 1994 he was most recently Chief Financial Officer of GE Africa, with responsibility for an operation spanning 25 countries. Konditi succeeds Tim Schweikert, who is moving to head up GE’s ...
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NewsAlpha Trains completes €1·25bn refinancing
ALPHA TRAINS: Rolling stock leasing company Alpha Trains closed a €1·25bn refinancing of three existing secured loan facilities on March 26. According to UBS which advised Alpha Trains, the transaction included the first investment grade continental European rolling stock bond issue and the first corporate securitisation of its nature in ...
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NewsFoster + Partners to develop Jeddah metro design vision
SAUDI ARABIA: Foster + Partners is to develop the architectural vision for Jeddah’s city-wide public transport master plan under a contract signed by Prince Khalid Al-Faisal bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud, Governor of Makkah Province, on March 30. The scope of the contract includes the design of the stations, trains and ...
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NewsLGV Est Phase 2 completed
FRANCE: On March 31 SNCF President Guillaume Pepy joined SNCF Réseau President Jacques Rapoport and other dignitaries as the last rail was welded to mark the completion of construction work on Phase 2 of LGV Est, the high speed line between Paris and Strasbourg. Work on Phase 2, covering the ...
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NewsTransdev wins Leipzig - Chemnitz operating contract
GERMANY: The Mittelsachsen and Leipzig transport authorities have selected Transdev subsidiary Mitteldeutsche Regiobahn to operate Leipzig – Geithain – Chemnitz passenger service E7 (currently RE6) from December 13 2015. The contract covers the operation of hourly services totalling around 1 million train-km/year. It runs until at least December 2023, ...