All Railway Gazette International articles in October 1997
All articles published this month.
-
News
Sidetrack
GNER bluesBritain’s East Coast Main Line fleet has again proved vulnerable to heat, some years after a spate of cooling failures on the IC125 high-speed diesel train power cars. With much of Britain basking in unusually high summer temperatures, franchisee Great North Eastern Railway was struggling to keep its electric ...
-
News
Publications
Jane’s Urban Transport Systems 1997-98Five ex-Soviet cities and Bamako, Mali, are the new city entries in the 16th edition of this illustrated annual. There are 12 industry sections featuring numerous additional companies, but there have also been many deletions. Detailed coverage of the bewildering variety of complete vehicles, components and ...
-
NewsPointers
Netherlands Railways' subsidiary NS Cargo is planning to launch next year an international network of services to Frankfurt-am-Main, Zürich, Basel, Paris and Milano for 'just-in-time' air freight traffic. Wheeled containers would speed loading and unloading. The British government is considering a partial privatisation of London Underground to raise funds for ...
-
News
People
As part of a general restructuring, Austrian Federal Railways announced its new management board on September 17. Dipl-Ing Dr Helmut Draxler remains Director-General, with Dipl-Ing Helmut Hainitz as sole Deputy Director-General. Dipl-Ing Fritz Proksch becomes Director of Management Services, being joined on the board by Mag Anton Hoser as Director ...
-
News
Summit takes note of real needs
AUSTRALIAN transport ministers convened in Melbourne on September 10 for the Australian Transport Council’s Rail Summit. The ostensible reason for the meeting was to discuss which line should be built to Darwin (p697) - expressions of interest for the Alice Springs proposal close on November 30. In practice, thanks to ...
-
News
Nagano Shinkansen opens
EAST JAPAN Railway formally inaugurates the first stage of its Nagano Shinkansen between Takasaki and Nagano on October 1, with the launch of Asama super-express services from Tokyo. The 126 km branch diverges from the existing Joetsu Shinkansen, and is designed for operation at up to 260 km/h.The line was ...
-
News
Metros
Argentina: Siemens has won a 12-year US$27·2m contract to refurbish and maintain 64 cars for Buenos Aires metro Line E.Czech Republic: Skoda AS is to refurbish a second batch of 10 T3 trams for Liberec, and fit them with IGBT chopper controls and regenerative braking. Seven T3s are being refurbished ...
-
News
Market
Australia: NSW Rail Services Authority has won a contract to fit out the tunnels on the New Southern Railway Sydney Airport Link, including track, signalling, electrification and communications.Belgium: De Lijn has exercised part of its option to order six more single-direction LRVs for Antwerpen and three bi-directional LRVs for Gent ...
-
News
Manufacturers must share the risk
INTRO: Higher power-to-weight ratios, tilting, and distributed power have become dominant features of orders for high speed trains over the last two years. But with railways facing growing commercial pressures, Gordon Pettitt obe fcit finds that manufacturers must take on more of the risk in delivering rolling stock to a ...
-
News
Valencia LRT under way
VENEZUELAN transport authority C A Metro de Valencia gave permission on September 4 for Siemens Transportation Systems to begin construction of the city’s US$80m light rail project. Phase 1 of the turnkey package covers the 6·2 km from Parque Recreacional to Avenida Cedeño (DM 97 p57), including eight LRVs to ...
-
News
Letters
Speed in South KoreaSir - With reference to your Comment item ’TGV Bypass’ in RG 9.97 p557, I should like to point out that the Korean High Speed Rail Authority (KHRC) has had 350 km/h as its criteria for infrastructure design since the very beginning.While South Korea’s technology transfer programme ...
-
News
Intelligence
Angola: Tor di Valle of Italy has begun work on rehabilitation of the Benguela Railway under a barter agreement that grants it the right to exploit 37000ha of eucalyptus plantations (RG7.97 p432). Argentina: Under a concession awarded by the province of Córdoba, Ferrocarriles Mediterr
-
News
Industry
Germany: GE Capital Services has agreed to purchase Cargowaggon GmbH from Brambles Industries Ltd and Danzas Holding AG. Retaining its present name, Cargowaggon will become the first European component of GE Capital’s Railcar Services business.Great Britain: Construction group Miller has set up a specialist railway company called Miller Rail. It ...
-
News
Three groups take on AN remains
Winning bidders for the three main elements of Australian National offered for sale to the private sector were announced on August 28 by Federal Minister for Transport & Regional Development John Sharp.Combined gross value of the successful bids is A$95·4m, but Sharp said the government could have raised A$30m more ...
-
News
GNER orders Pendolini
BERMUDA-based shipping group Sea Containers is to order tilting trains from Fiat Ferroviaria for its British train operating franchisee Great North Eastern Railway. The signing of heads of agreement covering two trains was announced on September 9, at a price believed to be around £15m each. There is an option ...
-
News
Rail takes lion's share of TEN funding
WELL OVER half of the Ecu352m allocated by the European Commission under the Trans-European Networks funding programme for 1997 is being spent on rail projects. Analysis of the Ecu352m made available for 125 schemes, as notified to 14 of the 15 EU governments by Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock on July ...
-
News
Metropolitan plans go firm
GERMAN Railway has completed plans for its Metropolitan business trains. Two seven-car push-pull formations and a Class 101 loco will launch the service next summer between Hamburg and K
-
News
Finance
Canada: CN is to invest C$64m on its lines in British Columbia this year, including C$36·4m on track renewal, C$2m on signalling and C$2m on links to Vancouver’s Deltaport intermodal terminal. A six-year C$11m programme to upgrade the Terrace - Kitimat branch will finish this year.Ethiopia: The government has negotiated ...
-
News
News travels fast on ICE
GERMAN RAILWAY’S news service for passengers on ICE trains (RG 9.97 p580) makes use of modern com-munications technology to print a newspaper on board the train. Known as ICE-press, the newspaper is produced in conjunction with the publishers of Der Spiegel.Text is sent by the publisher over a radio data ...
-
News
PKP monopoly to end
OPEN ACCESS operators will be able to use the tracks of Polish State Railways from October 14, when PKP’s automatic monopoly of rail traffic is abolished. The legislation to open up the network has been signed by President Aleksander Kwasniewski, as the first stage of a restructuring programme which could ...