All News articles – Page 400
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News
Pilbara lines in a tangle
Confirmation on June 15 that Rio Tinto and BHP are negotiating a joint venture to merge their iron ore operations in Western Australia has introduced a new dimension to the increasingly bitter dispute with North Ltd over access to Rio Tinto’s Hamersley Iron Railway. The news followed a May 27 ...
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SJ loses sleepers
SWEDISH State Railways has lost another tender for the operation of subsidised passenger services from January 1 2000. On June 1 the state rail traffic office Rijkstrafiken selected the newly-formed Svenska Tågkompaniet to operate overnight services to the far north of Sweden and local services on the Luleå - Kiruna ...
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Signatur strives to make Norway smaller
INTRO: Later this year Norwegian State Railways will put into service the first of 16 tilting trains on routes from Oslo to the north, south and west of the country. Cutting journey times by around 1h on four long-distance corridors, they will help improve NSB’s competitive edge over buses, cars ...
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Market
Marketal six Class 57 conversions of Class 47 locos from autumn this year, with both orders financed by Porterbrook Leasing.Connex Rail has extended to 2011 a 10-year lease on 93 Networker EMUs owned by Angel Train Contracts, due to expire on March 31 2004. Under the new contract, the leasing ...
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MPI and WAB to merge
US railway equipment suppliers MotivePower Industries and Westinghouse Air Brake Company announced on June 3 that they had signed a definitive agreement to merge. Subject to regulatory and shareholder approval, the ’merger of equals’ is expected to be completed by the third quarter of this year. WAB shareholders will receive ...
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Merger signed
ON JUNE 22 Netherlands Railways President Rob den Besten and German Railway Chairman Dr Johannes Ludewig signed an agreement in Frankfurt which seals the merger of the two railways’ freight businesses, DB Cargo and NS Cargo. German Transport Minister Franz Münterfering was present, as were DB Cargo chief Dr Eberhard ...
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Trackwatch for Metrorail
South African commuter operator Metrorail has ordered a Trackwatch system from Solartron to monitor signalling equipment at the Maitland interlocking in the Cape Town suburbs. Data prepared using the system’s PC-based analysis software will be exported to assist with the implementation of a condition-based maintenance strategy.Within the modular Trackwatch system, ...
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Penn rebuild
US PRESIDENT Bill Clinton has formally inaugurated a US$484m project to develop a new main building for New York’s Pennsylvania Station, which currently handles almost 160 million passengers a year. In the ceremony on May 19 plans were unveiled to convert the neo-classical Farley Building, which was built for the ...
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PEOPLE
Swiss Federal Railways’ Infrastructure Director Pierre-Alain Urech has joined the board of DB Netz AG. Anna Ottavianelli of FS has been named Secretary-General of the Community of European Railways, replacing Trevor Halvorsen. Carl-Henrik Lundstrøm of DSB been appointed to the newly created position of Deputy Secretary-General.As part of the latest ...
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Pointers
n Australia’s federal government has agreed that from July 2000 the railways will no longer have to pay the diesel fuel excise levy used to fund road maintenance and construction; this will cut A$70m from the railways’ tax bill in 2000-01 (RG 3.99 p127).n The Nigerian government has signed a ...
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Publications
Schriftenreihe für Verkehr und Bahntechnik. Band 1. Feste Fahrbahn The first of a series of VDEI handbooks, this 156-page softback looks at all aspects of slab, grass and embedded track. Liberally illustrated with monochrome pictures and diagrams, it covers general construction methods and techniques, and the application of slab track ...
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News
Sidetrack
INTRO: Barak building bridges OVER the last few years Israel Railways has recorded a marked increase in patronage, which has been attributed in part to the risks of terrorist attacks on buses in the region. Following the election of a new Labour government in May, IR General Manager Uzani is ...
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Tense time in Taiwan
Council for Economic Planning & Development to seek ways to resolve THSRC’s problems, and that if the government received a formal request for funding, ’we would consider it carefully’.Given that a presidential election is due next March, the government is keen to keep the project moving forward, and Siew stated ...
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Metro Report 1999
SUBSCRIBERS will receive with this issue a copy of Metro Report 1999, our annual snapshot and overview of the latest developments in urban railways worldwide. Articles contributed by chief executives from metro and urban rail operators describe investment plans and programmes in cities ranging from Ankara to Taipei.Also in Metro ...
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Mubarak opens Cairo Line 2 extension
EGYPTIAN President Hosni Mubarak formally inaugurated the third phase of Cairo metro Line 2 at the end of April. The 5 km extension carries the line below the Nile en route to the southwestern suburb of Giza. Starting from the interchange with Line 1 at Sadat, the Line 2 extension ...
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Production VAL208 arrives in Lille
Transpole has taken delivery of the first production VAL208 trainset. Matra Transport International is building 60 two-car sets for the Lille metro (MR98 p42), including the 16 station 12·5 km Line 2 extension from Fort de Mons to Tourcoing Centre, due to open on August 18. Trial running starts on ...
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Stuttgart goes AC motored
THE first of 23 DT8.10 Stadtbahnwagen A articulated LRVs for Stuttgarter Straßenbahn AG was handed over by Adtranz and Siemens on April 16. The air-conditioned all-steel vehicles are a derivative of the standard-gauge design which SSB has been ordering since 1984, and will bring the fleet to 114 cars.The cars ...
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Open access proposal threatens profitable harmony
INTRO: Four years after the amicable separation of Finland’s rail infrastructure administration and restructuring of Finnish State Railways as a profitable commercial company, the government has decided to introduce more competition. Chris Jackson discussed the implications with RHK Director-General Ossi Niemimuukko and VR Group President & CEO Henri Kuitunen ON ...