All News articles – Page 293
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News
Hired Gunn starts firing
ON PAGE 423 you can read David Gunn’s views on how he plans to turn Amtrak round. On July 10 he appeared before the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Surface Transport, noting that he expected the operating loss for the year to September 30 to be about $1bn, roughly equal to ...
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Finance
Brazil: The World Bank is providing a loan of US$209m to begin work on São Paulo metro Line 4. JBIC is providing similar funding, and São Paulo state and private investors are supplying the remainder of the US$934m cost.Europe: Eurotunnel has reduced its total debt by €686m following completion of ...
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Faster to Pusan
LAST MONTH saw the start of work on the 118·3 km second phase of the Seoul - Pusan high speed line, now costed at 5000bn won. On July 8 the Ministry of Transport confirmed that Korea High Speed Rail Construction Authority had signed contracts with two construction firms for civil ...
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Tonnage records fall
QUEENSLAND Rail finished its financial year at the end of June with more than 153 million tonnes of freight hauled. This was more than 6% up on 2000-01 and an astonishing 50% increase over the 91 million tonnes hauled just five years ago.The vast majority of QR’s freight is export ...
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Night stock enters service at last
TEN YEARS after they were ordered to operate overnight services between the UK and continental Europe through the Channel Tunnel (RG 3.92 p133), the first Alstom-built European Night Stock vehicles finally began carrying passengers on June 23. But not in Britain, or even in Europe.Rechristened as the Renaissance cars, the ...
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EMU joint venture
SIEMENS Transportation Systems confirmed on July 8 that it had signed contracts with Spanish National Railways setting up Nertus Mantenimiento Ferroviario SA to maintain electric multiple-units used in Barcelona (RG 2.02 p72). Siemens owns 51% of the joint venture and Renfe 49%. Two representatives from each company sit on the ...
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Dutch examine a national metro
NETHERLANDS Railways and the Ministry of Transport are studying a plan to operate the 2808 km national network as if it were a metro. The network would be divided into 12 regions, and up to six fast and six slow trains an hour would run in each direction between cities ...
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US streetcars delivered
TWO EXTRA low-floor trams for the successful Portland Streetcar line arrived at the port of Vancouver, Washington, on July 3; they are due to enter service next month. The first five Czech-built Astra 10T trams are carrying an average of 4500 passengers a day, and the city expected that the ...
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Delhi subcontract
Korean rolling stock builder Rotem has awarded Bharat Earth Movers a US$8·6m subcontract to manufacture 180 electric multiple-unit cars at its Bangalore plant. The steel-bodied vehicles for Delhi Metro Rail Corp will have glass fibre-reinforced plastic interiors, and BEML hopes to use the production line to supply similar vehicles to ...
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Funding deal
INDIAN Railways is to set up a Special Purpose Vehicle to raise funding for upgrading work on six main lines in the so-called Golden Quadrilateral linking Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai. These routes are expected to account for Rs120bn out of the railway’s current Rs260bn investment programme. The six lines ...
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Traffic control workstation update
Canadian National and Siemens Transportation Systems are to develop and implement a new rail traffic control system, which is to be installed at 46 traffic control workstations in the CN control centres at Montréal, Toronto and Edmonton. The package will use a modified version of Siemens Vicos
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Why using contractors has triggered a cost explosion
OF THE many problems that have beset Britain’s national rail network since privatisation in 1996-97, the most serious today is a frightening leap in the cost of renewal and enhancement projects. A routine doubling or trebling in real terms above pre-privatisation costs was firmly established by 2000, but the cost ...
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Railway sector is 'not considered strategic'
Andrew F Saxe takes his annual look at the railway supply industry, and finds that prospects for profitability are being dented by poor performance among rail operators
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Connex wins Norrland routes
ON JUNE 25 Swedish transport authority Rikstrafiken announced that Connex Transport AB had been selected for a five-year contract to run passenger services to northern Sweden. The contract will start on June 15 2003, and includes an option for a three-year extension.Rikstrafiken is responsible for procuring uncommercial inter-regional services. The ...
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Jaén to join the high speed club
AS THE FIRST STEP towards creating a high speed route from Madrid to Jaén via Alc
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UK wagon works to close
ON JUNE 28 Trinity Rail GmbH, the European subsidiary of Trinity Industries of the USA, announced that it was proposing to close the former Thrall Europa wagon manufacturing plant in York. With a five-year contract for English Welsh & Scottish Railway nearing completion and ’no foreseeable further orders from any ...
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Sydney circle
CONSTRUCTION WORK is expected to get underway later this year on the northern section of Sydney’s orbital suburban rail link, following the award of a contract at the end of June. The 14 km between Chatswood and Epping is to be built by a consortium of Thiess, Hochtief and Alstom, ...
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Changes urged at Tranz Rail
HAVING been ejected three years ago from his position as Chairman of Tranz Rail - along with other outposts of the former Wisconsin Central empire - Ed Burkhardt told New Zealand’s Business Herald that the present board ’ought to be forced out’ after Tranz Rail shares plummetted on July 5. ...
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Caspian corridor
RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin has backed proposals for a north-south rail freight corridor linking the Baltic Sea with the Persian Gulf, via a Caspian Sea train ferry. A formal agreement to develop the corridor was signed in St Petersburg on May 21 by Russian Railways Minister Gennadi Fadeyev, Iranian Transport ...
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Cape Town redevelopment
COMMERCIAL redevelopment of Cape Town’s main station is planned, following the city council’s decision to approve SA Rail Commuter Corp’s application to rezone the site.Over the next five years 32000m2 of retail, 86000m2 of office and 17000m2 of mixed office and residential accommodation will be created by Intersite, SARCC’s property ...