All News articles – Page 231
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Academy opens
THE Yorkshire Rail Academy was opened on May 5. A £1·25m joint venture of the National Railway Musem and York College, it is funded by Yorkshire Forward and the Learning &Skills Council North Yorkshire.The Academy incorporates York College’s Centre of Vocational Excellence for rail and signal engineering. Principal Mike Galloway ...
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Transfer accord
CHINA National Machinery Import & Export Corp has proposed a technology transfer and US$50m credit agreement to supply Sri Lanka Railways with stainless steel passenger carriages.The Chinese company would initially supply completed vehicles under the proposals, which were put to Minister for Transport, Highways & Aviation Tilak Marapana in April. ...
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Lyon - Torino financing accord
CONSTRUCTION of the planned Lyon - Torino high speed line and its 52 km Alpine base tunnel moved a step closer on May 5, when France and Italy signed a memorandum of understanding on financing the €12·5bn project.The event was held to coincide with a visit to Paris by Italian ...
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Alstom rescue package agreed
EUROPEAN Competition Commissioner Mario Monti confirmed on May 17 that he had ’the basis of an agreement’ with French Finance Minister Nicolas Sarkozy on the refinancing and restructuring of Alstom, and that ’this should be finalised by the end of the week’.Alstom’s existing government guarantees backing €3·8bn of emergency bank ...
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Australia agrees to invest in rail at last
YEARS OF intense lobbying by Australia’s rail industry for funding to upgrade the worst sections of the east coast interstate main line have finally been rewarded. The budget for the year commencing on July 1 tabled by Federal Treasurer Peter Costello on May 11 includes a one-off grant of A$450m ...
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Algerian initatives spur modernisation
WORK IS due to start early this month on the long-planned project to build a 360 km standard gauge line between Méchéria and Béchar in western Algeria. To be laid parallel to Algerian Railways' existing 1055mm gauge alignment, which it will ultimately replace, the line is intended primarily for oil ...
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Alliances deliver on performance and cost
INTRO: Australian Rail Track Corporation relies on contractors to maintain the standard gauge trunk lines linking major cities. By switching to alliances that set target costs and share risks between client and contractor, ARTC has more than halved its average maintenance bill to A$8500/track-km a year despite rising tonnageBYLINE: Malcolm ...
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UK brings infrastructure maintenance back in-house
INTRO: When Railtrack contracted out maintenance of its network in 1995 a 30% cost reduction was expected, but by 2003-04 it was 50% higher in real terms. Network Rail Deputy Chief Executive Iain Coucher explained to Richard Hope what went wrong, and why Railtrack’s successor decided that employing its own ...
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Back-up signalling still needed
THE decision to install ERTMS on TGV Est (p318) is clear evidence of a firm commitment in Europe to pursue the development of ETCS technology, despite the cost. But the goal of attaining levels of reliability acceptable for commercial service remains elusive. Even on TGV Est, due to open in ...
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Fire safety boost
CHENNAI’S Integral Coach Factory has completed three prototype passenger coaches which have been designed to offer better fire resistance than existing Indian Railways rolling stock.An initial prototype was developed by Karpurthala Rail Coach Factory, following a fatal fire at Godhra in 2002. Indian Railways had decided that all new passenger ...
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Industry News in Brief
Bogie and single axle suspension technology firm Powell Duffryn Rail announced on May 13 that is had been renamed Probotec Ltd, a name ’derived from Professional Bogie Technologies.’To allow for expansion, AEA Technology is to move part of its Rail Products business from Derby to its Glengarnock technology centre, currently ...
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Passenger News in Brief
CFR Calatori has awarded Hewlett Packard Romania a €22m contract to provide a computerised ticket sales and seat reservation system, which is expected to handle 86% of the Romanian operator’s sales. Russian Railways plans to introduce twice-weekly Moscow - Grozny through services from May 30, taking 46 h northbound and ...
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Products in Brief
Bombardier has bought a world-wide licence to use Prover iLock, which provides a mathematical proof of the safety of a proposed interlocking and supports the analysis of the effects of two or more simultaneous hardware failures.Prover Technology Inc, USAReader Enquiry Number: 147The Case CX135 excavator forms the basis for Crawlerrail, ...
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Chinese offer to build Karachi light rail
ON MAY 13 the Nazim of Karachi, Niamatullah Khan, signed an accord with Gu Zhengxie, Senior Vice-President of China National Machinery & Equipment Group, under which the Chinese company will finance and build the city’s long-planned light rail line. The ’preliminary implementation agreement’ covers construction of a 15·2 km line ...
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Praha extends Line C
JUNE 26 is due to see the opening of a 3·9 km northern extension of Praha metro Line C. Section IVC1 runs from N
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Canac sold
CANADIAN National has sold Canac Inc to Salt Lake City-based Savage Companies. The sale includes Canac’s railway training, planning and infrastructure engineering services and its international consultancy, but excludes the Remote Control Division which will remain a CN subsidiary. The Remote Control Division manufactures locomotive control products including the Beltpack ...
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Charleroi restart
WALLOON Transport Minister José Daras has unveiled a €89·4m programme to complete the light metro network in Charleroi within five years. Work on this long-stalled project began in 1970 and is believed to have cost BFr22·5bn to date.The latest proposals would see a new surface alignment to complete the city-centre ...
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Heathrow Connect close to takeoff
TAKING SHAPE at the Siemens works in Krefeld-Uerdingen is a small build of grey EMU cars with orange doors. Quite distinct from the rows of ICE3 and ICE-T cars and ET423 and 425 EMUs for German Railway and VT642 diesel railcars for Romania, they show a marked family resemblance to ...
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ERTMS costs must come down
’WE NOW have a defined and funded project’, SRA’s Executive Director, Technical, David Waboso declared on May 18. He was referring to the UK’s trial site for ERTMS on the Cambrian lines from Shrewsbury to Aberystwyth and Pwllheli, which was selected last year after the decision was made not to ...
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Two passenger companies in PKP Group
Within the PKP Group there are two national passenger operators: PKP Intercity Ltd, which ran its first trains on September 1 2001, and PKP Przewozy Regionalne Ltd which came into being on October 1 2001.PKP Intercity runs about 280 daily trains, including overnight and international services. The overnight trains from ...