News – Page 537
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NewsElectric buses ordered for Haifa
ISRAEL: BYD is to supply 17 battery buses to Haifa. To be operated by Egged, the 12 m long vehicles form part of the city’s 400m shekel programme to reduce air pollution. Each bus will have capacity for 68 passengers including 31 seated. The batteries will be ...
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NewsWorld rail freight news round-up
The Russian government has allocated 5·1bn roubles to buy three new train ferries for the route from Ust-Luga to Baltiysk in Kaliningrad. They will be 200 m long with a capacity of up to 66 wagons. In March it was announced that Russian Railways would take a 25% stake in ...
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NewsSpecialist doors supplied for Doncaster maintenance depot
UK: Jewers Doors has installed five of its latest Swift SEW automated sliding bifolding doors at the £80m depot in Doncaster where Hitachi Rail Europe will maintain Virgin Trains East Coast Class 800/801 and TransPennine Express Class 802 AT300 trainsets. ‘As well as securing the building, the practical issues of ...
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NewsBangkok Blue Line extension opens
THAILAND: On August 11 Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha attended the opening of a 1·2 km extension of Bangkok’s MRT Blue Line from Bang Sue to Tao Poon. Revenue services were expected to start the following day. The extension takes the metro line to 21 km and 19 stations, and provides ...
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NewsFinland sets out plans for passenger rail tendering
FINLAND: The government’s plans to open the domestic passenger market to competition and bring the country into line with the EU’s Fourth Railway Package were set out by Transport & Communications Minister Anne Berner on August 9. The model which has been chosen is similar to that adopted by Norway, ...
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NewsTehran metro extended to Imam Khomeini International Airport
IRAN: The southwestern branch of Tehran Metro Line 1 from Shahed to Namayeshgah-e Shahr-e Aftab was rebranded as Line 8 when an extension to Imam Khomeini International Airport opened on August 7. This is the second metro link to the capital’s airports, with Line 4 already serving ...
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NewsTrenitalia drops South Eastern bid to focus on West Coast Partnership
UK: The Trenitalia UK subsidiary of Italian’s national railway group has dropped its bid for the South Eastern passenger franchise to focus on the West Coast Partnership competition, the company confirmed on August 10. The company said it had ‘regretfully’ taken the decision to pull of the South Eastern competion ...
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NewsRailway supply industry news round-up
Rostec and Russian Railways have agreed to form a working group to implement a long-term strategy for the development and supply of modern designs of wagons and associated maintenance facilities The Connect alliance of 10 equipment and staff providers led by A-Plant, L Lynch, P Flannery Plant Hire and Fortel ...
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NewsDSB to sell Uppland business to Transdev
SWEDEN: Denmark’s state passenger operator announced on August 10 that its DSB Sverige subsidiary has agreed to sell the DSB Uppland business to Transdev Sverige. DSB Uppland operates Upptåget local passenger services between Upplands Väsby, Arlanda, Uppsala and Gävleon behalf of Upplands Lokaltrafik under a 10½ year contract which began ...
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NewsAlameda Corridor East grade separation trench opens
USA: A 2·3 km long, 9 m deep and 20 m wide cutting built at cost of $313m as part of a grade separation project designed to ease traffic congestion in the San Gabriel Valley east of downtown Los Angeles was officially opened by the Alameda Corridor-East Construction Authority on ...
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NewsEast Japan Railway enters UK market with West Midlands franchise win
UK: The West Midlands Trains Ltd consortium led by the Abellio subsidiary of Dutch national operator NS (70·1%) and the JREM Train 50:50 joint venture of East Japan Railway and Mitsui & Co (29·9%) was named preferred bidder for the West Midlands franchise by the Department for Transport on August ...
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NewsMore Pesa trams ordered for Kraków
POLAND: Pesa has submitted the best offer to supply trams to Kraków, operator MPK Kraków announced on August 8. Pesa beat bids from Newag, Škoda and a consortium of Stadler and Solaris. Pesa put in a bid of 299·2m złoty for the base order of 35 trams. The contract ...
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NewsUK railway news round-up
Arriva Trains UK has invited expressions of interest in financing ‘self-propelled units’ and a fleet of trainsets for the proposed South Wales Metro should it win the next Wales & Borders franchise. HS2 Ltd has awarded WSP UK an £8·3m contract to provide railway systems technical support services for four ...
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Metro Report InternationalBasel tram network extended to French border
SWITZERLAND: Basel tram operator BVB opened the first phase of an extension into France on July 31. The 500 m extension of Route 3 from its previous northwestern terminus of Burgfelden Grenze to Burgfelderhof brings it to the border. Burgfelden Grenze stop closed on July 14, with buses replacing ...
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NewsFederal funding to revive border crossing
USA: Texas Department of Transportation has a received a US$7m grant from the US Department of Transportation towards a US$16∙2m ‘public and private partnership’ to replace the bridge connecting Presidio with Ojinaga in Mexico, and upgrade 115 km of the connecting South Orient Rail Line. The bridge has been closed ...
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NewsYubileyny metro trainset delivered to St Petersburg
RUSSIA: The first of 27 Yubileyny trainsets ordered last year for St Petersburg metro Line 3 was delivered to the Nevskoye depot on August 7. On September 8 2016 Transmashholding subsidiary Oktyabrsky Electric Railway Car Repair Plant announced on that it is to supply 27 six-car trainsets for 13·4bn ...
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NewsLEO Express recruiting for German launch
GERMANY: Czech open access operator LEO Express has started recruiting train crew to operate a long-distance passenger service between Berlin and Stuttgart, which it says it hopes to launch in mid-August. The company’s German subsidiary LEO Express GmbH is looking for qualified train managers to be based at Berlin-Lichtenberg and ...
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NewsThüringen to award 11-year Rennsteigshuttle contract
GERMANY: Thuringen’s Ministry of Infrastructure & Agriculture is to award local operator Süd-Thüringen-Bahn a contract to continue to provide passenger services on the 14 km Ilmenau – Rennsteig line south of Erfurt for 11 years from December 2017. Regular passenger services on the route were revived in December 2015 ...
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NewsDhaka metro ‘no more a dream’ as rolling stock contract signed
BANGLADESH: The metro Line 6 rolling stock and depot contract was signed by project promoter Dhaka Mass Transit Co and a consortium of Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Mitsubishi Corp on August 6. ‘Metro rail is no more a dream, it is now a reality,’ said Minister of Road Transport & ...
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NewsSouth Tirol direct award rail contract approved
ITALY: The direct award of a contract for SAD Nahverkehr to continue to operate local passenger rail services was approved by the South Tirol regional government on August 8. The contract with the rail, bus, funicular and cable car operator covers 2·52 million train-km/year. It runs from September 1 until ...