All News articles – Page 357
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News
Trans-Asia plan endorsed
MEETING IN Brunei at the end of September, the Transport Ministers of the Association of South East Asian Nations agreed to push ahead with the 5500 km Trans-Asian rail link from Singapore to Kunming. A formal recommendation is to be put to the Asean heads-of-government summit in Singapore this month ...
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Island enterprise
REGIONAL and local lines are all too often dismissed by the management of large national railways as hopelessly uneconomic. And indeed, when they are left to rot, neglected but still overstaffed, they often are. But turn them over to local management, add simple, modern signalling and up-to-date rolling stock, and ...
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Uzani plans further expansion
CEREMONIES were held in Beer Sheva on September 26 to mark the inauguration of Israel Railways’ new city centre station. With traffic on the Beer Sheva line up by 500% this year, IR is stepping up the daily service from 18 to 28 trains each way, and plans a further ...
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FGV goes underground
VALENCIA metro operator FGV and the region’s department of public works reached agreement in October to put two more sections of the city’s metro and light rail network underground.The bigger project covers the reconstruction of a section of the existing north-south Line 1 through the town of Torrent, capital of ...
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Finance
China: The Japanese government has announced an aid package that includes ´17bn largely earmarked for rail projects.Europe: Eurotunnel is supporting a tender launched by Dresdner Kleinwort Benson and Merrill Lynch on October 12, whereby Eurotunnel junior debt trading on the secondary market will be purchased with funds from an issue ...
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Pilot project to fly next year
GERMAN Railway and national airline Lufthansa plan to step up their co-operation next March by launching rail services to replace loss-making short-distance flights between Stuttgart and Frankfurt.Check-in will take place at Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof up to 30min before departure of Frankfurt-bound ICE services. Passengers will be able to check their luggage ...
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Flyers go free
PASSENGERS travelling with KLM and several partner airlines can now travel to and from Amsterdam Schiphol airport by train free of charge, following conclusion of a contract between KLM and Netherlands Railways. The service applies only to airline tickets issued in the Netherlands, which are valid for rail travel on ...
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Fortunes revive at SNCF
FREIGHT TRAFFIC on French National Railways has begun to grow again, with this year’s target of 53·8 billion tonne-km now looking attainable following 9% growth in the first half year compared with 1999. The positive trend continued through the summer, and Freight Director Francis Rol-Tanguy is particularly pleased that intermodal ...
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Franchises still pulling
BEFORE the soul-searching over the future structure of Britain’s railways began after the Hatfield derailment (p689), the process of firming up the existing arrangements was chuntering along steadily. On October 2 the Shadow Strategic Rail Authority unveiled the organisation it will assume once it has shed its shadow next January ...
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GIF spending up
SPANISH high speed construction authority GIF is to invest Pts393·4bn next year, a 65% increase on 2000. At Pts150bn, the contribution from central government is up by 50%; the European Union will be providing Pts135bn.The route from Madrid to Barcelona and the French border will receive Pts298·3bn in 2001, with ...
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Making the Virgin vision happen
The number of passengers using Virgin Trains' services has soared by 40% in three years, giving the company a head start in the race to meet ambitious commercial targets agreed with government. To succeed, Virgin Trains Chief Executive Chris Green must deliver top-of-the-range inter-city services with high speed tilting trains ...
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Joint venture held up
WHEN proposals were first put forward for a joint venture between the freight businesses of Swiss Federal Railways and Italian State Railways, observers were not slow to raise their eyebrows. SBB has an enviable reputation for punctuality and reliability, whereas FS has a less complimentary image.No surprise then, that the ...
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Industry News
Great Britain: ATA Group plc is to acquire Catalis Group Ltd, including Catalis Rail Training Ltd and Rail Training Audit Services Ltd. The acquisition was expected to be completed by October 31.International: Panrail of Austria, McIntire Group of the USA, Multi-Technologies Group of Great Britain, IED International of France and ...
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WCRM infrastructure suppliers
GeneralParsons Brinckerhoff has a seven-year framework contract covering programme management services.Multi-functional infrastructure consultants include CEDG, Mott MacDonald, Scott Wilson Railways and WS Atkins.TrackworkJarvis Rail - relaying 320 route-km of plain line *AMEC Spie Rail Systems - Manchester South remodelling *Balfour Beatty Rail Maintenance - London Euston remodelling *Carillion - Proof ...
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INTELLIGENCE
Australia: New South Wales Rail Access Corp has re-opened the Kandos - Gulgong route to traffic.Belgium: Flanders regional government has approved the construction of a second route into the Antwerpen port complex from 2009. Costed at BFr29bn, the line would run from Noord marshalling yard to Lier via Schoten, Wijnegem ...
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Momentum makes its mark
CATERING contractor to Eurostar Group since June 1 this year (RG 8.00 p475), Momentum has introduced a number of changes to food service on the high speed trains linking London with Paris and Brussels. The new seasonal menu for first class passengers introduced on October 13 was accompanied by an ...
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NY joint venture
SIEMENS Transportation Systems Inc has formed a joint venture with Union Switch & Signal and RWKS Comstock to undertake a $100m programme to install Automatic Train Supervision on Division A of the New York City Transit subway network. ATS is intended to integrate central train traffic control, wayside signalling, automatic ...
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Outback link set
THE PENULTIMATE piece in the Alice - Darwin jigsaw was slotted into place on October 18. Australian Prime Minister John Howard, Northern Territories Chief Minister Denis Burke and South Australian Premier John Olsen met in Adelaide to sign an agreement committing A$480m of public funds to the project to build ...
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Loco servicepartnership
A THREE-WAY partnership offering a range of operations and logistics services across Europe was launched in Berlin on October 10. The occasion was the signing of a Letter of Intent between Swiss loco leasing firm RentATraction Vertriebs AG, Ludwigshafen-based MEV Eisenbahn Verkehrsgesellschaft GmbH and logistics research group TransCare GmbH of ...