All News articles – Page 288
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News
Publications
Planner’s Guide to APMs.With a growing demand for liveable, sustainable cities, planners are looking for better ways to configure and manage urban areas. As automated peoplemover technology matures, the concept can be harnessed to link major developments with railway or metro stations, or to provide a more environmentally friendly alternative ...
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Putting slab track to the test
INTRO: GIF’s dual-gauge test track between Medina del Campo and Olmedo includes a 120m section of experimental slab track designed by Balfour Beatty. Keith Barrow reports that practical tests show the design is behaving in line with theoretical modelsFOR SIX MONTHS trains have been operating at up to 240 km/h ...
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Tranz Rail still in the soup
MANAGING Director of Tranz Rail Michael Beard promised on September 12 that the company’s ’change programme’ would deliver benefits in the 2003 financial year. Announcing results for the 12 months to June 30, Beard said ’the company’s historical business model was not sustainable’. He was responding to concerns about the ...
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Sidetrack
Cake time in CaliforniaMid-September was a good time to be in California, especially if you like the sweeter things in life. Birthday cakes were evident in both San Francisco and Sacramento, as two local transport operators celebrated notable anniversaries. During a board meeting on September 12, past and present BART ...
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Turboliner starts testing
RUNNING TRIALS have finally started with the prototype RTL-III Turboliner train, one of seven being rebuilt to run at 200 km/h along the Empire Corridor between Albany and New York City. The first trip to Manhattan’s Penn Station on August 27 was declared ’very successful’ by New York State Department ...
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JR-E unveils E2-1000
ON JULY 25 East Japan Railway formally unveiled its latest design of Shinkansen trainset. The variant of the E2 series is intended to operate on the 96·6 km Tohoku Shinkansen extension from Morioka to Hachinohe in Aomori prefecture, which opens on December 1. Capable of operation on 25 kV60Hz only, ...
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ETCS operational trials delayed to 2004
INTRO: Ralf Roman Rossberg inspected DB’s ETCS pilot project south of Berlin, where Siemens is testing components. DB’s engineers told him that the equipment is ’several times more expensive’ than LZB inductive train controlDB IS EQUIPPING part of its main line from Berlin to Halle and Leipzig to form a ...
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Infrastructure monitoring at 220 km/h
MER MEC will be presenting the Roger 2000 high speed monitoring train it has recently completed for Italian railway infrastructure owner RFI. The 220 km/h train is designed to collect and analyse data on infrastructure condition and performance, providing detailed information for effective maintenance planning. It is Europe’s first high ...
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Red Ones star at opening of DB’s 300 km/h strategic link
INTRO: Join your editor on board the inaugural ICE3 special train for a spectacular sprint between K
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rail4chem grows
GERMAN freight shipper Hoyer GmbH has decided to merge its open access rail freight subsidiary Hoyer Railserv GmbH into the rail4chem consortium with effect from October 1. Hoyer is already a partner in rail4chem, together with BASF, Bertschi AG of Switzerland and VTG Lehkering AG. Hoyer Railserve is owned 95% ...
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Open access shipper
ON JULY 25 British freight operator GB Railfreight announced an increase in the frequency of the intermodal services it operates from Felixstowe under a five-year contract with Medite Shipping which began in February. From this month services to Selby, Doncaster and Hams Hall near Birmingham will run five days a ...
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Address file catches tram cheats
FARE dodgers giving false details toticket inspectors on Manchester’s trams are being identified using a database of residents. When a fare evader is asked for his or her name and address by revenue protection officers, the details are entered into a palmtop Compaq iPAQ computer. This checks their details against ...
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NEPAD may help revive African projects
INTEGRATION of Africa’s diverse railways was a strong theme running through the Africa Rail Conference held on August 12-15 in Johannesburg. Around 150 delegates from over 50 countries heard ambitious proposals for cross-border rail links intended to encourage trade under the New Partnership for African Development programme. Rail features in ...
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Yakutsk in sight again
CONSTRUCTION of the 850 km line from Tynda on the Baikal Amur Magistral to Yakutsk has resumed after the Russian government halted work because of financial difficulties. The government had announced plans to restart the work in January (RG 3.02 p122), but the details were not agreed until a meeting ...
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High speed branches to go ahead
THE SPANISH cabinet has given its approval for bids to be invited for civil engineering and track work on the 27 km between Villafranca del Campo and Cella, the first package of works for the conversion of the Zaragoza - Teruel route to 1435mm gauge for high speed operation. Within ...
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Amtrak’s jewel loses its shine
ON AUGUST 13 Amtrak withdrew all its Acela Express trainsets after cracks were discovered in stainless steel brackets on the power car yaw dampers. Amtrak worked quickly with the train’s suppliers to rectify the fault, and on August 17 it managed to run 11 services with Acela Express units. ...
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Traverser approved
AUSTRIAN Federal Railways has completed preliminary acceptance of a Windhoff automatic outdoor traverser supplied to the maintenance workshops at Linz. One of the largest automatic installations of its kind in Europe, it comprises two independently operating submersed traversers.Locomotives up to 145 tonnes can be moved to 59 pre-selected positions. After ...
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Monorail draws APTA to Las Vegas
THIS MONTH will see thousands of delegates and visitors arriving in Nevada for the American Public Transportation Association Annual Meeting, which takes place at the Las Vegas Convention Center on September 23 - 25. This year the meeting will be accompanied by the three-yearly International Public Transit Expo, which has ...
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Auckland set to revive rail
WHILE a final announcement on public sector funding for the full NZ$388m project is expected shortly from Infrastructure Auckland, it is now clear that the Auckland Region Rail Upgrade Project is almost certain to go ahead for completion by 2006. Tenders will be invited shortly for 25 two-car DMUs (or ...
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Projects to go through audit
ON AUGUST 7 French Transport Minister Gilles de Robien announced that major transport projects initiated by the previous government will be scrutinised by the Conseil Général des Ponts et Chaussées and the Inspection Générale des Finances. The brief requires the auditors ’to establish the precise status of the projects, their ...