All Railway Gazette International articles in September 2001 – Page 2
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News
Station upgrades brought forward
GERMAN Railway is to accelerate its planned 20-year upgrade of stations to take place over 10 years, according to board member for Property & Passenger Stations Dieter Ullsperger. He says DB will invest DM1bn/year in station improvement work. The investment is intended to increase the revenue from commercial space at ...
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Canal Street line starts
GROUNDBREAKING ceremonies were held on July 20 for the Canal Street tram line in New Orleans, with construction expected to start this month. Costing $157m, the 6·6 km line between the Mississippi River and the cemeteries is due to be completed in early 2004. On July 24 the Regional Transportation ...
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News
Tide on the turn in the Cape
SPOORNET’S financial results for the year which ended in March show an impressive turnround, with ’net profit’ rising from R84m a year earlier to R605m on turnover of R10bn. Announcing this in late July, Spoornet attributed the improvement to cost savings and better service to customers, with tonnes carried up ...
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Trinity and Thrall Car to merge
US WAGON builders Trinity Industries and Thrall Car Manufacturing announced on August 13 that they are to merge by the end of this year. As Thrall is a privately-owned company, the deal provides for it to be acquired for US$165m and 7 million Trinity shares. Extra payments worth up to ...
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News
Catering swap
SWISSAIR Group’s railway catering contractor Rail Gourmet and station catering company Gourmet Nova are to be transferred to the Compass Group under the terms of a recently-signed asset exchange agreement. The non-binding understanding will see Swissair’s rail operations transferred to Compass in exchange for airline catering business Eurest In-flight. There ...
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News
Coal line revived
QUEENSLAND’S state government is expected to approve revised proposals for a railway between coal mines near Brigalow in the Darling Downs and Tarong, where a second power station is to be built (RG 1.99 p6). The original planed route has been revised to take account of local issues, and land ...
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News
Not commercial
Sir - In ’Maglev all the rage again’ (RG 8.01 p504), you described Shanghai’s Transrapid as ’the world’s first commercial maglev project’. Surely, this depends on how you define commercial.The maglev peoplemover at Birmingham Airport was ordered 20 years ago, inaugurated in 1984, and is now being converted to cable ...
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News
Extension not competition as franchise replacement stalls
INTRO: With Railtrack unable to commit to major schemes which have proved difficult to finalise, government policy has switched from letting new 20-year franchises through open competition to negotiating two-year extensions, writes Robert PrestonCONFIRMATION that the government had lost patience with the slow pace of franchise replacement came on July ...
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News
Danish local concessions
SEPTEMBER 17 is the closing date for bids to operate regional passenger services in Jylland from the beginning of 2003. The Danish Transport Ministry has called international bids for two concessions totalling 582 route-km. Around 10 consortia have expressed interest, including German Railway's local passenger business DB Regio. Preferred bidders ...
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News
Connex still expanding
WEST COAST Railway, which operates passenger trains between Melbourne and Warnambool in Victoria, has a new partner. Last month Connex, owned by the French Vivendi group and already operator of Hillside Trains in Melbourne, took a 50% stake in the company. This has implications for several operations in Australasia, not ...
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News
Mk II heavy maintenance contract
ALSTOM Transport Service is to overhaul 120 Mk II coaches leased to Anglia Railways by HSBC Rail (UK). The £3m three-year contract is the first to be awarded by a train operator rather than the rolling stock leasing company.The programmes will involve underframe improvements and full overhaul of the bogies, ...
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News
Kaohsiung E&M contract signed
SIEMENS Transportation Systems has been awarded the €363m contract to supply electrical and mechanical equipment for the first two lines of the Kaohsiung metro in Taiwan. The contract was formally signed in Singapore by Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corp Chairman Chen Chengjung and Siemens Turnkey Systems Manager Karl Neubeck on August ...
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News
Mandurah cut-off
WESTERN AUSTRALIA Premier Dr Geoff Gallop announced on July 16 that the state Cabinet had approved plans to re-route the A$1·2bn rail link being built between Perth and the southern suburbs of Rockingham and Mandurah. Instead of diverging from Transperth’s existing Armadale line at Kenwick, the 130 km/h line will ...
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News
Taiwan track row threatens opening date
RUMBLES of discontent can be heard in Japan and Taiwan about progress with the 346 km Taipei - Kaohsiung high speed line. Last December, when Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp signed the Core System agreement with Taiwan Shinkansen Corp in Tokyo (RG 3.01 p186), there was an understanding that Japanese ...
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News
DB moves to market pricing
FROMSeptember 2002, German Railway will introduce a revised fares structure similar to airline practice, with discounted prices offered for long-distance tickets booked in advance. To qualify for the lower price passengers will have to make fixed reservations, enabling DB to set and enforce quotas for each type of ticket. Return ...
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News
Dear Leader on the slow train
KIM JONG-IL, the reclusive leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, made a rare state visit abroad in August, travelling to Moscow by train. An official announcement of the trip was made minutes before his armoured train crossed the border into Russia. Police guarded the tracks, and passengers were ...
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News
Delays trigger Dutch revolt
FOR MANY years Netherlands Railways enjoyed a reputation as one of Europe’s most efficient railways. When NS came top in a 1985 productivity survey, it ran reliable and frequent passenger trains on a densely-meshed interconnecting network. By almost any measure, it was a success story.Ambitious plans for increasing the level ...
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News
Dieter
CAPTION: Customs officials were surprised to find that a suitcase belonging to an American passenger travelling from France to Germany contained 49 pythons and lizards. A vet described the Indonesian reptiles, tied up in sacks inside the case, as being ’seriously stressed’. The creatures are protected species, and have been ...
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News
Infra-red door monitoring
FOLLOWING a successful one-year trial, 150 suburban multiple-units in Hamburg are to be fitted with in-cab CCTV to allow drivers to monitor station platforms and close doors without the presence of platform staff. Supplied by Plettac, two FAC838 cameras and transmitters suitable for use in poor lighting conditions will be ...
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Harbin electrified
AUGUST 8 saw the official completion of 25 kV 50Hz electrification on the 550 km route linking the cities of Shenyang and Harbin in northeast China. Regular electric services were expected to start by the end of the month. Electrification of the 400 km Shenyang - Dalian section is due ...
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