All News articles – Page 199
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Flood repair funds
ON JUNE 13 the Andean Development Corporation signed an agreement to lend the Argentinian government US$35m, which will be used to fund a US$50·8m project to raise a section of ALL-Central’s Buenos Aires - Mendoza main line that has been flooded following a rise in the level of the La ...
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TfL's flagship sets sail
THE 20-year old project to extend the East London Line took a decisive step forward last month when Transport for London invited bidders to prequalify for the main infrastructure works contract for Phase 1. Described as the organisation's 'flagship project' by Howard Smith, Chief Operating Officer of TfL London Rail, ...
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Finance
Chile: EFE has secured loans worth a total of US$400m to finance electrification, signalling and telecommunications projects under its US$1bn 2003-05 investment programme. US$72m was raised through a bond issue on the local market.China: In May China Development Bank and China Railway Construction Corp signed an agreement for a 20bn ...
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Private finance needed
CHINESE Railways started construction of its latest dedicated passenger railway on June 12, with a ceremony on the borders of Hebei and Shanxi provinces. Expected to cost 12·6bn yuan, the 189 km route linking the provincial capitals at Shijiazhuang and Taiyuan is predicted to carry 15 million passengers a year ...
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Heavy haul expertise is there to be mined
HAD SOME catastrophe struck Rio de Janeiro on June 13-16, the railway industry would have been deprived of what is arguably the world’s most valuable gathering of railway engineering expertise.Around 600 delegates attended the IHHA’s eighth conference, where around 100 technical papers were presented. The papers, and those from the ...
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Real work starts at ERA
CEREMONIES were held in Valenciennes on June 16 to inaugurate the European Railway Agency, which was created last year to advise the European Commission as part of the Second Railway Package (RG 8.04 p449). ERA Executive Director Marcel Verslype said the event marked the end of the set-up phase and ...
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Letters to the Editor
Rail-sea connections Sir - Dick Fearn is a rail manager held in high regard by his erstwhile customers in several parts of Britain. But his comments about Rosslare in his capacity as Chief Operating Officer of Iarnród Éireann (RG 5.05 p278) are depressing and disappointing. He says 'the boat train ...
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Stadler wins Dutch GTW order
ARRIVA has ordered a fleet of 43 low-floor diesel railcars from Stadler Bussnang to operate a 255 route-km network of secondary lines in the northeastern Netherlands provinces of Friesland and Groningen. The cars are being bought under the terms of a 15-year operating concession which starts in December 2005. Herrenveen-based ...
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Power dive
TRAINS all over Switzerland ground to an untimely halt in the evening peak hour on June 22 when a short circuit in a transmission line triggered a chain reaction that cut all traction power supplies to the Swiss network.The original fault occurred at 17.08 on a transmission line between Amsteg ...
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Resignalling deal
AFTER a lengthy hiatus in awarding major signalling contracts, Network Rail announced on May 24 that it had selected Siemens for a £50m resignalling of the Portsmouth, Fratton and Havant area.Work is due to start this month for completion in 2007. A new centre at Havant will control 131 signals ...
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Sydney plans cross-harbour tunnel
NEW South Wales Premier Bob Carr announced on June 9 that A$8bn would be spent over the next 15 years on construction of a new deep-level north-south tunnel under Sydney’s central business district.The line would continue under the harbour to serve suburbs north of the city that currently rely heavily ...
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Corridor study
THE MINISTRY of Development has called tenders for a preliminary study into creating a ’high performance’ route between the north coast of Spain and the Mediterranean Sea.The proposed route would connect with the high speed line between Barcelona and the French border as well as the proposed central rail crossing ...
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Monorail contract
AFTER NINE months of talks, Seattle Monorail Project announced on June 3 that it had agreed a draft contract worth US$1·6bn for construction of the 22·5 km Green Line between Ballard and West Seattle via the city centre.The privately-financed line is to be designed and built by the Cascadia Monorail ...
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Rebuilding the gateway to Coney Island
INTRO: Solar panels are now a distinctive feature of New York City Transit’s Stillwell Avenue station, which has been completely rebuilt by a joint venture of Granite Halmar and Schiavone Construction Co IncBYLINE: Kim BegonjaGranite Halmar/Schiavone joint ventureCONEY Island’s Stillwell Avenue station was opened in 1919, with four island platforms ...
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Tunnels completed
WITH THE WESTERN bore holed through at 12.30 on June 1, tunnelling work has been completed on the 28·4 km Guadarrama tunnel on the Madrid - Valladolid high speed route. Spanish Development Minister Magdalena Álavarez had been on hand when the eastern bore was completed on May 5.The boring of ...
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Research holds the key to commercial success
Lower noise, higher speeds and lower costs rank among the top targets for today's research teams. Murray Hughes reviews current railway research activities
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Eurotunnel closer to substitution
EUROTUNNEL’S Chairman & Chief Executive Jacques Gounon survived by a large majority an attempt to replace him with fellow director and former Chief Executive Jean-Louis Raymond at the AGM on June 17. But it was a close thing.It appears that Nicholas Miguet - the share tipster who held a large ...
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Curved cladding
THECURVED facade of Hounslow East station on London Underground’s Piccadilly Line uses composite cladding from Stoakes Systems to maximise the transmission of sunlight to the station interior.The Kalwall panels offer better insulating properties than glass, with their low solar gain helping to reduce the energy consumed by air-conditioning without the ...