All News articles – Page 268
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News
Federal funds GO
TORONTO’s GO Transit is to get its first federal funding since inception in 1966 in a deal agreed on March 26. The federal government will contribute C$435m to a five-year C$1·2bn capacity-expansion project which will bring additional peak-hour trains and all-day service to several routes. The federal money must be ...
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Fare riposte
NOT BEFORE time, French National Railways has responded to the threat of low-cost airlines creaming off a slice of its inter-city business. From March 31 it introduced a range of low-priced promotional fares marketed as Prem’s, with at least 10000 second class seats a day offered on 500 long-distance services. ...
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Eurotunnel looks at freight
’FRANCE is clearly a country where things have to change in the coming months’, Jean-Arnold Vinois told the Railway Forum in London on April 15. The man driving rail reform at DG TREN in Brussels was referring to the obligation to facilitate open access for freight on Terfn routes from ...
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JR Freight tests intermodal EMU
NOW UNDERGOING trials in Japan is a lightweight freight electric multiple-unit. Developed by JR Freight, the M250 is intended to compete against road haulage for high-value freight moving between Tokyo and Osaka. If successful, the train will join JR Freight’s loco-hauled container trains on the 1067mm gauge conventional Tokaido main ...
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Eco-procurement will Prosper
APRIL 8 marked a further step towards proper recognition of environmental considerations in European rail industry procurement policy. Delegates at a two-day meeting in Paris approved standard specifications for rolling stock developed in the UIC-funded Procedures for Rolling Stock Procurement with Environmental Requirements project. Prosper provides a set of harmonised ...
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Slinger speeds relaying on double track
INTRO: Richard Hope reports on a cheap and simple developmentAN ECONOMICAL way of mechanising the renewal of track by lifting sections up to 270m long straight out of the ballast has been devised by Jarvis, which currently owns and operates around 55% of all on-track plant in the UK.Jarvis commissioned ...
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Dieter
CAPTION: Canadian Pacific was given the task of transporting an all-glass squash court from Chicago to Edmonton in time for this month’s Canadian Championships. Worth C$225000, the 1 tonne court belongs to the Women’s International Squash Players’ Association and is hired out for televised matches. The court was dismantled and ...
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Evolutionary development offers steady rise in machine output
Nearly every machine emerging from the Linz works of Plasser & Theurer is built to an individual specification. This makes it easy to incorporate improvements whenever they are developed
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RZD’s date with destiny
RUSSIAN railway reform reaches a key stage on May 18, when new laws come into force paving the way for creation of Russian Railways as a public company. RZD should be operational as a public company before the end of this year. Announcing the date on April 8, head of ...
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Dublin’s DASH for growth
DUBLIN'S hard-pressed suburban services will gain a 30% increase in capacity at a cost of €170m under Phase I of the DART & Suburban Enhancement (DASH) project announced by Iarnród Éireann on March 24. Platforms at 23 stations will be increased from six to eight-car length, and two other stations ...
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CTA sets its wish list
SIX MAJOR projects figure in Chicago Transit Authority’s application to the US Congress for New Start funding under the six-year reauthorisation of the TEA-21 programme. There is strong political backing for the proposals, some of which are already at the planning stage; they have a $4·4bn price tag.Four extensions to ...
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Megatren eases Manila crush
APRIL 5 saw the start of public service on Manila Light Rail Transit Authority Line 2, the city’s third rapid transit line. Philippine President Gloria Arroyo inaugurated the service and joined the first passengers on the initial 4·3 km section linking Santolan and Cubao. Dubbed Megatren on account of its ...
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Suburban vision faces cost hike
INTRO: In recent years commuter rail has become a favoured way of tackling road congestion in the USA. But costs are rising and federal funding is getting harder to obtain, reports Julian WolinskyOUTWARD sprawl of US cities shows no signs of abating, despite the best efforts of planners to redirect ...
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Road-rail conversions
LH GROUP has set up a road-rail division, which will supply guidance systems to convert road vehicles for rail use, and lease vehicles to engineering contractors. LH Access Technology will benefit from engineering designs purchased from the now-defunct Two Way Technology, from which LH has also recruited a number of ...
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NS conversion
NEDTRAIN’S Haarlem works is currently refurbishing 257 inter-city coaches built for NS by Talbot (now Bombardier) at Aachen in the 1980s. A batch of 22 second class BKD inter-city coaches will be rebuilt as driving trailers, with the former kitchen and van area replaced by a new cab with an ...
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Consultants flourish in strong market
INTRO: Rail businesses offering engineering services and management advice are holding up well, despite an economic downturn in many countriesHong Kong-based Mott Connell, jointly owned by Mott MacDonald and the Connell Wagner Group of Australia, has been appointed lead consultant for design package SDC100 on KCRC’s Sha Tin - Central ...
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NewsCondition-based decision-making minimises track costs
Stanislav Jovanovic explains how software developed by ERRI in 1991-98 is increasingly being used in Europe, North America and Australia to plan maintenance and renewal over long periods, based on the observed and forecast condition of track elements
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Metronet consortium completes PPP deal
ON APRIL 4 the Metronet consortium of WS Atkins, Balfour Beatty, Bombardier, Seeboard and Thames Water achieved financial close on its two contracts for the London Underground Public-Private Partnership. Over the following weekend, 2585 LU staff at Infraco BCV and 2510 at Infraco SSL transferred to the private sector firms ...
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Competition will reshape Europe’s railways
MARCH 28 saw the Council of Transport Ministers vote to accelerate proposals to introduce more competition on Europe’s rail network. The Council’s position on the Second Railway Package brings forward from 2008 to January 2006 full deregulation of international rail freight, not just on Terfn routes where competition became legal ...
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A tale of two cities - more electronics and more software
This month sees the world's two largest track maintenance exhibitions take place just five days apart on different continents. David Burns highlights the latest developments that jetsetters can compare at the Railway Engineering Maintenance & Supply Association show in Dallas and the German Railway Engineers' Association (VDEI) exhibition in Münster