All News articles – Page 252
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News
Emotion wins again
NOT FOR the first time, a European operator has backtracked on plans to withdraw restaurant cars. Even in Switzerland where main line trips rarely last longer than 3h, passengers revolted last year over SBB’s plan to provide a minimalist bistro service on its IC2000 fleet of double-deck push-pull trains. Now ...
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Perpignan - Figueres moves ahead
AS JOINT PROMOTERS of the project to build a new 45 km line between Perpignan and Figueres, the governments of France and Spain have set a deadline of October 30 for the selection of a preferred bidder. Under a second competition launched earlier this year, four consortia have prequalified for ...
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High speed light amid the gloom
173 YEARS and one day after the opening of the world’s first inter-city railway between Liverpool and Manchester, Britain finally entered the age of high speed railways. The opening of Section 1 of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link on September 16 came 20 years after France’s first TGV line was ...
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PATH spending approved
AN $809m capital programme for the PATH metro network was approved by the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey board of directors on September 10. It is the Port Authority’s biggest single investment in PATH since it was acquired from the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad 41 years ago. ...
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Backlog boosts Bombardier
According to results released by its parent Bombardier Inc on August 27, Bombardier Transportation recorded revenue of C$2·3bn in the second quarter to July 31, down from C$2·4bn in 2002 ’due to a lower level of activities as a result of the timing of the completion and start-up of contracts’. ...
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Measurement of wheel roughness caused by different types of composite brake block
BYLINE: Manfred KalivodapsiA-Consult, AustriaIn recent years composite brake blocks have been developed and tested to reduce rolling noise from coaches and wagons fitted with tread brakes. The principle is easy to explain - if the wheel’s running surface is not roughened or ’polished’ by the brake block material during braking, ...
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Thais to boost rail investment
PLANS TO invest up to 900bn baht in rail projects over the next five years were announced by Thailand’s Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on August 28. Following a meeting to consider national energy strategy, he said better rail transport would cut car use, saving the country an estimated 2500bn baht ...
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Wheel and rail roughness both play their part
BYLINE: Ulrik Danneskiold-SamsøeChairmanØdegaard & Danneskiold-Samsøe A/SROUGH wheels rolling on smooth rail or vehicles with reprofiled wheels or new brake blocks running on rough rail give a combined roughness level which has a significant impact on the level of noise produced (Fig 1). Readings taken during the recent commissioning of EMU ...
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Brake and wheel design can cut train noise
INTRO: Reflecting increased concern over the environmental impact of railway operations, noise limits for new vehicles are being introduced by the European Union. Recent research has focused on wheels and braking systems as well as the trackBYLINE: Dr David Thompson and Dr Chris JonesInstitute of Sound & Vibration Research, University ...
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Passenger News in Brief
A 6000m2 shopping mall and walkway at Basel SBB station was opened on August 21. Officially inaugurated on September 12, Railcity Basel improves access to the platforms and has a range of retail outlets.India’s Central Railway has introduced automated ticket vending machines at Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji station.Implementation of the Lennon ...
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DB Cargo broken up
RAILION moved a step closer to becoming a pan-European rail freight operator on September 1, when the operating arm of German Railway’s freight business, DB Cargo, was renamed Railion Deutschland. The move is intended to put the German operations on the same footing as Railion Benelux (formerly NS Cargo) and ...
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Canfranc conversion
UNDER ITS PROGRAMME to convert the Huesca - Canfranc route to 1435mm gauge and electrify it at 25 kV AC for international freight traffic, the Spanish Ministry of Development has awarded the Sers consultancy a €508755 contract to design formation enhancement works on the 29·5 km from the end of ...
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West Coast light rail grows
CEREMONIES to mark the opening of Sacramento’s 10·1 km South Line light rail extension were to be held on September 26. The $222m line from the city centre to Meadowview Road, with seven stations, has has been completed on time and on budget, according to Regional Transit District General Manager ...
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Reforms to meet the prospect of competition on the tracks
INTRO: Over the past two years, Norwegian infrastructure authority Jernebaneverket and state railway NSB have been restructuring ready for the advent of competition on the national network. Chris Jackson spoke to the principal players ’I EXPECT to see new operators on the network within the next year.’ As Director General ...
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Compiling the tables
Not all the trains in the tables run every day, but all have been scheduled to run regularly at some time between June and September 2003. Many European countries still schedule additional trains during July and August, and may temporarily suspend others. The schedules in this review represent, as far ...
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Monti cracks the whip
AS WE closed for press, the future of ailing industrial titan Alstom was hanging in the balance. Around six weeks had passed since the French government and a group of banks agreed a rescue package on August 5 (RG 9.03 p594), which was to be endorsed by shareholders on September ...
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NSB focuses on customer satisfaction
WITH THE launch of the summer timetable on June 15, NSB abandoned the three marketing brands that it had launched in 1999 - Signatur for long-distance services, Agenda for medium-distance inter-city and Puls for local suburban trains. In future, all operations will revert to the core NSB branding. The change ...
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NRC is ’dead’, says minister
ON August 7 the Lagos Daily Trust reported that Nigerian Railway Corp had launched ’a massive rail expansion programme throughout the country’, made possible by the arrival of long-awaited consignments of imported track materials that were being distributed to key locations. NRC Assistant Director of Public Relations David Ndakosu was ...
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Delhi Metro extends
INDIAN Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is due to inaugurate the second section of the Delhi Metro network on October 2. Running for 4·5 km from Tis Hazari to Tri Nagar, the extension has intermediate stations at Pulbangash, Pratap Nagar and Vivekanandpuri, serving one of the most densely populated parts ...