All News articles – Page 190
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News
City News in Brief
OnSeptember 5 a consortium led by Systra of France was awarded a contract to undertake preliminary studies for a fully-automated light metro in Palermo. The first stage would run underground for 7·3 km from Oreto to Notarbartolo, serving 10 stations. Subsequent extensions would take the network to 23 km and ...
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News
News in brief
On September 6 SRO President Khaled Alyahya confirmed that nine consortia had submitted applications to prequalify for the Saudi Landbridge project (RG 3.05 p134). ’The consortia include leading Saudi and international companies with activities in construction, shipping, investment, logistics and railways’, he said. International bidders include Bouygues, Siemens, Mitsui, Halliburton ...
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Products in Brief
An aluminium tool has been developed by Metronet Rail to speed the cleaning of electrical connections between London Underground cars. The insulated tool aids the opening of two sprung shutters on the ’Dutch Oven’ which covers the connecting studs, halving the time required for cleaning.Metronet Rail, UKRexquote’s 28 tonne Gigarailer ...
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Industry News in Brief
The UK’s Rail Safety & Standards Board has approved Lloyd’s Register Rail as a conformance certification and vehicle acceptance body. Wabtec has renewed for a further five years licensing agreements under which Nabtesco and Mitsubishi Electric Corp supply Wabtec brakes to the Japanese and many other Asian markets. This year ...
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News
City News in Brief
Ottawa’s municipal government has shortlisted three consortia to build the 31 km north-south light rail line from Rideau Centre to Barrhaven at an estimated cost of C$675m. They are SNC Lavalin with Bombardier, Kiewit-Ellisdon with Kinki Sharyo and PCL Constructors Canada and Dufferin Construction with Siemens. A bidder is to ...
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Pacific National could break up
PATRICK CORP Chief Executive Chris Corrigan said last month that his company’s Pacific National joint venture with Toll Holdings is ’totally dysfunctional’ and likely to be broken up.This could be the dramatic outcome of a bitter row between the two Australian freight and logistics groups that began with Toll announcing ...
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Bradken’s strong start
FOUNDRY and engineering group Bradken Ltd announced Ebitda of A$57·9m on sales of A$485·1m for the year ended June 30, an increase of 16% on the previous period.Bradken was floated on the Australian stock exchange on August 20 2004. A year on, Managing Director Brian Hodges described the past year’s ...
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Mumbai BOT tenders submitted
THERE HAS been a 'great response' from bidders for the build-operate-transfer contract to build the first section of the planned Mumbai metro, according to Project Director G R Madan from Mumbai Regional Development Authority. Madan confirmed on September 5 that technical bids had been received from five consortia for the ...
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Russian market to boom, but high speed plans slow down
RAILWAYS in Russia are recovering from the shock of a sudden transition to a market economy (p633). Significant progress is being made with a massive backlog of repairs and rehabilitation, but the demand is huge and is unlikely to be satisfied in the near future.According to a report from Finmarket ...
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Kenya-Uganda bids in
BIDDING documentation for the 25-year concession to operate the rail networks in Kenya and Uganda was issued on August 30, after the submission deadline was extended at the request of the bidders.Final offers were due by September 30, and the two governments now expect to name the preferred bidder on ...
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Five bids for Line H
BUENOS AIRES metro construction authority Sbase has received five bids for a contract to build the second section of Line H, running from Caseros to Hospitales via one intermediate station at Parque Patricios. The lowest bid of 71·9m pesos was submitted by Cartellone, followed by Dycasa (86·3m pesos), Benito Roggio ...
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Betuwe line could be privately run
IN AN ATTEMPT to break the impasse over charges to use the Betuwe Route after it opens in 2007 or 2008 (p605), a group comprising ProRail, TowRail and the port authorities of Rotterdam and Amsterdam announced a plan on September 19 that would see a company established to maintain and ...
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Transport downturn at Atkins
A DOWNTURN in the rail sector adversely affected profits at WS Atkins plc during the year to March 31. Trading operating profit at transport fell 9% to £21·3m, on turnover which was down 4% to £394·4m.A fall-off in work in the second half of the year necessitated a reduction in ...
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Light rail arrives in Charlotte
INTRO: Construction began earlier this year on the 15·5 km South Corridor route in Charlotte, the first light rail project in this rapidly-growing city in North Carolina. William D Middleton reportsLIGHT RAIL has a key role to play in Charlotte, North Carolina, where an initial line is now under ...
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SRT restructuring approved
THE TRANSPORT and Finance Ministries have approved plans for the restructuring of State Railway of Thailand. On August 22 Transport Minister Pongsak Raktapongpaisal said the ministries had signed off the plan to deal with SRT’s liabilities and debts. The Finance Ministry will write off accumulated debts currently standing at 42·7bn ...
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Delhi Phase II approved
THE GOVERNMENT of India has approved plans for the second phase of the Delhi metro, which will add a further 53 km and 45 stations to the network by 2010. Following the formal go-ahead, Delhi Metro Rail Corp announced on September 12 the planned completion dates for the six extensions ...
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Research pinpoints ways to prevent unzipping of aluminium welds
’Weld unzipping has been mastered.’ Dennis Schut of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research made this bold assertion on September 7 at a conference on the crashworthiness of aluminium rail vehicles held at the UK’s National Railway Museum in York.Noting that ’even now we are learning from analysing what remains ...
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All-round inspection car
ON NOVEMBER 11 Swiss Federal Railways will take delivery of a 160 km/h track, overhead line and tunnel infrastructure diagnosis and inspection vehicle designed and built by Mer Mec.The self-propelled vehicle is to be used to measure rail profile and corrugation, track and overhead line geometry and contact wire wear. ...
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Air-con inverter
SWISS Federal Railways is fitting the cab air-conditioning of 114 locos with seven VS-606V7 AC inverters supplied by Yaskawa Electric in a €150000 order.As well as withstanding the mechanical stress from the vibrations of a moving train, the 4 kW inverters were initially tested on two locos to ensure there ...
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Tenerife’s PPP tram moves ahead
INTRO: Now being built under a Public-Private Partnership, the first phase of Tenerife’s planned light rail network is expected to open in March 2007WORKIS now underway on a 12·4 km light rail route in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, which is being built under a Public-Private Partnership between the island authority ...