All articles by Railway Gazette International – Page 1379
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High speed experts confer in London
LEADING industry figures outlined key developments in high speed and tilting train services at a congress in London on June 30 - July 2. Organised by AiC Worldwide in association with Railway Gazette International, the High Speed Rail & Tilting Train Congress attracted senior engineers and managers involved in the ...
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CSX to track locos by GPS
FOLLOWING a three-month pilot programme CSX Transportation has decided to equip its 2800 main line locos with a GPS tracking system, the first in North America to do so. CSX awarded a contract last month to GE Harris Railway Electronics for its Pinpoint equipment, which had been tested on 25 ...
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Gayssot wins the day
HARK YE, all ye liberal-minded operators and budding open access companies! Put your plans and aspirations back in your filing cabinets, for ye have lost this year’s battle for market freedom on Europe’s railways.At a meeting of Europe’s transport ministers in Luxembourg in June, French representative Jean-Claude Gayssot succeeded in ...
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DB and NS sign freight merger
ON JANUARY 1 2000 DB Cargo and NS Cargo will formally merge into a single business. Trading with the working title of Rail Cargo Europe, the combined operations of the two companies will form a private limited company which will later become a public limited company under German law. The ...
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Melbourne deals done
ON JULY 13 Victoria’s state Premier Jeff Kennett announced the award of a 15-year franchise to Melbourne Transport Enterprises to run Hillside Trains. Led by CGEA Transport Asia Pacific Ltd, MTE is to invest A$314m in 29 six-car trains for delivery from 2002 and A$75m in refurbishing 45 older EMUs. ...
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Last minute deals
GOVERNMENT officials in Taiwan met representatives of Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp and banking representatives on July 14 in Taipei to seek a formula to rescue the project for a 345 km high speed line from Taipei to Kaohsiung (RG 7.99 p426). The outcome was a promise from Finance Minister ...
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Terminal decision
ON JUNE 21 Aéroports de Paris finally called a halt to testing with the 4·4 km SK-6000 peoplemover installed at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport. The cable-powered vehicles developed by Soulé were intended to run on two routes linking the airport’s terminals with the TGV and RER station, replacing the present ...
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Double-deck orders
ON JULY 16 Bombardier Transportation announced that its BN subsidiary in Belgium had won an order from SNCB to supply 210 double-deck coaches, in consortium with Alstom. The long-awaited BFr8·5bn contract requires deliveries over a two-year period beginning in May 2001. The vehicles will be assembled by Bombardier’s Atlantic Europe ...
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Dropping the pilot
FOR THE PAST 12 years, the names Wisconsin Central Transportation Corp and Ed Burkhardt have been virtually synonymous. As visionary co-founder and dynamic Chairman, President & CEO, Burkhard's leadership from the front, attention to detail and customer care have transformed WCTC from a low-traffic regional to a multinational with lines ...
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Nürnberg - Erfurt dumped
GERMAN Transport Minister Franz Müntefering announced on July 7 that construction of the Nürnberg - Erfurt Neubaustrecke will be halted. Work in hand on the short section from Erfurt to Arnstadt will be completed and a spur built to link it to the existing Arnstadt - Saalfeld line. The line ...
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JR East share sale
LAST MONTH the Japanese government started the process of floating a further tranche of shares in East Japan Railway. Despite two previous flotations, the government remained the largest shareholder with a 37·6% stake.At the beginning of July the government confirmed stock market rumours that it was to sell another million ...
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ECP record run
ON JUNE 28 Australia’s BHP Iron Ore Railroad completed a successful trial with the longest and heaviest test train to operate using ECP electronic air brakes. Formed of five General Electric Dash 8 diesel locos and 240 laden iron ore wagons, the 2·5 km long train had a gross weight ...
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Effective IT will be the key to winning the war
AMONG the most impressive presentations at the IRCA-UIC seminar on Customer-oriented Information Technology held in Stockholm on July 5-6 was a demonstration of RailTracker. Using a live connection to the internet, Unctad’s Coll Hunter demonstrated the system’s ability to locate freight consignments anywhere in the world where the relevant software ...
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FCS on stream
AUSTRALIA’s National Freight Corp has started the final stage of acceptance testing for its Freight Control System, which will provide operations control and management information throughout the inter-state business. Formerly known as the Freight Management Initiative, the first stage of FCS came on stream at the end of last year ...
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Optic fibre links
AUGUST 1 is due to see the commissioning of a further 900 route-km of optic fibre communications links on Russia’s Volga Railway. The regional Chief Engineer A Khrapaty confirmed at the end of June that work was well under way to complete the installation of 4000 route-km by 2005.Another optic ...
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Finance
Canada: CN raised U$497m through a public offering of 4·6million common shares and a concurrent issue of US$230m in convertible preferred securities which both closed on June 23. BC Rail reported a 26% fall in operating profit for 1998-99 on June 24, with profit at parent British Columbia Railway Co ...
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Fudge or forget
IN THE next few weeks another maglev train is due to arrive at the Transrapid test site in the Emsland in north Germany. The latest in a long line of vehicles intended to prove that magnetic levitation for high speed service is commercially viable, TR08 is a three-car unit built ...
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Powered by gas
LOWER emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants would be the main benefit of a railcar powered by compressed natural gas. French National Railways’ research department is working on plans to have a prototype available for trials within two years. Based on the X73500 diesel railcars being built by De ...
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LIRR to GCT
MTA Long Island Rail Road issued a Notice to Proceed to the Parsons Transportation Group on July 6 for detailed design of the East Side Access which is intended to bring LIRR trains into New York’s Grand Central Terminal by 2009. LIRR trains would reach GCT via a branch from ...
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Industry News
Australia: On June 17, Foxboro Transportation Systems and Foxboro Scada International became business units of Invensys Intelligent Automation Australia, part of Invensys plc (RG 7.99 p465).Finland: Patentes Talgo of Spain signed a final agreement on June 18 to purchase Rautaruukki’s Transtech rolling stock unit. Germany: Siemens AG has increased its ...