All News articles – Page 279
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News
Italian investment keeps growing
INTRO: Holding company Ferrovie dello Stato expects to see capital investment grow at 20% a year between now and 2005. Angelo Scorza reports ANOTHER MAJOR investment programme for the Italian rail network was announced by FS President & Managing Director Giancarlo Cimoli on December 13. ’We have invested €5·4bn in ...
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Moscow metro grows
DECEMBER 31 saw completion of a 5 km extension of the Moscow metro, with the inauguration of Dmitry Donskoy Boulevard station at the southern end of the Serpukhovskaya line (RG 1.01 p35). This takes the network outside the orbital ring road for the first time. The terminus will form an ...
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Madrid suburban growth
THE MINISTRY of Development in Spain is to call tenders for the second section of the new tunnel for suburban services between Atocha and Chamartín stations in Madrid. Within a budget of €95·6m, work to bore a 3·4 km tunnel from new platforms at Nuevos Ministerios to Charmartín is expected ...
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Reading to move in-house
NETWORK Rail announced on January 13 that it will take over responsibility for inspection and day-to-day maintenance of infrastructure in the Reading area from Amey, after the current contract worth around £50m a year expires on March 31. Agreement has been reached for the Great Western Zone to assume the ...
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Metrosur live
On January 15 the first test run was made on the Metrosur ring route in the southwest suburbs of Madrid. The first metro line in the Spanish capital to be electrified at 1·5 kV DC from new, supplied through a rigid overhead, the 40·5 km ring serving 28 stations is ...
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Porto LRT opens
JANUARY 1 saw the start of revenue operation on the first line of the Porto light rail network, with the inauguration of 9·3 km of the Blue line between Matosinhos and Trinidade. A limited demonstration service had been offered on part of the route from June 29 until November 17 ...
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Railned and RIB merge as ProRail
WITH EFFECT from January 1, the three separate organisations with responsibility for rail infrastructure in the Netherlands have been merged to form a single infrastructure operator, known as ProRail. The move was proposed at the end of 2001, as part of the government’s strategy to simplify the railway structure (RG ...
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National portal
BRITAIN’S Department for Transport has awarded a £15m three-year contract to a consortium of Atkins, BBC Technology, ESRI and Real Time Engineering to deliver Transport Direct. SchlumbergerSema is project manager.Transport Direct is a planned national multi-modal transport information portal. A website will be set up later this year, and ...
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Planning for robustness
TIMETABLE robustness in the event of delays and disruptions can be automatically analysed using a software package developed by Vossloh System-Technik. TTRA dynamically generates simulated train delays across a network according to random or predetermined patterns. The impact on planned services is predicted, with conflicts automatically resolved and aggregated delays ...
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Privatisation takes a tumble in Victoria
FEARS THAT private-sector operations in the Australian state of Victoria may be at the point of collapse were confirmed at the end of last year. Issuing a pre-close trading update on December 16 for the 2002 financial year, UK-based rail and bus operator National Express Group confirmed that it was ...
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Subway upgrade
RESIGNALLING of the busy 8th Avenue subway in New York is to be completed by 2007, following the award of a $162m contract to Granite Halmar by MTA New York City Transit. The modernisation covers the final 32 track-km on the Concourse line from 205th Street in the Bronx to ...
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Transrapid takes off
RIGHT ON schedule, Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji and German Chancellor Gerhard Schr
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Testing time on the tightrope
A MOMENT of truth is arriving for the top management of French National Railways. President Louis Gallois has received fresh instructions from the Raffarin government, and these will translate into quite different policies from those followed in the recent past. Gallois’ contract expires at the end of this month, and ...
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EIB lends Bretagne €110m
EUROPEAN INVESTMENT Bank Vice-President Francis Meyer and Josselin de Rohan, President of the Bretagne regional council, signed an agreement on November 15 that will see EIB provide €110m to fund new rolling stock and infrastructure upgrades. Using the first EIB loan to a French region since they assumed responsibility for ...
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Systra wins Delhi Line 3
IN THE run-up to opening of the first section of Line 1 at the end of last month, on December 9 Delhi Metro Rail Corp named Systra SA as design and project management contractor for Line 3. Design of the 23 km route has been split into two contracts, which ...
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Line 5 awaits traffic surge
INTRO: All-day service is being launched on Line 5 of the São Paulo metro, but the line will not reach its full potential until it reaches the city centre. Murray Hughes reports from Brazil’s largest cityGIVEN THAT 18·1 million people live in the São Paulo metropolitan area, three metro lines ...
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Cost-cutting and more subsidy are back on the agenda
THE WINDOW of opportunity for major long-term investment in the UK’s railways is closing fast. The string of badly-needed infrastructure projects that would relieve bottlenecks and expand the business is being pushed aside - we understand that the Strategic Rail Authority’s updated Strategic Plan due this month is unlikely to ...
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Airport extension will transform BART patronage
INTRO: With ridership forecast to grow by 20%, the long-awaited opening of the Bay Area Rapid Transit extension to San Francisco International Airport is expected to usher in the most significant reordering of travel patterns since BART carried its first passengers in 1972. William D Middleton reportsDUE TO OPEN within ...
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Alstom wins BNSF deal
BURLINGTON Northern Santa Fe has awarded a contract worth US$420m to Alstom for maintenance of 434 locomotives over a period of 12 years. Signed on November 4, the deal covers the maintenance of SD70MAC locomotives supplied by the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors. The locos will be maintained at the ...
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Anchors away
NORTH DOWNS Tunnel on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link has a sprayed concrete primary lining, with a waterproof membrane fixed to the outer shell. This is held in place by over 800000 CR930T nails with 800mm PVC washers supplied by ITW Construction Products.The tunnel’s fire main is supported by 18000 ...