All News articles – Page 200
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News
Stadler wins Dutch GTW order
ARRIVA has ordered a fleet of 43 low-floor diesel railcars from Stadler Bussnang to operate a 255 route-km network of secondary lines in the northeastern Netherlands provinces of Friesland and Groningen. The cars are being bought under the terms of a 15-year operating concession which starts in December 2005. Herrenveen-based ...
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Letters to the Editor
Rail-sea connections Sir - Dick Fearn is a rail manager held in high regard by his erstwhile customers in several parts of Britain. But his comments about Rosslare in his capacity as Chief Operating Officer of Iarnród Éireann (RG 5.05 p278) are depressing and disappointing. He says 'the boat train ...
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Real work starts at ERA
CEREMONIES were held in Valenciennes on June 16 to inaugurate the European Railway Agency, which was created last year to advise the European Commission as part of the Second Railway Package (RG 8.04 p449). ERA Executive Director Marcel Verslype said the event marked the end of the set-up phase and ...
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Heavy haul expertise is there to be mined
HAD SOME catastrophe struck Rio de Janeiro on June 13-16, the railway industry would have been deprived of what is arguably the world’s most valuable gathering of railway engineering expertise.Around 600 delegates attended the IHHA’s eighth conference, where around 100 technical papers were presented. The papers, and those from the ...
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Finance
Chile: EFE has secured loans worth a total of US$400m to finance electrification, signalling and telecommunications projects under its US$1bn 2003-05 investment programme. US$72m was raised through a bond issue on the local market.China: In May China Development Bank and China Railway Construction Corp signed an agreement for a 20bn ...
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Private finance needed
CHINESE Railways started construction of its latest dedicated passenger railway on June 12, with a ceremony on the borders of Hebei and Shanxi provinces. Expected to cost 12·6bn yuan, the 189 km route linking the provincial capitals at Shijiazhuang and Taiyuan is predicted to carry 15 million passengers a year ...
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TfL's flagship sets sail
THE 20-year old project to extend the East London Line took a decisive step forward last month when Transport for London invited bidders to prequalify for the main infrastructure works contract for Phase 1. Described as the organisation's 'flagship project' by Howard Smith, Chief Operating Officer of TfL London Rail, ...
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Flood repair funds
ON JUNE 13 the Andean Development Corporation signed an agreement to lend the Argentinian government US$35m, which will be used to fund a US$50·8m project to raise a section of ALL-Central’s Buenos Aires - Mendoza main line that has been flooded following a rise in the level of the La ...
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Following the noses
CHINESE train-building joint venture Bombardier Sifang Power and Voith Turbo have signed a technology transfer agreement under which the German firm is to supply 20 noses for use on 200 km/h trainsets to be built in China.The noses will feature retractable couplers, linked to the car body by hollow rubber ...
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Renfe plans for growth
RENFE President José Salgueiro has unveiled the Spanish national operator’s 2005-09 strategic plan, which forecasts revenue to grow by 79·6% and passenger traffic to increase by 19·3% by 2009. The €5·5bn investment programme for 2005-09 includes €4·05bn for new trains, €746m for rolling stock refurbishment and €322m for maintenance facilities.A ...
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Guangzhou rebuild
WORK began in May on a 100m yuan project to double the daily passenger capacity of Guangzhou’s main station.By October the current 9000m2 of waiting areas will have been increased to 14000m2.. Two additional waiting rooms are to be built, giving a total of 11 separate facilities.The station was designed ...
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IJtram inaugurated
ON MAY 28 an 8·5 km extension of the Amsterdam tram network was inaugurated by Transport Minister Karla Peijs. Known as IJtram, the line provides a connection between Amsterdam Centraal station and a new housing estate taking shape on the east side of the city.Being built on six artificial islands ...
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Intelligence
Australia: Toll opened an A$20m freight terminal at Townsville in early May. A joint venture of Toll and Pacific National began running 1067mm gauge freight services from Brisbane to Cairns in March.Brazil: Portugese construction firm Somague Engenharia has completed a feasibility study for a US$570m rail link between São Paulo ...
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Kirkuk stations revived
KIRKUK and Al Maraei stations in Iraq have been rehabilitated, and work is underway at Al Thawra and Al Reyadh for completion later this year. A further 11 stations in Ninewa goverornate are to be reconstructed.Rubbish has been removed and unsafe structures demolished at the two stations over four months ...
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Port line started
VIETNAM Railways announced on June 1 that work had started on the creation of a 130 km rail link from Hanoi to the new deep-water port at Cai Lan.Expected to cost 4bn dong, the project involves the reconstruction of DSVN’s residual standard-gauge line from Kep to Ha Long, together with ...
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Point machine put to the test
WESTINGHOUSE has begun a year-long field trial of its Surelock points drive machine at Stratford Market depot on London Underground’s Jubilee Line. PPP contractor Tube Lines plans to use Surelock in the resignalling of Stanmore station during 2006.According to Westinghouse, Surelock has a mean time between failures of 30 months ...
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Market
Australia: The Thiess Hochtief joint venture has awarded iQR and BT Contractors an A$20m contract to lay 26·2 km of slab track and construct emergency walkways on the Epping to Chatswood line in Sydney (RG 6.03 p371) by August 2006.Bulgaria: On June 11 Siemens and BDZ signed a €117m contract ...
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Metros
Canada: Following rejection of an appeal against the environmental study, Toronto Transit Commission is due to begin work next month on the C$65m St Clair Avenue West Transit Improvement Project to rebuild 6·5 km of street tramway on reserved track. China: Boring of two 4·7 km tunnels was completed on ...
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Taking notes
ANALYSIS of the reliability of over 300 London Underground ticket machines maintained by Cubic Transportation Systems found that 15% of the Giesecke & Devrient BIM2020 bank note identification modules were causing half of all malfunctions, and so needed upgrading.To ensure reliability, 50 modules containing older BIM1000 sensors have been replaced ...
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Tren Urbano opens
JUNE 6 saw the start of revenue services on the 17·7 km Tren Urbano metro line in San Juan, Puerto Rico, which links the western suburbs of Bayamon and Guaynabo with Santurce, serving 16 stations. Construction began in 1996, and the line was scheduled to open on July 1 2001. ...