Urban rail – Page 347
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NewsEIB provides £500m loan for Crossrail trains
UK: The European Investment Bank signed a corporate loan facility on December 13 which will provide Transport for London with up to £500m to finance the rolling stock fleet and depot for Crossrail. This follows a £1bn EIB loan for the construction of the Crossrail tunnels which was agreed in ...
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NewsMülheim orders Flexity Classic trams
GERMANY: Mülheim transport authority MVG has ordered 10 Bombardier Flexity Classic trams at a cost of €27m. The three-module bidirectional vehicles are identical to the 27 trams ordered by Essen transport authority EVAG in December 2011. They will be 30 m long and 2 300 mm wide, with a ...
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NewsChicago Blue Line to be upgraded
USA: Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Governor of Illinois Pat Quinn announced an upgrade programme for the O’Hare Branch of the metro Blue Line on December 5. The $492m four-year plan, called Your New Blue, is due to begin in 2014. Funding is expected from local, state and federal ...
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NewsGoiânia light rail concessionaire selected
BRAZIL: Goiás state selected the Anhanguera Mobility consortium of Odebrecht TransPort (90%) and city bus operators (10%) to develop the Goiânia – Anhanguera light rail line on December 9. The 35-year build-operate-maintain PPP concession includes 24 months for construction. The total budget is R$1·3bn, including R$805m from the state ...
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NewsBrussels interregional tram lines approved
BELGIUM: The Flemish government has approved plans to build three tram lines linking Brussels with towns beyond the city boundaries. The project has a budget of €500m, although permission to start work has not yet been granted. The lines could open as soon as 2020, with De Lijn the most ...
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NewsBrussels metro to install optic fibre network
BELGIUM: Brussels transport operator STIB announced on December 10 that it will install an Alcatel-Lucent optic fibre broadband communication network for the conversion of the metro to driverless operation. A wavelength division multiplexing network based on Alcatel-Lucent’s 1830 photonic service switch will be used as the basis for communications-based ...
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NewsKraków orders Pesa Twist trams
POLAND: City transport operator MPK Kraków has selected Pesa to supply 36 low-floor trams. The Polish manufacturer beat bids from Solaris, Newag and Stadler. The four-section Twist Step trams from Pesa’s Twist family would be 42·8 m long, making them the longest trams in Poland. Deliveries are planned to ...
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NewsSalt Lake City welcomes S-Line
USA: Utah Transit Authority’s S-Line in Salt Lake City entered regular service on December 8, following a day of free travel. The route is also known as the Sugar House Streetcar, and has opened 14 years to the day since the first TRAX light rail line. The 3·2 km ...
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NewsSamsun tram flown from China to Turkey
TURKEY: The first of five trams which Samsun Metropolitan Municipality ordered from CNR Tangshan Railway Vehicles has been delivered from China to Turkey onboard the world's largest heavy freight aircraft. The €7·5m contract signed on December 17 2012 required the first tram to be delivered by December this year, with ...
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NewsRethinking queuing to smooth metro boarding
CHINA: From December 2 Hong Kong's MTR Corp is testing a revised queuing system at Prince Edward station which it hopes will facilitate smoother passenger flows at busy interchanges. Arrows on the platform currently guide waiting passengers to line up on the two sides of the platform screen doors and ...
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NewsTenerife launches smartphone ticketing
SPAIN: Tenerife tram operator Metropolitano de Tenerife has introduced a smartphone-based ticketing system. Vía-Móvil has been developed with local firm Avantic and has been implemented in six months. An Android or Apple iOS application allows tickets to be purchased through a secure internet connection, and validated by scanning QR ...
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NewsUrban rail news in brief - December 2013
The Polish city of Poznań is to separate tram infrastructure and operations from December, with infrastructure and rolling stock transferred from MPK Poznan to ZTM Poznan, which already manages tram stops and tracks modernised or built after 2008. The track will be leased to back to MPK Poznan for 15 ...
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NewsNeva runs through St Petersburg
RUSSIA: The first Neva metro cars manufactured by the recently formed joint venture of Škoda Transportation and Kirovsky Zavod have entered service in St Petersburg. The joint venture won an order for 54 metro cars for 3·2bn roubles, which will run in six-car formations. Deliveries are planned to run until ...
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NewsStrukton traction equipment to power São Paulo monorail cars
BRAZIL: Strukton Rolling Stock is to supply traction inverters, auxiliary inverters and battery chargers for the vehicles to be used on São Paulo metro Line 17. The monorail is being built by a consortium of Grupo MPE, Andrade Gutierrez, CR Almeida and Scomi Rail, which is providing rolling stock. ...
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NewsXinyi Line opens in Taipei
TAIWAN: The Xinyi Line of the Taipei metro was officially opened on November 23 at a ceremony attended by President Ma Ying-jeou, with public services starting the following day. The 6·4 km line links Chang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall and Xiangshan with five intermediate stations. Interchange is provided with the ...
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NewsOdense light rail funding agreed
DENMARK: In the budget agreement for 2014 the government has agreed to fund DKr1·1bn of the first stage of the Odense light rail project. Odense city council is to provide DKr600m for operation-related costs, including the rolling stock and a control centre, and the Syddanmark region is funding the rest ...
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NewsMakkah and Madinah metros approved
SAUDI ARABIA: Makkah Governor Prince Khaled Al-Faisal has approved the construction of two metro lines under the first phase of Makkah’s 62bn riyal public transport project. These would be in addition to the existing Al Mashaaer Al Mugaddassah metro which was built to handle pilgrim traffic. An 11 km line ...
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NewsCAF and Thales win Santiago metro contract
CHILE: Metro de Santiago announced on November 25 that it had awarded a consortium of CAF and Thales a US$451·9m contract to supply rolling stock and CBTC signalling for lines 3 and 6. CAF will supply and maintain 115 cars for Line 3 and 70 for Line 6. Metro de ...
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NewsFeasibility study to assess Pavlodar tramway upgrade
KAZAKHSTAN: The European Bank for Reconstruction & Development has invited expressions of interest in a contract to undertake feasibility studies for a planned modernisation of the 86 km tram network in Pavlodar. The city's plans include infrastructure modernisation on the 1 524 mm gauge network, procurement of up to 20 ...
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NewsState aid for automatic metro research approved
FRANCE: The European Commission has cleared the award of €15·2m of French state aid to support the Metrolab joint venture of Alstom and Paris transport operator RATP. Metrolab is undertaking the Metro of the Future project which aims to develop technology for unattended driverless train operation in large cities. The ...
