All News articles – Page 348
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News
Balfour Beatty expands in US
ON FEBRUARY 26 Balfour Beatty announced the acquisition of the Rail Systems Division of US industrial group ABC-NACO for a total of US$21·5m. The railway signalling, control and communication services business will be renamed Balfour Beatty Rail Systems Inc. Operating across the USA, but focusing on the northeast, southeast and ...
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Putin backs Trans-Korean link
VISITING South Korea on February 27 and 28, Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed proposals to connect the country’s rail network to the Trans-Siberian corridor, describing the idea as ’a very good project’. He told business leaders in Seoul that Russia would be prepared to invest ’several hundred million dollars’ to ...
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International link back
SYRIAN Transport Minister Makram Obeid joined celebrations in Aleppo on March 10 to inaugurate a through passenger service between the city and the Iranian capital Tehran. Reinstatement of the international service was announced last year following Syria’s decision to reopen its borders with Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.From Aleppo the train ...
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Vietnam metro approved
THE PEOPLE’S COMMITTEE in Ho Chi Minh City has approved a master plan for development of an urban rail network. The Vietnamese Transport Ministry hopes to commission feasibility studies for the first routes by the end of this year, with the aim of starting construction by 2005. Three urban metro ...
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Amtrak unveils California dream
A 20-YEAR programme to upgrade many of California’s passenger routes was launched by Amtrak on March 6. Other partners in the $10·1bn scheme are California DOT, Metrolink, Caltrain and Burlington Northern Santa Fe. The aim is to increase patronage from 3 to 12 million passengers a year by 2020.California Governor ...
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Rail Estonia dumped amid controversy
PRIVATISATION of Eesti Raudtee, the largest component of Estonia’s state-owned railway responsible for freight and main line infrastructure, suffered a major setback on February 28 when Rail Estonia lost its status as preferred bidder. RE failed to convince the privatisation agency EPA that it had a strategic investor on board ...
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Alsop puts the station at the heart of Rotterdam
INTRO: This month Alsop Architects is due to present its master plan for the redevelopment of a 20ha site around Rotterdam Centraal station. Incorporating the city’s gateway to the European high speed network, a major transport interchange has been designed to extend its presence into the urban fabricThe arrival of ...
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Sir Alastair sets out his DBFT stall
IT HAS BEEN a long time coming, but the Chairman of Britain’s Strategic Rail Authority, Sir Alastair Morton, finally published A Strategic Agenda on March 13. True, a tortured industry slowly recovering from unprecedented disruption after last October’s Hatfield derailment must wait six months or more before a strategic plan ...
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Wires added to Russian network
FURTHER sections of the Russian Railways network are being electrified under a Master Programme to convert more main lines. From mid-January electric locomotives replaced diesels on the 105 km Obozyorst - Vonduga section of the Northern Railway’s Vologda - Belomorsk main line. Wiring is now in hand over the 120 ...
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Wenzhou - Fuzhou accord
ON MARCH 14 China’s Ministry of Railways signed an agreement in Beijing with the provincial governments of Zhejiang and Fujian, paving the way for the start of construction on a 352 km coastal rail link between Wenzhou and Fuzhou.The line will boost economic development in the region, particularly around the ...
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Canadian grain access bid
TWO Canadian short line railways are seeking open access powers to operate on branch lines in the prairie provinces of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta. OmniTrax subsidiary Hudson Bay Railway - which took over the 1200 km Churchill branch in 1997 - lodged an application with the Canadian Transport Agency on ...
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Line 4 closer
THE São Paulo state government has allocated R$80m for property acquisition along the route of the long-planned metro Line 4. This should clear the way for the state’s Transport Ministry to invite bids for construction under a 30-year DBOM concession (RG 10.99 p618).The 13·5 km first phase of Line 4 ...
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CTRL Section 2 contracts let
FOUR large construction contracts totalling almost £400m have been let for Section 2 of Britain’s Channel Tunnel Rail Link. This means all of the major London - North Kent tunnelling contracts have now been awarded. Major engineering work is expected to start in July, which would see the second section ...
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Are double-deck EMU power cars possible on Japan’s 1067mm gauge?
INTRO: Professor Satoru Sone of Kogakuin University examines the possibility of using compact power electronics to create a fully double-deck trainset within the constraints of a tight loading gaugeIN HIS ARTICLE on the development of double-deck power cars (RG 2.01 p107), John Dunn refers to the difficulty of accommodating traction ...
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Thalys traffic up
FRANCO-Belgian high-speed operator Thalys International reported on February 1 a 10% increase in patronage in 2000 compared to 1999. Traffic reached 5·5 million passenger journeys, with revenue jumping 20·5% to 265m euros. The principal Paris - Brussels route, which handles just over half of all Thalys traffic, recorded an increase ...
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Sidetrack
Wedding with a differencePakistan Railways has rehabilitated one of its Hitachi-built Master railcars, dating from the 1960s, as a special train for charter to wedding parties. The Shadi (Marriage) train can accommodate up to 150 guests and comes complete with on-board kitchen facilities. Fares are 20 to 25% higher than ...
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Tunnel safety standards
SAFETY in rail tunnels is greater than on open line because of the absence of level crossings and restricted access, and rail travel is about 45 times safer than road. These are among the conclusions of a report on the safety of rail tunnels commissioned by the Swiss Ministry of ...
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Publications
Trans-Siberian HandbookBryn ThomasThe fifth edition of this travellers’ guide has been updated to take advantage of the removal, for the first time in Russian history, of most restrictions on tourist travel in Siberia. This pocket-sized volume contains new and updated maps, and the 432 pages have been fully re-researched since ...
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PPP structure to be revised
DISCUSSIONS were under way between the British government and Transport for London last month over the structure of the London Underground Public-Private Partnership. Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott announced on February 2 that he had asked TfL’s Commissioner for Transport Bob Kiley ’to take the lead in working up proposals ...