All News articles – Page 213

  • News

    ClearVue through the fog

    2005-03-01T11:00:00Z

    RAIN, mist and smoke degrade the quality of images produced by surveillance cameras, reducing their usefulness to operators. To tackle this problem, Manchester University spin-off company Dmist Technologies is commercialising a device it has developed to automatically enhance video.ClearVue is a compact electronic unit which sits between the camera and ...

  • News

    Suppliers take on the contractmaintenance challenge

    2005-03-01T11:00:00Z

    INTRO: As train operators seek to reduce whole-life costs and improve reliability, they are increasingly contracting out responsibility for their rolling stockMAINTENANCE AND support services are becoming a crucial factor as competition starts to spread through the rail sector. Around the world, deregulation and privatisation are forcing both existing and ...

  • News

    Centenary Congress

    2005-03-01T11:00:00Z

    As we prepare to celebrate our 100th birthday and mark 170 years of railway publishing, plans for our Centenary Congress on July 1 are well in hand.We have a first-class line-up of expert speakers who have been briefed to examine future developments in railway technology in the context of an ...

  • News

    Grande Ceinture Ouest reopened

    2005-03-01T11:00:00Z

    SNCF has reinstated passenger services over a section of the orbital Grande Ceinture belt line round the west of Paris.The €91m project was completed at the end of last year, with trains entering commercial service with the timetable change in mid-December.The 9·8 km route runs from Saint-Germain-Grande-Ceinture to Saint-Germain-Bel-Air, Mareil-Marly, ...

  • News

    CCTV upgrade

    2005-03-01T11:00:00Z

    ENHANCEMENTS to the closed-circuit television, public address, passenger information and help points on London Underground are included in a £150m contract which Public-Private-Partnership contractor Tube Lines has awarded to Marconi and Amey Infrastructure Services.The 13-year contract covers stations on the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines. An intelligent maintenance system will ...

  • News

    Tram camera

    2005-03-01T11:00:00Z

    KETECH Systems is completing a programme to retrofit CCTV cameras on board the trams operating on the Croydon Tramlink network in London. Each of the 24 Bombardier vehicles is receiving two ceiling-mounted dome cameras in the passenger saloons as well as a camera in each of the cabs. Screens in ...

  • News

    Passenger News in Brief

    2005-03-01T11:00:00Z

    Argentinean operator Ferrovias began test running of refurbished coaches with automatic doors on January 27. Platforms are to be raised at the 22 stations on the 52 km Retiro - Villa Rosa line to suit the vehicles, and Saldias station will be relocated 300m to the north.GO Transit is to ...

  • News

    Products in Brief

    2005-03-01T11:00:00Z

    Madrid Metro is to fit over 1000 heavy-duty RFID tags to its trains and 36 sleeper-mounted readers with direction detection to the tracks. These will provide vehicle position information to change automatically the talk groups of onboard Tetra radios as trains move.TagMaster, SwedenY2K Aviation, Solutions E2 and Fiber Protector Norge ...

  • News

    Security in Brief

    2005-03-01T11:00:00Z

    Background classical music is to be played over the public address systems of 35 London Underground stations maintained by Metronet in an effort to deter people not intending to travel from loitering in the stations. Tests at four District Line stations found that reports of physical and verbal abuse fell ...

  • News

    Thanlwin river road and rail bridge inaugurated

    2005-03-01T11:00:00Z

    MYANMAR: The inauguration of Myanmar's longest bridge on February 5 has completed Myanma Railways' long coastal route serving Mon state in the southeast of the country. Linking Moktama and Mawlamyine over the Thanlwin river, the 27-span road and rail bridge is 2346m long, with approaches each side bringing the total ...

  • News

    Brakes renamed

    2005-03-01T11:00:00Z

    WESTINGHOUSE Brakes UKLtd announced on February 11 that the company’s name had been changed to Knorr-Bremse Rail Systems (UK) Ltd.Knorr-Bremse will retain the Westinghouse Brakes and Westinghouse Platform Screen Doors brands for its international business. Knorr-Bremse Rail Systems will offer a maintenance support service for the UK and Ireland under ...

  • News

    Boring contract

    2005-03-01T11:00:00Z

    CONTRACTS worth €80m have been awarded for a trial bore on the alignment of the proposed base tunnel for the Lyon - Torino high speed line.Lyon-Torino Ferroviaire, the bilateral joint venture company steering the project, announced on February 8 that it had selected a consortium led by CMC of Ravenna, ...

  • News

    iDTGV woos internet bookers

    2005-03-01T11:00:00Z

    SNCF announced on January 14 that the iDTGV project had struck a resounding chord with its clientele. It revealed that there had been 261000 visitors to the idtgv.com website, generating 57000 ticket sales in the first eight weeks of booking. The first 4000 seats were sold within 24h, and average ...

  • News

    Tanzania Railways Corp bids go in

    2005-03-01T11:00:00Z

    TANZANIA: March 9 is the deadline for shortlisted bidders to submit proposals for a 25-year concession to operate the Tanzania Railways Corp network. Financial bids are to be opened on April 27, and the government hopes to name a preferred bidder in June 2005. The aim is to hand control ...

  • News

    Istanbul railway upgrading bids in

    2005-03-01T11:00:00Z

    TURKEY: Eight consortia have submitted prequalification bids for a contract to upgrade TCDD's existing railways in Istanbul as part of the Marmaray cross-Bosporus project (RG 5.04 p251). Five bidders are due to be shortlisted this month to tender for Contract CR1, which covers upgrading of the Sirkeci - Halkali and ...

  • News

    Line H car bids in

    2005-03-01T11:00:00Z

    ON FEBRUARY 3 Buenos Aires metro construction authority SBASE formally opened the bids to supply rolling stock for Line H. It is now considering the technical content of the bids, with the financial offers to be considered at a later date.Bids have been received from Alstom and a consortium of ...

  • News

    Running trials begin as civil works finish

    2005-03-01T11:00:00Z

    CEREMONIES staged on January 27 at Tainan station on Taiwan High Speed Railway Corp’s 346 km high speed line between Taipei and Kaohsiung culminated in the arrival of a Series 700T trainset at the platform. Nearly 500 guests then boarded the train for a short ride at low speed.Participating in ...

  • News

    Bang in Bangkok

    2005-03-01T11:00:00Z

    THE FAILURE of a driver to follow the correct procedure when isolating brakes on a failed three-car train that was being coupled to another unit sent to haul it back to the depot is believed to have led to the collision on Bangkok’s underground metro line at 09.15 on January ...

  • News

    Bush budget bashes Amtrak

    2005-03-01T11:00:00Z

    ON FEBRUARY 7 the Bush government published the federal budget for 2006. Described as an austerity spending plan, it suggests that road and transit spending be cut by more than 3% to $59·5bn.Much of the reduction would come at the expense of Amtrak, which is allocated no funding next year ...

  • News

    Chemical alley

    2005-03-01T11:00:00Z

    LAST MONTH the Canadian government announced that it had reached agreement with the US-based Nuclear Threat Initiative, which the US government describes as a public charity, to help fund construction of a 17·7 km railway to carry chemical weapons in central Russia.The line will link a weapons store near Planovy ...