Freight news – Page 107
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NewsRail connection to Vaca Muerta proposed
ARGENTINA: State-owned oil company YPF has presented the Ministry of Transport with a US$500m project to build a rail connection to the Vaca Muerta field in the province of Neuquén, requiring new construction and the upgrading of existing infrastructure over a total of 700 km. In addition to materials required ...
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NewsFormer Air France CEO Spinetta to assess future of French rail sector
FRANCE: Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has appointed the former head of Air France-KLM Jean-Cyril Spinetta to draw up a fresh strategy for the rail sector. Announced by Transport Minister Elisabeth Borne on October 16, the Spinetta study is intended to inform transport legislation due to be published in the first ...
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NewsKaliningrad – Lithuania border station commissioned
RUSSIA: Border facilities for passengers and freight crossing between Kaliningrad oblast and Kybartai in Lithuania were commissioned at Chernyshevskoye in the east of the Russian exclave on October 2. Border formalities were previously undertaken 10 km west in Nesterov. Construction of the 1·9bn rouble facility started in 2005, and the ...
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NewsWorld rail freight news round-up
Canadian Pacific has reached an exclusive agreement to use Bluegrass Farms' intermodal terminal in Jeffersonville, Ohio to serve the Columbus, Cincinnati and Dayton markets. The farm consortium will continue to own the facility, and operate it on behalf of the railway company. CP has also come to an agreement with ...
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NewsTimber wagons grow capacity and chop costs
RUSSIA: United Wagon Co subsidiary TikhvinSpetsMash is supplying forest products company Vologodskie Lesopromyshlenniki with a batch of Type 13-6852-02 high-capacity timber wagons. The design was developed by the All-Union Research & Development Centre for Transportation Technology. The wagons have a 25 tonne axleload, which along with making the maximum use ...
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NewsVoters back second line to Slovenian port
SLOVENIA: A government proposal to build a second track on a new alignment to increase speeds and capacity on the route from the port of Koper to the main line at Divača has been backed by voters in a referendum. The existing single-track line is 44·3 km long, but the ...
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NewsWorld rail freight news round-up
MK Reftrans has bought four power cars, along with flat wagons and refrigerated containers for the planned launch of a service carrying frozen fish from Vladivostok to Moscow and perishable goods in the other direction. The first delivery of 40 containers is planned for this month, with a transit time ...
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NewsKaliningrad provides alternative to Eurasian freight route via Brest
INTERNATIONAL: Containers on what was said to be the first rail freight service to be routed from Łódź in Poland to Chengdu in China via the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad were transhipped between the 1 435 mm and 1 520 mm gauge networks at Chernyakhovsk on September 25. The 9559 ...
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NewsBombardier Transportation opens Italian maintenance facility
ITALY: Bombardier Transportation has officially opened a locomotive and rolling stock maintenance depot at Contship Italia’s Rail Hub Milano site in Melzo. The facility is designed to offer ‘pit-stop’ frequent, brief and high-turnover operations, with a capacity of around 400 locomotive maintenance operations per year. ‘The Melzo depot will enable ...
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NewsM62 diesel locomotive rebuilt as an electric
POLAND: Following an official unveiling at the Trako trade fair in Gdańsk, certification testing has started with a Type 207E electric freight locomotive which Rail Polska has produced by extensively rebuilding an Lugansk-built M62M diesel locomotive, known as the Type ST44 in Poland. In 2015 Rail Polska decided to ...
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NewsLanzhou – Chongqing mixed traffic artery completed
CHINA: The Minxian – Lanzhou railway was opened on September 29, completing a 862 km north–south artery between Lanzhou and Chongqing. Designed for 200 km/h passenger and 160 km/h freight services, the completion of the line has shortned the route between the two cities by about 650 km and ...
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NewsLonger freight trains to go ahead
GERMANY: Planning for the introduction of 740 m long freight trains across the core national network is to be stepped up, following a favourable evaluation by the Federal Transport Ministry. Secretary of State for Transport Enak Ferlemann said on September 22 that efficient railway infrastructure was needed across the country, ...
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NewsDB Netz reopens main line through Rastatt
GERMANY: Following a hiatus of around seven weeks, trains began running through the town of Rastatt on the Rhein Valley main line between Karlsruhe and Basel at 01.00 on October 2.The busy freight and passenger artery had been blocked since August 12, when a tunnel beneath the alignment collapsed. The ...
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NewsLithuanian Railways fined €28m for closing line to obstruct competition
LITHUANIA: The European Commission had fined national railway Lietuvos Geležinkeliai €27·9m for hindering competition in the rail freight market by dismantling a cross-border line connecting Lithuania and Latvia. ‘LG used its control over the national rail infrastructure to penalise competitors’, said Margrethe Vestager, Commissioner in charge of competition policy, ...
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NewsRio Tinto operates first fully-autonomous test train
AUSTRALIA: Rio Tinto has successfully operated its first fully-autonomous freight train on its iron ore network in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, the company announced on October 2. The 100 km pilot run from Wombat Junction to Paraburdoo was completed without a driver on board. Throughout the trip, the ...
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NewsWorld rail freight news round-up
Rail Cargo Group plans to operate a trial Germany – Iran freight service this autumn, with a view to launching a weekly service in 2018. DB Cargo Czechia ran its first train on the SŽDC network using its own certification on September 10. The train carrying oilseed rape from Băile ...
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NewsSTLC orders 5 122 high-capacity open wagons
RUSSIA: The Ministry of Transport’s State Transport Leasing Co has awarded United Wagon Co a contract supply 5 122 open wagons of modern high-capacity designs. The latest order covers two types of wagons with and without bottom unloading doors, which will be manufactured at UWC’s Tikhvin plant and leased by ...
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NewsSerbian freight operator Despotija certified
SERBIA: New entrant Despotija has obtained the necessary certifications to operate freight trains on the national railway network. Despotija’s parent company operates the Kovilovača quarry in Despotovac on the non-electrified single-track Markovac – Resavica line. It has two former Zeleznice Srbije class 461 electric locomotives which have been refurbished by ...
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NewsDB Cargo UK tests ‘jumbo’ train
UK: DB Cargo UK operated a trial 660 m long ‘jumbo’ train of 34 wagons from ABP Port of Cardiff to Acton in London on September 20, carrying 2 300 tonnes of limestone from Cemex’s Wenvoe and Taff’s Well quarries. ‘Usually only 21 wagons are used but using 60% more ...
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NewsWorld rail freight news round-up
VTG and Dutch company Intermodal Telematics have launched a joint engineering programme to develop and install continuously operating load-unload sensors across the leasing company’s entire fleet of liquid, bulk and container wagons. On September 15 Union Pacific announced it was ‘redesigning its Marketing & Sales organisation to align with evolving ...