Freight news – Page 171
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NewsFreightliner and Xstrata sign Australian coal contract
AUSTRALIA: Freightliner Australia announced a 10-year haulage agreement with Xstrata Coal on September 25. Trains will start in late 2010, carrying 10 million tonnes of coal a year between Hunter Valley mines and the port of Newcastle. In July Xstrata Coal signed a 10-year haulage deal with Pacific National ...
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NewsPrima II arrives in Casablanca
MOROCCO: The first of 20 Prima II electric locomotives ordered by national railway ONCFM has arrived in Casablanca after being shipped via Antwerpen. It will now undergo endurance tests before entering service next year. The rest of the locomotives will follow by March 2010. ONCFM placed a €75m ...
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NewsCommission to review safety rules
EUROPE: EU Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani has announced that railway safety rules and practices are to be reviewed and an assessment made of how well they have been implemented. Speaking on September 8 at a railway safety conference held in Brussels in the wake of the freight train derailment ...
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NewsGE Transportation delivers locomotive to Mongolia
MONGOLIA: Mongolian Railways has completed testing of its first Evolution Series locomotive, supplied from GE Transportation's Erie plant. It will be leased to Ulaanbaatar Railway, in which Mongolian Railways holds a 25% stake. The locomotive is similar to those which GE Transportation is supplying to Kazakhstan. 'We chose GE ...
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NewsDB takes majority stake in Polish freight operator
POLAND: Deutsche Bahn announced on September 24 that it had increased its stake in Polish freight operator PTK Holding to 95%. DB was already a shareholder in the Zabrze-based company as a result of its acquisition of PCC Logistics, completed on July 21. PTK Holding SA has 2 000 ...
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NewsState package will boost French rail freight
FRANCE: Keen to implement strategies arising from its Grenelle de l’Environnement, the French government unveiled on September 16 a €7bn package of measures to reverse the decline in rail’s share of the freight market over the next decade. At present road carries 86%, a figure that the government aims to ...
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NewsPowerHaul locomotives receive Freightliner colours
UK: Freightliner has unveiled the livery for its PowerHaul locomotives, with the four in the second batch nearing completion at GE Transportation's Erie plant in the USA. The two PowerHaul locomotives which formed the initial batch are currently undergoing more than 170 tests including ride, gauge and electromagnetic compatibility, ...
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NewsRail industry has cause for optimism, survey suggests
GLOBAL: A survey of 961 respondents across the rail, aviation and shipping industries by law firm Norton Rose has indicated that the rail industry is best placed to withstand the impact of the recession. Norton Rose launched its report detailing the results, entitled The Way Ahead for Transport, at ...
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NewsAssociation of American Railroads voices PTC concerns
USA: The Association of American Railroads has registered objections to the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Positive Train Control, issued by the Federal Railroad Administration on July 16. According to AAR, the proposal goes beyond what was mandated by Congress, and would therefore impose unnecessary burdens on the Class I ...
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NewsTasmanian rail sale deal agreed
AUSTRALIA: The Tasmanian government and Pacific National announced on September 7 that they had successfully concluded the 'lengthy and highly complex negotiations' for the state to buy the island's railways for A$32m. Subject to approval from the state parliament the transfer will be completed on December 1, with a ...
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NewsVeolia agrees sale of freight division
EUROPE: Veolia Environnement confirmed to the Paris stock exchange on September 3 that the sale of its rail freight business to SNCF and Groupe Eurotunnel had been agreed, subject to approval by competition authorities. Veolia Cargo’s operations in France, which include the Socorail, Veolia Cargo France, Veolia Cargo Link and ...
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NewsChicago corridor cut
USA: Plans to re-configure five key rail corridors to improve the flow of traffic through the Chicago area are being scaled back owing to a lack of funding. The Chicago Region Environmental & Transportation Efficiency programme was launched in 2003 as a $1·5bn public-private partnership between the Department of ...
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NewsPiggyback wagon
POLAND: The 602S wagon from Tabor Szynowy Opole can carry lorries, trailers or containers. Wagons at the ends of a rake have opening ends to allow the loading and unloading of lorries using a mobile ramp. The ends are then closed to permit the use of standard couplers. The ...
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NewsA long way to go
ASIA: Almost since the dawn of railways, far-sighted engineers and politicians have been talking about linking Europe and India by rail. The second half of the 19th century was an era of economic expansion and power politics, as evidenced by the construction of transcontinental railways across the USA, Canada and ...
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NewsX-Ray specs cause problems for the railways
EUROPE: We hear that broad-gauge trains are running again on the 1 520 mm-gauge cross-border line between Uzhgorod and Matovce, which carries iron ore and coal from Russia and Ukraine to the US Steel plant at Kosice. Up to 12 trains each way cross the border per day, but ...
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NewsWabtec wins US$9m Irish wagon order
IRELAND: Iarnród Éireann has awarded Wabtec Rail a US$9m contract to supply 24 high-output ballast wagons in 2010, Wabtec Corp announced on August 26. Doncaster-based Wabtec Rail has supplied more than 250 Autoballaster wagons for the UK market over the last decade. They feature radio-controlled ballast discharge, ...
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NewsRZD takes stake in Ulaanbaatar Railway
MONGOLIA: Russian Railways took control of 50% of the shares of Ulaanbaatar Railway (UBTZ) on August 25, when President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree transferring the Russian government's stake in UBTZ for five years. This follows a May 13 agreement that the Mongolian rail network will be managed by ...
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NewsContainer trains return to Dublin Port
IRELAND: The first intermodal rail service to Dublin Port for six years began on August 20, with the launch of a twice-weekly service from Ballina. It is operated by Iarnród Éireann under a contract with International Warehousing & Transport, which sells space on the train. According to IÉ, initial ...
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NewsMoroccan Prima II sets off
MOROCCO: The first two Alstom Prima II locomotives ordered by national railway ONCFM have left Alstom's Belfort factory in France. Locomotive 1401 has gone to the Wegberg-Wildenrath test centre in Germany for trials, while 1402 arrived at the Belgian port of Antwerpen on August 18 ready to embark for ...
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NewsVR Group restructures in the face of market changes
FINLAND: National railway operating company VR Group announced a major corporate restructuring on August 20, as a response to the economic recession and 'sudden and partially permanent changes' in the markets it serves, particularly in the forest products sector. Freight traffic in the first six months of 2009 was 30% ...