All News articles – Page 362
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News
More twists in ore tale
ANGLO American’s failure last month to outbid Rio Tinto in its hostile take-over of mining group North appeared to seal the fate of the 342 km railway planned by Robe River Iron Associates to exploit its West Angelas iron ore concession in Western Australia (RG 8.00 p457). However, this interpretation ...
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Super Soya tilts to the north
PASSENGERS in Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido are reaping the benefits of the country’s latest build of tilting diesel multiple-units. Marketed as Super Soya, the four-car Series 261 sets have cut the journey time between Sapporo and Wakkanai by 54min to 4h 58min.The new trains are the final development in ...
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Slow progress in Mindanao
AMBITIOUS plans to build a complete railway network from scratch on the Philippine island of Mindanao are running into trouble. A report by consultants Louis Berger concedes that the 1436 km network would be a good idea, but says that it would be preferable to build feeder roads from farms ...
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Metros
Canada: Toronto city council has given its approval for TTC to sell and lease back all 372 T1 metro cars being supplied by Bombardier Transportation. The transaction is expected to generate savings of between C$50m and C$80m over the 50-year life of the cars.China: With the breakthrough of the 8 ...
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Market
Argentina: The Emepa workshops in Chascomús are due this month to begin refurbishing 34 coaches for Uepfp, the operating company established by the province of Buenos Aires.Australia: ANI Bradken has ordered 240 sets of air braking equipment and bogie-mounted TMX brakes from Wabco Freight Car Products for wagons to run ...
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Mail on rail under threat
IT IS extraordinary that Europe’s railways successfully offer fast, frequent inter-city passenger services, but that several of them cannot provide the speed and reliability needed for mail traffic. Deutsche Post Transport stopped using rail in 1996, and despite a 1998 plan to launch dedicated overnight trains for mail and packages ...
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Sacramento LRVs
Sir - In Metro Report 2000 p17 you refer to 40 high-floor LRVs being built for the Sacramento Regional Transit District. These cars are being built by CAF with traction equipment from Alstom, not Siemens. Siemens-Duewag supplied the first two orders of Sacramento LRVs, with 26 being delivered in 1985-86 ...
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Siemens wins Maracaibo LRT
A TURNKEY contract to build and equip the first 6·9 km of Maracaibo’s planned light rail network was awarded to Siemens Verkehrstechnik last month. Siemens announced on August 9 that it had won the 155m euros package, which includes the depot, six stations and 12 LRVs.Metro de Maracaibo is planning ...
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Littleton line launched
DENVER RTD inaugurated its 14 km Southwest light rail line from I25/Broadway to Mineral Avenue in the suburb of Littleton on July 14. Parallelling existing BNSF and UP tracks, the route has four intermediate stops at Evans, Englewood, Oxford and Littleton/Downtown. Journey time on the extension is 14min, with services ...
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Laser treatment for wheels
SWEDISH regional operator Svenska Tågkompaniet has awarded Duroc Rail a contract to maintain the wheels and wheelsets of its rolling stock fleet, including application of the Duroc treatment process to extend the life of contact surfaces. This uses a high-power laser to heat the wheel tread, followed by application of ...
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White Seagulls serve Kyushu
PREMIER services on JR Kyushu’s main line between Hakata and Nagasaki are now operated by the company’s fourth design of air-conditioned limited express EMU. The Series 885 Kamome or Seagull units are derived from the Series 883 sets used on the Hakata - Oita run. With a top speed of ...
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Korean link to reopen next year
WORK IS expected to start this month to reinstate the rail link between North and South Korea, which has been disused for over 50 years. Reinstatement of the missing section of the Seoul - Pyongyang main line is to be completed before the end of next year, as part of ...
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Scheduled steam pays its way
Regular steam services returned to a British main line route this summer with the launch by Steam Dreams of The Cathedrals Express every Wednesday from London Victoria to Canterbury and back, with two runs from Waterloo to Salisbury in August and September.So successful has the operation been that six more ...
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Iron Rhine the wrong way
Sir - Your report on the Iron Rhine in RG 7.00 p437, apart from the confusing layout making it hard to read, was also misleading and, in places, erroneous. The last through train - a piggyback service from Antwerpen to the Ruhr - ran on May 31 1991. The river ...
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Spoornet invests
PLANS to invest around R15bn in upgrading track and rolling stock on South Africa’s rail network over the next 15 years were announced at the end of July by the Managing Director Designate of Transnet Mafika Mkwanazi. He confirmed that the state holding company had committed itself to the first ...
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INTELLIGENCE
China: The Minstry of Railways has approved two new routes in Fujian province. The 277 km Wenfu Railway into Zhejiang province is to be completed in 2002 at a cost of 6·2bn yuan, and the 325 km Ganglong Railway into Jiangxi by 2004 at a cost of 8bn yuan.Electric operation ...
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Polymeric insulator
AT THE REQUEST of infrastructure maintenance contractor GTRM, a 25 kV polymeric post insulator has been developed specifically for use in upgrading catenary for 200 and 225 km/h operation on Britain’s West Coast main line. Once the polymeric insulator has been approved by Railtrack, it will be used to replace ...
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Industry News
France: Alstom Transport has reported turnover of 874m euros for the first quarter to June 30, down from 1·02bn euros in the first quarter of 1999-2000. Orders were however up from 1·02bn euros to 1·14bn euros.Sema Group has formed a strategic global alliance with SAP to provide software solutions for ...
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Lilyfield inaugurated
New South Wales Premier Bob Carr opened the 3·1 km Sydney light rail extension on August 13, serving stations at Glebe, Jubilee Park (above), Rozelle and Lilyfield;. Following a former SRA NSW freight railway alignment, the extension cost A$20m to build. NSW Transport Minister Carl Scully confirmed at the opening ...
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Hoist with their own petard
ONCE AGAIN, Argentine politicians have scored an own goal in their attempts to deal with the reletting of operating concessions on the suburban railways serving Buenos Aires. The issue of being allowed to charge higher fares to pay for badly-needed investment lies at the core of the problem as the ...