All News articles – Page 380
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News
Seoul openings
METRO CONSTRUCTION is forging ahead in the South Korean capital, with 57 km to open this year. Announcing the start of operations on the 9 km Son Su - Shin Pung section of Line 7, with eight stations, on February 29, Seoul Subway Construction Corp confirmed the schedule for ...
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Shanghai orders
LAST MONTH, Shanghai’s public-private metro development consortium Jiushi ordered a fleet of 152 metro cars to operate the city’s Xinming ’light rail’ line, which runs 14 km southwest from the Line 1 terminus at Xin Zhuang to Ming Hang (RG 1.99 p29). They will be built to Alstom’s modular Metropolis ...
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PEOPLE
Netherlands Railways Chairman Rob den Besten is to step down in August. He will be succeeded by NS Reizigers Director General Hans Huisinga.Amongst recent Russian Railways appointments, Yevgeni M Plokhov succeeds A S Levchenko as President of the Kuyibishev Railway and Alexander S Bogatyryov becomes President of the North Caucasian ...
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Re-franchising progress
CHIEF EXECUTIVE of Britain’s Shadow Strategic Rail Authority Mike Grant announced on March 14 the six shortlisted bidders to negotiate for the first three replacement franchises. Both incumbents have been selected for the two London commuter franchises. Connex will be competing with Thameslink franchisee GOVIA for Network South Central, while ...
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Publications
Save the CityThis video from the International of Public Transport argues that ’without mobility, a city is no longer a city’. Aimed at increasing awareness of the role of public transport amongst decision makers and opinion formers, it highlights examples of good practice in land use and transport planning from ...
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Sidetrack
Training cats and dogsFebruary saw another railway first, when Eurotunnel carried a small party of dogs and cats from France into Britain, heralding the dismantling of Britain’s pet quarantine laws. Introduced a century ago to prevent rabies spreading from mainland Europe, the regulations looked increasingly anachronistic as cases of la ...
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VIA volte-face
HAVING considered privatisation of VIA Rail Canada, the federal government may now be prepared to ensure its survival in the public sector, and, to boot, stabilise its precarious financial position. Transport Minister David Collenette has apparently convinced his cabinet colleagues of the merits of using a healthy pre-election budget surplus ...
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Clinton funding plan boost for 11 US cities
FUNDING approval is being sought for urban rail projects in 11 US cities under the federal budget for fiscal 2001. A total of $6·3bn has been allocated to public transport, an increase of 9% on the current year but less than the $7·3bn previously authorised under the TEA-21 legislation. The ...
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First North Western launches Class 175
UK: First North Western unveiled the first five of 27 Class 175 diesel multiple-units at its newly-built depot in Chester on February 4. Part of Alstom’s Coradia family, the trains will enter commercial service in May on routes from Birmingham and Chester to Holyhead and Manchester to Llandudno. Later they ...
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Thalys traffic up 5·5%
ACCORDING TO figures released on February 7, Thalys high speed services between France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany carried a total of 4·98million passengers in 1999, up 5·5% on the previous year. Of this traffic, 53% was carried between Paris and Brussels where high speed rail is now the market ...
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PR board abolished
PLANS to restructure Pakistan Railways have been announced by the government. As an interim measure, the PR board has been disbanded, and its functions assumed by the Ministry of Railways. A new 15-member advisory board is to be formed, including the PR General Manager, Finance Director, the Managing Directors of ...
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China adopts AEI
THE CHINESE Ministry of Railways has decided to adopt radio-frequency transponder tagging for automatic vehicle identification, compatible with the standards adopted by the Association of American Railroads and the UIC.On January 28 the Dallas-based Amtech Systems division of Intermec Technologies announced that it had won an initial contract from MoR ...
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CFR Calatori restructured again
ROMANIA’s passenger train operating company has been split with effect from February 1. Formed during the break-up of the former state railway in October 1998, CFR Calatori has now been dividedinto a national inter-city operator and eight regional companies. Announcing the restructuring, Transport Minister Traian Basescu said the new structure ...
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Japanese now alone in high speed maglev stakes
IT HAS long been clear that the much-hyped project to build a Transrapid magnetic levitation line between Hamburg and Berlin was going nowhere fast. The only question was how much longer it would cling to life as successive governments chose weasel words in their statements about its future to avoid ...
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Alstom scoops Bordeaux turnkey
ON FEBRUARY 7, the French municipality of Bordeaux announced that it had selected a consortium led by Alstom to build the 22·2 km first phase of the city’s planned three-line light rail network. Awarded a formal declaration of public utility at the end of January, the three lines are due ...
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Amtrak’s figures challenged
ALTHOUGH the Amtrak Reform Council said its annual report published on January 28 was ’not in any sense a finding’, it immediately generated controversy. Approved on an 8 to 3 majority vote, the report disputes Amtrak’s assertion that it is on schedule to be free of taxpayer subsidy by the ...
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Smart card questions move from technology to applications
The 5th UITP fare collection conference in Bologna on February 2 - 4 signalled a turning point in the prospects for widespread use of smart cards. No longer were delegates asking if the technology was ready; now the key question is the best management and operating structure to meet individual ...
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Athenians celebrate metro’s arrival
INTRO: The first sections of the long-awaited Athens metro were officially inaugurated on January 28. Artemis Klonos joined the crowds at Syntagma SquareCEREMONIES were held in Athens on January 28 to mark the inauguration of the Greek capital’s metro network. Amongst the participants at the event were the President of ...
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Eurotrain fights back in Taiwan tussle
ON FEBRUARY 10 Eurotrain lodged an appeal with the High Court in Taipei in a further round in its battle to obtain the contract to supply electrical and mechanical equipment for Taiwan’s high speed line from Taipei to Kaohsiung. On December 28 Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp had announced ...