All articles by Railway Gazette International – Page 1161
-
News
Light rail arrives in Charlotte
INTRO: Construction began earlier this year on the 15·5 km South Corridor route in Charlotte, the first light rail project in this rapidly-growing city in North Carolina. William D Middleton reportsLIGHT RAIL has a key role to play in Charlotte, North Carolina, where an initial line is now under ...
-
News
Transport downturn at Atkins
A DOWNTURN in the rail sector adversely affected profits at WS Atkins plc during the year to March 31. Trading operating profit at transport fell 9% to £21·3m, on turnover which was down 4% to £394·4m.A fall-off in work in the second half of the year necessitated a reduction in ...
-
News
Three-stage programme puts Combino trams back on track
When higher than expected torsion forces caused cracking in some of the bolted aluminium bodyshells of the Combino fleet in 2002-03, Siemens decided to modify more than 450 trams. Harry Hondius MSc reports on progress with a three-stage programme to deal with the defects
-
News
Betuwe line could be privately run
IN AN ATTEMPT to break the impasse over charges to use the Betuwe Route after it opens in 2007 or 2008 (p605), a group comprising ProRail, TowRail and the port authorities of Rotterdam and Amsterdam announced a plan on September 19 that would see a company established to maintain and ...
-
News
Kenya-Uganda bids in
BIDDING documentation for the 25-year concession to operate the rail networks in Kenya and Uganda was issued on August 30, after the submission deadline was extended at the request of the bidders.Final offers were due by September 30, and the two governments now expect to name the preferred bidder on ...
-
News
Five bids for Line H
BUENOS AIRES metro construction authority Sbase has received five bids for a contract to build the second section of Line H, running from Caseros to Hospitales via one intermediate station at Parque Patricios. The lowest bid of 71·9m pesos was submitted by Cartellone, followed by Dycasa (86·3m pesos), Benito Roggio ...
-
News
Russian market to boom, but high speed plans slow down
RAILWAYS in Russia are recovering from the shock of a sudden transition to a market economy (p633). Significant progress is being made with a massive backlog of repairs and rehabilitation, but the demand is huge and is unlikely to be satisfied in the near future.According to a report from Finmarket ...
-
News
Mumbai BOT tenders submitted
THERE HAS been a 'great response' from bidders for the build-operate-transfer contract to build the first section of the planned Mumbai metro, according to Project Director G R Madan from Mumbai Regional Development Authority. Madan confirmed on September 5 that technical bids had been received from five consortia for the ...
-
News
Bradken’s strong start
FOUNDRY and engineering group Bradken Ltd announced Ebitda of A$57·9m on sales of A$485·1m for the year ended June 30, an increase of 16% on the previous period.Bradken was floated on the Australian stock exchange on August 20 2004. A year on, Managing Director Brian Hodges described the past year’s ...
-
News
Pacific National could break up
PATRICK CORP Chief Executive Chris Corrigan said last month that his company’s Pacific National joint venture with Toll Holdings is ’totally dysfunctional’ and likely to be broken up.This could be the dramatic outcome of a bitter row between the two Australian freight and logistics groups that began with Toll announcing ...
-
News
Passenger News in Brief
Croatian Railways has returned to service the first of its dining cars to be refurbished by TVJ Gredelj. Finished in a similar livery to HZ’s modernised first and second class coaches, it is being used on EuroCity services. Bulgaria Air passengers travelling through the airports in Frankfurt and Berlin can ...
-
News
City News in Brief
OnSeptember 5 a consortium led by Systra of France was awarded a contract to undertake preliminary studies for a fully-automated light metro in Palermo. The first stage would run underground for 7·3 km from Oreto to Notarbartolo, serving 10 stations. Subsequent extensions would take the network to 23 km and ...
-
News
News in brief
On September 6 SRO President Khaled Alyahya confirmed that nine consortia had submitted applications to prequalify for the Saudi Landbridge project (RG 3.05 p134). ’The consortia include leading Saudi and international companies with activities in construction, shipping, investment, logistics and railways’, he said. International bidders include Bouygues, Siemens, Mitsui, Halliburton ...
-
News
Products in Brief
An aluminium tool has been developed by Metronet Rail to speed the cleaning of electrical connections between London Underground cars. The insulated tool aids the opening of two sprung shutters on the ’Dutch Oven’ which covers the connecting studs, halving the time required for cleaning.Metronet Rail, UKRexquote’s 28 tonne Gigarailer ...
-
News
Industry News in Brief
The UK’s Rail Safety & Standards Board has approved Lloyd’s Register Rail as a conformance certification and vehicle acceptance body. Wabtec has renewed for a further five years licensing agreements under which Nabtesco and Mitsubishi Electric Corp supply Wabtec brakes to the Japanese and many other Asian markets. This year ...
-
News
City News in Brief
Ottawa’s municipal government has shortlisted three consortia to build the 31 km north-south light rail line from Rideau Centre to Barrhaven at an estimated cost of C$675m. They are SNC Lavalin with Bombardier, Kiewit-Ellisdon with Kinki Sharyo and PCL Constructors Canada and Dufferin Construction with Siemens. A bidder is to ...
-
News
CAF wins in Mexico
MEXICO’s Secretariat of Communications & Transport announced on August 24 that a consortium led by CAF of Spain had been awarded a 30-year concession to upgrade, equip and operate the 27 km commuter route between Buenavista and Cuautitl
-
News
RandstadRail to get sneltram cars
INTRO: For the first time in Europe LRVs are being built to withstand an end loading of 800 kN. Harry Hondius reportsROTTERDAM operator RET has ordered 21 articulated LRVs from Bombardier Transportation for the RandstadRail project (RG 4.05 p209), with an option for a further 27 cars. Destined to work ...
-
News
Out-of-Round Railway Wheels - Causes and Consequences
by Anders JohanssonTHIS DOCTORAL thesis uses data from full-scale experiments and numerical simulations to study defects around complete wheel circumferences, as well as local defects such as wheel flats.Tread irregularities occurring on a range of rolling stock in Sweden have been assessed using out-of-roundness measurements. These found high roughness with ...