All News articles – Page 356
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News
Pilot project to fly next year
GERMAN Railway and national airline Lufthansa plan to step up their co-operation next March by launching rail services to replace loss-making short-distance flights between Stuttgart and Frankfurt.Check-in will take place at Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof up to 30min before departure of Frankfurt-bound ICE services. Passengers will be able to check their luggage ...
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Finance
China: The Japanese government has announced an aid package that includes ´17bn largely earmarked for rail projects.Europe: Eurotunnel is supporting a tender launched by Dresdner Kleinwort Benson and Merrill Lynch on October 12, whereby Eurotunnel junior debt trading on the secondary market will be purchased with funds from an issue ...
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FGV goes underground
VALENCIA metro operator FGV and the region’s department of public works reached agreement in October to put two more sections of the city’s metro and light rail network underground.The bigger project covers the reconstruction of a section of the existing north-south Line 1 through the town of Torrent, capital of ...
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Uzani plans further expansion
CEREMONIES were held in Beer Sheva on September 26 to mark the inauguration of Israel Railways’ new city centre station. With traffic on the Beer Sheva line up by 500% this year, IR is stepping up the daily service from 18 to 28 trains each way, and plans a further ...
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Island enterprise
REGIONAL and local lines are all too often dismissed by the management of large national railways as hopelessly uneconomic. And indeed, when they are left to rot, neglected but still overstaffed, they often are. But turn them over to local management, add simple, modern signalling and up-to-date rolling stock, and ...
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Trans-Asia plan endorsed
MEETING IN Brunei at the end of September, the Transport Ministers of the Association of South East Asian Nations agreed to push ahead with the 5500 km Trans-Asian rail link from Singapore to Kunming. A formal recommendation is to be put to the Asean heads-of-government summit in Singapore this month ...
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Embedded tracks
AN URBAN version of the established Rheda slab track has been developed by Pfleiderer AG and Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe. Rheda-Berlin City uses twin-block sleepers with a reinforcing mesh for gauging rather than a conventional steel bar. Laid on ballast or a frost-proof layer at either 750 or 1500mm intervals, the sleepers ...
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Driving force in the front line
INTRO: Murray Hughes joined Chris Green in the cab of a West Coast express for a first-hand look at the task aheadWHEN Chris Green was appointed to the top job at Virgin Trains early last year, he inherited a high-profile business that appeared to be heading rapidly downhill. But few ...
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Modular DMUs roll while EMUs struggle
INTRO: Roger Ford reviews progress with the renewal of Britain’s rolling stock fleetWHEN THE FRANCHISING of British passenger Train Operating Companies began in 1995-96, several successful bids included commitments to new trains with optimistically short delivery times. As a result, several operators have been penalised for late deliveries.During the ...
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Dieter
CAPTION: To celebrate Britain’s National Poetry Day on October 5, and the local Norfolk & Norwich Festival which it sponsors, Anglia Railways engaged a team of poets to entertain passengers on its services between London, Norwich, Lowestoft, Great Yarmouth and Sheringham. Dieter suggests that the poets might help ...
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Design for image
INTERIOR design and concept styling for the Virgin Trains Pendolino fleet was undertaken by Jervis Hegarty Lossano. Key requirements were a Virgin image and a ’passenger-led’ focus whilst meeting safety, fire and crashworthiness standards. Among the innovations planned were an on-board shop replacing the traditional buffet for standard class passengers, ...
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Lirex prototype turns train design upside down
INTRO: Unveiled at InnoTrans, the Lightweight Regional Express has traction modules on the roof, flywheel energy storage and single-axle bogies. Passengers will give their verdict in 2002MANY VISITORS to the InnoTrans event in Berlin made a beeline for what appeared to be a giant scarlet caterpillar crouching between the main ...
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Monitoring wheel surface defects ensures a quieter ride
INTRO: Use of automatic wheel monitoring on DSB’s S-bane network in København has reduced wheelset damage through the prompt detection of surface defects. Rolling stock maintenance costs have fallen, as well as the levels of noise and vibration generated by train operationsBYLINE: Ulrik Danneskiold-Samsøe and Ove Ramkow-PedersenØDS-Caltronic A/SIN JANUARY 2000, ...
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Swiss dig deep
ON OCTOBER 3 Swiss Federal Railways allocated SFr145m to fund design and preparatory works for a second underground station beneath Zürich Hbf. The existing S-Bahn through platforms under Museumstrasse on the east of the station are approaching capacity, and the intention is to build a second four-track through station to ...
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STB debates merger strategy
THE FUTURE SHAPE of North American railroading was signalled on October 3, when the US Surface Transportation Board issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on proposed mergers. Releasing its proposed regulations for public and industry comment, the STB said the package ’represents a major shift in basis from the pro-merger ...
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Manila deal
LAST MONTH saw the signing of a ´20bn contract for Japanese companies to supply rolling stock and other M&E systems for Manila metro Line 2. Toshiba and Marubeni are to supply a fleet of 72 wide-bodied EMU cars for the 14 km line, which is being built to a heavier ...
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CPR outsources maintenance
MORE THAN 75% of Canadian Pacific Railway’s diesel loco fleet will be maintained and repaired by contractors, following an expansion of the programme announced on September 25. CPR has contracted OmniTRAX Locomotive Canada to supervise ’field servicing’ of about 175 diesel locos, most of them low-horsepower units assigned to yard ...
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HV connections
THE 25 kV busline connecting the power cars of the Alstom-Fiat Pendolino trainsets is being developed by the Raychem Wire & Harness Division of Tyco Electronics Corp. Rigid polymeric terminations and bushings, together with a specially-developed spiral connector are used to transfer power between vehicles, where the restricted British loading ...
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Thalys to topple the competition
NEXT summer Air France is proposing to withdraw its five daily flights between Paris and Brussels. For the moment nothing firm has been signed, and Air France says that it is still looking at the proposal. But with Thalys departures at half-hourly intervals during peak periods and hourly for ...
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Communications platform
HARDWARE and software to integrate broad-band and internet-protocol communications networks have been developed for the transport industry by Neumann Elektronik of Mülheim an der Ruhr. Neumann’s new Multifunctional Digital Communications system (MDK) was unveiled in September at the InnoTrans 2000 show in Berlin.MDK will allow operators to manage all communications ...