All News articles – Page 183
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News
City News in Brief
Anxious to get rail service to Dulles International Airport as soon as possible, Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority has proposed that it should build the planned 37 km metro extension from West Falls Church, now priced at $3·8bn. The current schedule calls for the 18·6 km first segment to ...
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Green Tulip blooms in bulbland
ON JANUARY 17 Dutch Transport Minister Karla Peijs signed a contract with the Green Tulip consortium for operation of the Betuwe Route. Consisting of Babcock & Brown (which has just purchased Swiss intermodal operator Crossrail AG, p60), TowRail, national network manager ProRail and the port authorities of Rotterdam and Amsterdam, ...
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CP embraces best practice
INTRO: Following its transformation from a national railway to a train operator, Comboios do Portugal is looking to play a bigger role on the European stage. President António Ramalho explained to Chris Jackson his plans to develop the business ’WE ARE putting Portugal on the European railway map’, insists António ...
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Seat belts increase injury, says study
'THERE IS no overall net safety benefit associated with the fitting of two-point passenger restraints to trains. Two-point passenger restraints should therefore not be fitted to rail vehicles', concludes research by Britain's Rail Safety & Standards Board. The study found that injuries would be worsened if passengers in a collision ...
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Beijing links
ECI TELECOM announced on January 4 that Beijing Metro had selected its optical transmission equipment to expand video surveillance and safety communication on Lines 1 and 2. The XDM Multi-Service Provisioning Platform will cover 47 stations and around 100 km of track. 'The 2008 Olympics will be a challenging experience, ...
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Palermo awards LRT contract
A CONSORTIUM INCLUDING Bombardier Transportation, AMEC Spie and SIS (a subsidiary of Spanish construction group Sacyr Vallehermoso) has been awarded a €192m turnkey contract to build a three-line LRT network totalling 15 km in the Italian city of Palermo. The contract includes detailed design, civil works, mechanical and electrical systems ...
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French safety authority founded
JANUARY 1 saw the formal establishment of a new public authority to oversee railway safety in France. Legislation to authorise the établissement Public de Sécurité Ferroviaire was approved by the Assemblée Nationale on December 15.The move is part of the process of transposing into French law the requirements of the ...
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Auckland upgrade financed
INVESTMENT worth between NZ$450m and NZ$600m to upgrade Auckland’s suburban rail infrastructure was announced on December 20 by Finance Minister Dr Michael Cullen and Transport Minister David Parker.At present Land Transport New Zealand and Auckland Regional Transport Authority share the cost of the suburban network 60:40. Under the latest agreement, ...
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Ensuring asset continuity
ASSET-PRO is in the advanced stages of developing a hosted software package for the management of train maintenance, ensuring that records can be passed from one franchisee to another when operating concessions are re-awarded.Managing Director John Orchard said ’if we are to ensure that maintenance records are not lost when ...
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Regulator rules Toll bid anti-competitive
ONJANUARY23 Toll Holdings wrote to shareholders in its rival Patrick Corp extending the deadline for its A$4·6bn hostile bid (RG 1.06 p5) to February 13.Toll said it had also agreed to ’certain procedural undertakings in order to facilitate its ongoing discussions’ with the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, after ACCC ...
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Chiang Kai-Shek airport rail link contract signed
CONTRACTS were signed on January 12 for construction of the long-planned rail link between Taipei and Chiang Kai-Shek International Airport. Taiwan's Bureau of High Speed Rail has awarded the project to a Japanese consortium of Marubeni, Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Hitachi at an estimated cost of NT$25·5bn. Originally planned as ...
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More cars to serve Buenos Aires
ON JANUARY 5 Alstom Transport announced that the Argentinian government had ordered an additional 16 cars for the Buenos Aires metro, as an option on a contract for 80 cars awarded in 1999. Deliveries under this contract resumed in December 2004 (RG 1.05 p9), and six five-car trainsets are now ...
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Orex upgrade moves ahead
WITH 2006 marking the 30th anniversary of South Africa’s heavy haul iron ore railway, Spoornet announced in December that it plans to strengthen the 50 kV power supply on the 861 km Sishen - Saldanha line. Additional substations are to be added to shorten the present electrical sections, allowing the ...
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Major milestones mark ADIF’s first year
INTRO: Administrador de Infraestructuras Ferroviarias started life on January 1 2005 with responsibility for the management of the Spanish national network and the construction of new lines formally assigned to it by the Ministry of Development. Robert Preston asked President Antonio Gonz
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Yakutsk accord
DURING a visit to Yakutsk by President Putin on January 6, RZD President Vladimir Yakunin signed a co-operation accord with V Shimokhin, President of the regionally-owned Yakutsk Railway Co, supporting further construction of the Berkakit - Tommot - Yakutsk railway. RZD has already contributed 2m roubles towards the estimated 11m ...
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Multiple interfaces ease access
RELEASE 4.0 of Spear 3i enterprise asset management software will be launched this year, with features to aid maintenance of moving, fixed and linear assets. The latest update includes a configurable web-accessible ’dashboard’ interface, providing a real-time graphical display of key performance indicators. Mobile Workforce Tablet applications enable staff to ...
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k343m S-Bahn order
GERMAN Railway placed contracts with Bombardier and Alstom on December 28 for 78 four-car EMUs for the Rhein-Ruhr S-Bahn, with an option for a further 72. Due for delivery between March 2008 and October 2010, the 140 km/h low-floor Class ET422 units will be used on route S7 from Düsseldorf ...
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Intelligence February 2006
Africa: Botswana Railways CEO Andrew Lunga has announced that negotiations are underway with National Railways of Zimbabwe to reinstate the passenger service between Francistown and Bulawayo suspended in 1999. Three return trips would operate each week, with border formalities carried out on the trains. Argentina: The government ...
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Nahverkehrs Taschenbuch ’06
INTRO: PublicationsPUBLISHED annually since 1960, the latest edition of this three-volume German-language directory has been updated to November 9 2005. Volume I provides the addresses and lists the senior staff of German passenger and freight operators, related institutions and research centres. Consultants and suppliers are featured in the second volume, ...