Passenger rail news – Page 243
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NewsLoco order takes Trenitalia E464 fleet to 688
ITALY: Trenitalia has placed a €128m firm order for a further 50 Class E464 electric locomotives, Bombardier Transportation announced on April 27. To be delivered in 2012-13 as an option on a 2009 contract for 100 locomotives, they take Trenitalia's total E464 order to 688 locomotives, of which 570 are ...
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NewsFirstGroup to pull out of troubled DSBFirst joint venture
DENMARK: FirstGroup has confirmed that it is to sell its 30% stake in the DSBFirst joint venture which has contracts to operate passenger trains in Denmark and southern Sweden. State-owned passenger operator DSB announced the resignation of the FirstGroup members on the boards of DSBFirst Danmark A/S and DSBFirst Aps ...
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NewsDeutsche Bahn agrees ICx train order with Siemens
GERMANY: Deutsche Bahn has reached agreement with Siemens to order up to 300 ICx trainsets. Approved at an extraordinary meeting of the DB board in Frankfurt on April 21, the deal is due to be signed after a 14-day 'waiting and information period', at which point DB plans to place ...
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NewsNational plan to put cities 90 min apart
SOUTH KOREA: The Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs has published plans for national network of high speed and upgraded lines which would put the most of the major cities within 90 min travel time of each other by 2020. The second national railway plan published on April 3 ...
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News£200m package to ease Cardiff bottleneck
UK: Network Rail unveiled a £200m three-year plan to alleviate the congested double-track bottleneck through Cardiff on April 12. Local passenger traffic is growing at 8% a year, and the opportunity to increase capacity arises because the area is being resignalled and electrification of local commuter lines is planned. The ...
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NewsDB Regio orders multi-engine Traxx diesel locomotives
GERMANY: DB Regio has awarded Bombardier Transportation a framework contract for the supply of up to 200 Traxx DE Multi-Engine locomotives, which will have four small diesel engines in place of one large prime mover. The nine-year agreement announced on April 18 is worth €600m, and includes a €62m firm ...
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NewsNTV in alliance to take on Ferrovie dello Stato
ITALY: Budding high speed operator Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori has set up an alliance with other private sector and open access companies in a bid to increase their influence in the face of what they see as intransigence by state-owned Ferrovie dello Stato. Called the Forum del Trasporto Ferroviario, the alliance ...
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NewsTrain fares cut to save energy
SPAIN: Under a national energy-saving plan approved by the cabinet last month, fares on RENFE suburban and medium-distance services are to be cut by 5% to encourage greater use of public transport. The Ministry of Development expects this to result in 22 million fewer car journeys into major ...
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NewsItalian narrow gauge operator orders Stadler trains
ITALY: Ferrovie Appulo Lucane has ordered nine Stadler diesel multiple-units for its 183 km network of 950 mm gauge lines in Puglia and Basilicata. Stadler will deliver four three-car and five two-car units between February and June 2013 under the €43·8m contract signed on March 29. To be ...
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NewsCD orders Pesa regional mutiple-units
CZECH REPUBLIC: Polish rolling stock supplier Pesa Bydgoszcz has signed its first contract in the Czech Republic, a KC1·99bn order to supply national passenger operator CD with 31 two-car diesel multiple-units for regional services. The EU is meeting 40% of the overall cost of the contract signed on March 17, ...
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NewsHSTs are good to 2035
UK: An IMechE seminar on February 21 considered recent work undertaken to establish the long-term mechanical and electrical integrity of the Mk III coaches used in the 200 km/h IC125 diesel high speed trains. Developments were detailed in presentations by senior engineers from operators First Great Western and East ...
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NewsPRASA to order 6 000 vehicles under fleet renewal plan
SOUTH AFRICA: Details of a R97bn large-scale rolling stock renewal plan were set out when Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa held an industry day on April 5 to gauge interest from potential suppliers and financiers. There is an 'urgent' need for new trains to replace life-expired vehicles based on ...
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NewsNortheast Corridor tops bidding for US high speed funding
USA: There has been overwhelming demand for a share of the $2·4bn of federal high speed rail funding rejected by the Governor of Florida, according to US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood. He said on April 6 that 90 applications totalling more than $10bn had been received from 24 states, ...
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NewsFyra shuttles run through to Breda
NETHERLANDS: NS Hispeed finally began running Fyra services between Amsterdam and Breda on April 4, when the interim locomotive-hauled shuttle was extended from Rotterdam to Breda. Operating at half-hourly intervals, the trains take 67 min from Amsterdam Centraal to Breda, including intermediate stops at Schiphol Airport and Rotterdam Centraal. The ...
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NewsGO Transit tracks change hands
CANADA: Metrolinx, the regional transport agency for Greater Toronto and Hamilton, Ontario, confirmed on March 30 that it had completed the purchase of a section of CN's Kingston Subdivision for C$299m. Running eastwards from Toronto’s Union station to Pickering, Ontario, the two and three-track line is primarily used by GO ...
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NewsDSB CEO dismissed over accounting irregularities
DENMARK: National passenger operator DSB has confirmed the dismissal of its Chief Executive Søren Eriksen following an extraordinary board meeting on March 29. Eriksen had been fired by the board and Transport Minister Hans Christian Schmidts on March 17, ahead of the publication of DSB’s annual results the following day. ...
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NewsCalifornia applies for federal high speed funding
USA: At a board meeting on March 30, California High-Speed Rail Authority voted unanimously to apply for federal high speed rail funding previously allocated to Florida. The $2·43bn grant was rejected by Florida Governor Rick Scott on February 16, effectively cancelling that state’s plan to build a 135 km line ...
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NewsDB calls temporary halt to Stuttgart 21
GERMANY: Deutsche Bahn announced on March 29 its intention to cease work temporarily on the Stuttgart 21 project to rebuild the city’s main station. DB Board Member, Technical, Dr Volker Kefer confirmed that no further contracts would be let and no more construction work undertaken until a new government has ...
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NewsVR orders more double-deckers
FINLAND: As part of its rolling stock renewal strategy, Finnish state-owned operator VR has ordered a build of special-purpose double-deck coaches to operate with its growing fleet of InterCity2 vehicles.VR has ordered 12 driving coaches and 15 restaurant cars from Finnish supplier Transtech Oy for delivery in 2013-14. Valued at ...
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NewsEuropean Commission outlines 2050 transport vision
EUROPE: ‘Curbing mobility is not an option’. That is the one of the central tenets of the European Commission’s latest transport White Paper published on March 28. Building on the previous document issued in 2001, the Commission has entitled its White Paper a ‘Road Map to a Single European Transport ...