All News articles – Page 176
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Rotem scoops Metrolink car order
THE SOUTHERN California Regional Rail Authority board voted on February 24 to order new double-deck push-pull rolling stock from Rotem for the Los Angeles Metrolink commuter rail network. The base order covers 33 driving cab cars and 54 intermediate trailers at a price of $176m. Some are needed for ...
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Crew change at the front end
YOUR EDITOR’S last official engagement was to give the keynote presentation at JR East’s 12th Research & Development Symposium in Tokyo on March 28. It seemed a fitting culmination to 15 years ’at the controls’, during which this journal has constantly striven to give the best coverage in the world ...
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Railcar sales on the climb
AMERICAN Railcar Industries’ sales for the year to December 31 2005 were $608·2m, with net earnings attributable to common stock of $1·5 million, or $0·14 per diluted share. This was up from 2004 sales of $355·1m and a net loss attributable to common stock of $11·3m or $1·12 per diluted ...
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Trans-Karakum link completed
PRESIDENT Sparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan participated in ceremonies on February 8 to mark completion of the 540 km Trans-Karakum railway from Ashkabad to Dasoguz. Congratulating the 1500 staff who built the line across the Karakum desert over the past five years, the President expressed a hope that the 'golden link' ...
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Double-deck concept offers see-through train
ON MARCH 29 the Syndicat des Transports d'Ile-de-France was due to vote on its 2006 budget, expected to be worth €3·6bn. STIF has responsibility for organising public transport in Ile-de-France, and a green light for the budget should clear the way for several major investment projects. One of these is ...
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Projects revived as concessionaires share expansion costs
Railways in Brazil are in the ascendant as investment projects bear fruit on the back of the iron ore boom. Construction work on the revised Transnordestina scheme is due to start in August
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Israeli expansion continues
TRANSPORT MINISTER Meir Shitrit announced on February 15 that Israel Railways had started work on building a 70 km double-track railway between Ashkelon and Be’er Sheva, which is due to be completed by 2010. Expected to cost US$300m, the line will serve the towns of Sederot, Netivot and Ofaqim. The ...
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Contractors poised to hand over first section of HSL-Zuid
INTRO: This month Infraspeed should receive a Certificate of Availability following completion of the southern section of HSL-Zuid. Trials at the line speed of 300 km/h were due to be completed last month, while testing on the northern section will finish in the autumnSWEEPING across the flat Dutch landscape between ...
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Indian freight corridor plans progress
APPROVED by the Lok Sabha on March 11, the Indian Railways budget for 2006-07 includes funding to plan a network of high-capacity freight corridors. Having completed a pre-feasibility study, Rites has been commissioned to draw up more detailed proposals by the end of this year for two routes costing Rs220bn ...
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Cross-border freight
CITING growing congestion on the busy Wien - Graz corridor, where there is little prospect of completing the proposed Semmering base tunnel before 2016, the Austrian government has called in the independent Gy
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Cut-off underway
WORK BEGAN on February 24 on the construction of the 975 km Taiyuan - Zhongwei line in northern China.Due for completion by 2010 at a cost of 30bn yuan, the line will shorten the route from Beijing to Zhongwei, the capital of the Ningxia region (RG 8.05 p479). It will ...
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Keeping the data to hand
ENGINEERINGstaff working for the Rail Business Unit of steel maker and infrastructure services company Corus have begun using Gotive H41 hand-held computers to record data from track inspections.’Over the years we have accumulated a substantial amount of paper-based information which has then been manually transferred to a spreadsheet for analysis’, ...
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DMU into service
BELARUS Railways has put into service the first of two diesel multiple-units ordered from Latvian manufacturer RVR at a cost of US$3m each.The end vehicles of the six-car set are powered by Zvezda engines built in St Petersburg, with Russian-built transmissions. Designed to offer a similar level of comfort to ...
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Dublin Docklands work starts
IRISH Minister for Transport Martin Cullen announced on March 9 the start of work for a new station which will serve Dublin's Docklands area. The island platform station will be served by Maynooth - Dublin commuter services from 2007, providing an alternative terminus to relieve Connolly station. Passengers will have ...
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Protos EMU order
AWARDED the concession to operate the Amersfoort - Ede-Wageningen line from December 2006 (RG 12.05 p756), Connexxion has ordered five two-car EMUs to operate the first electrified branch in the Netherlands to be tendered.Rather than opting for an established supplier of 1·5 kV DC rolling stock, the operator has awarded ...
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Sell-out mooted in Estonia
THE ACRIMONIOUS dispute between Baltic Rail Services, the majority shareholder in Eesti Raudtee, and the Estonian government has escalated to the highest level, with Prime Minister Andrus Ansip being asked last month to answer questions on the subject in Parliament. BRS is seeking damages from the government, accusing it of ...
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Nürnberg S-Bahn expands
FOUR-TRACKING of Germany's oldest railway between Nürnberg and Fürth is the centrepiece of a €160m investment programme to expand S-Bahn services to the 38 km Nürnberg - Fürth - Erlangen - Forchheim route over the next four years. An agreement signed by DB Chairman Hartmut Mehdorn and Bayern Transport Minister ...
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Light rail expansion resumes
INTRO: With a series of legal challenges successfully resolved last year, preliminary works are now underway for the next phase of light rail development in Strasbourg. The 2007-08 programme will add 13·5 km to the CTS network, including Line E that will provide a new north-south link across the cityON ...
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Explosive machines to be tested
A TICKET vending machine which can detect traces of explosives on the hands of users was demonstrated by Cubic Corp and GE Security at the American Public Transportation Association’s annual conference in Washington DC on March 7.Built by Cubic, the ticket machine incorporates GE’s Itemiser FX fingertip trace detection analyser. ...
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Exposition Line
ON MARCH 3 the Exposition Metro Line Construction Authority in Los Angeles approved a $420m design and build contract with a joint venture of FCI, Fluor and Parsons for the 13·7 km first phase of the Exposition light rail line. The deal followed the issuing of a Record of Decision ...