All News articles – Page 387
-
News
Marseille tram extensions
Marseille city council was due to consider at the end of December a new urban transport plan incorporating up to 25 km of new light rail routes and extensions to the city’s metro system. On November 29 councillors voted to begin public consultation on modernising RTM’s 3 km Noailles - ...
-
News
Russians reaffirm faith in rail
Addressing the ’Congress of Transport on the Threshold of the New Century’ in Moscow on December 6, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin went to some trouble to assure delegates that the national rail network ’is and will remain the backbone of Russia’s transport system’. He told them that to prevent ...
-
News
Finance
Argentina: As part of a debt restructuring programme, Grupo Soldati was expected to sell its Tren de la Costa light rail operation in Buenos Aires for US$100m. The line carried 441000 passengers between May and August last year, down 40% from the 742000 passengers carried in the same period in ...
-
News
Wiring foreshadows spending
SPENDING on infrastructure modernisation in France looks set to rise with a government statement in late November that Fr8·7bn will be allocated to rail during the period 2000-06 under ’contracts’ agreed with the regions. Among projects due to get under way this year is a two-stage modernisation of the 385 ...
-
News
Franchise replacement gets serious
IT HAS TAKEN the Labour government 31 months since the May 1997 election to reach the point where a serious effort can start to alter the uniquely complex structure created when British Rail was privatised by the Conservatives in 1992-97. The first three passenger franchises chosen for ’replacement’ were revealed ...
-
News
Transforming freight into long-term profits
INTRO: Railways can and must carry freight commercially if they are still going to be useful in 2030, and that means rewarding private investment in modern equipment and sound infrastructure. It can be done, but many governments don’t know how to make it happen BYLINE: Edward A BurkhardtPresident, Rail World ...
-
News
Malawi network handed over
DECEMBER 1 saw the start of operations at Central East African Railways Ltd, the private-sector concessionaire formed to run the 797 km Malawi rail network. With its headquarters in Blantyre, CEAR is led by Pittsburgh-based Railroad Development Corp - which claims it is the first direct investment in Africa ...
-
News
JLE at the heart of Millennium jamboree
AS LONDON geared up for spectacular festivities starting at 00.01 on January 1, London Underground’s Jubilee Line Extension was set to play a vital role in moving crowds to and from the Millennium Dome erected by the River Thames close to the station at North Greenwich. Services began running through ...
-
News
Mehdorn makes his mark
THERE are plenty of juicy items on the agenda of German Railway Chairman Hartmut Mehdorn, who took office on December 16. DB has denied media speculation that Mehdorn intends to tear up the present structure of a holding group and independent subsidiaries, but it is clear that he plans to ...
-
News
Industry News
Bulgaria: CKD Dopravni systemy of the Czech Republic is seeking to establish a joint venture in Sofia to manufacture trams for the Balkan market. The company is currently delivering 17 T6A2 tramcars to Sofia Tramway.Great Britain: CEDG Ltd, the former British Rail Civil Engineering Design Group purchased by British Steel, ...
-
News
Industry News
Canada: Southern Alberta Institute of Technology has opened a new Centre for Rail Training & Technology in Calgary as part of a training alliance with Canadian Pacific Railway worth C$1m over five years.Europe: The European Commission is expected to announce in March the results of its investigation into the proposed ...
-
News
INTELLIGENCE
Argentina: A consortium of Unión Ferroviaria and Cooperativa Industrial de Laguna Paiva finally took control of freight operations on the Belgrano Railway on November 16. Under a 30-year concession, the government assumed 15m pesos of debt and undertook to provide 45m pesos a year until 2004, when the new operators ...
-
News
Letters
Resonance and corrugationSir - Your article ’Optimised ballastless track for HSL-Zuid’ (RG 11.99 p715) deals in particular with the influence of the so-called "pinned-pinned" resonance on formation of corrugation. It is stated (correctly) that a lighter rail section increases the receptance at high frequencies and reduces the frequency of the ...
-
News
Surat link proposed
A 150 km standard-gauge railway has been selected as preferred option for moving coal from the Surat basin coalfield in southeastern Queensland to Tarong power station, where the government authorised a 450MW increase in generating capacity on November 15. The line is being promoted by Sudaw Developments Ltd as part ...
-
News
Railtrack out of London PPP race
On November 30 Britain’s Department of the Environment, Transport & the Regions announced that ’the government, Railtrack and London Transport have together agreed not to proceed with discussions about the possibility of Railtrack taking on the responsibility for upgrading and maintaining the sub-surface Tube lines and linking them to the ...
-
News
Swedes look south
THIS MONTH marks a turning point in the fortunes of Swedish State Railways. From January 10 SJ loses 65% of its passenger traffic, with handover of the Stockholm commuter operations to CityPendeln, the G
-
News
Matra wins New York TBTC
NEW YORK’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority confirmed on November 23 that it had selected a consortium of Matra Transport International, Siemens Transportation Systems, Union Switch & Signal and Telephonics to install transmission-based train control on the New York City Transit subway network.The consortium is offering a derivative of the automatic train ...
-
News
Reading matters
READERS may be aware that Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott whose portfolio includes transport, has attracted rather a lot of flak recently. Prescott has been struggling to reconcile the conflicting demands of a policy backing public transport and a Prime Minister terrified of losing votes from discontented motorists.Concerned ...
-
News
Metros
Brazil: Stage I of the Salvador metro (RG 11.99 p691) is to be built by a consortium of Siemens and local companies Camargo, Corrêa and Andrade Gutierres.Italy: A guided transit system based on Adtranz AGT technology has opened at Roma’s Leonardo da Vinci Airport. Two two-car trains link the main ...