All News articles – Page 367
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Wien chosen as MoMo test site
INTRO: A 1 km test track in Wien is being used to trial the second generation of cars for the city’s expanding U-Bahn. Ralf Roman Rossberg reports that they also the first trains to be built using the modular principles in the Siemens MoMo conceptWHEN WIEN launched U-Bahn services between ...
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Chinese Railways develops traction to meet market needs
INTRO: The latest diesel and electric locomotives developed in China for high speed and heavy haul service offer dramatic advances in performance over earlier designsBYLINE: Kang XiongAssistant Vice President, China Academy of Railway SciencesIN THE LAST decade Chinese Railways has made considerable efforts to develop its own motive power. Both ...
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Swiss tilt at catering innovation
JULY 6 saw the introduction of restaurant cars on Swiss Federal Railways’ tilting ICN trains between Lausanne, Biel, Zürich and St Gallen. Each unit includes a wheelchair-accessible restaurant car, operated by Mitropa Suisse SA. The vehicle has a 23-seat dining section, kitchen and buffet, decked out in ’warm and friendly ...
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Car-carrier comeback
WORK began on construction of the southern section of the 57 km Gotthard base tunnel on July 10 with a ceremonial blast at the Bodio worksite, where a 1·2 km access shaft will take tunnellers to the alignment of the main bore. The base tunnel will not open until 2012, ...
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Melbourne - Brisbane study
AUSTRALIAN Transport Minister John Anderson announced on July 15 that he had approved an A$5m feasibility study into the construction of a 1800 km high-capacity rail freight link between Melbourne and Brisbane. Promoted by the private sector, the Australian Transport & Energy Corridor is costed at A$1·4bn; Macquarie Bank announced ...
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Passenger News in Brief
On July 11 VIA Rail Canada put into service the first three of five Northern Spirit sleeping cars which are being refurbished for its thrice-weekly Winnipeg - The Pas - Churchill service to remote communities west of Hudson’s Bay. VIA has invested C$1m in buying and refurbishing the second-hand stock, ...
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Simulator boosts Channel Tunnel safety
A major advance in the way programmed logic and interactive visual displays are used to handle emergencies in the Channel Tunnel was demonstrated on June 15, when Eurotunnel formally opened its Rail Control Centre simulator at the Folkestone terminal. The simulator has been developed as a turnkey project by Alstom ...
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St Louis boost
UPGRADING of Amtrak’s St Louis - Chicago corridor is set to get under way, with the award of a contract for the installation of Positive Train Control equipment under the AAR-led joint test programme (RG 6.00 p359). On June 21 the federal Department of Transportation announced that a consortium led ...
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Wake-up call on the Betuwe Route
ALTHOUGH work is under way, the 9·5bn guilders project to build a high capacity freight railway from Rotterdam to the German frontier appears to have turned sour. The financial press pointed out in June that discussions with 74 companies had failed to produce one willing to invest - not even ...
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Beijing extends
REGULAR services began running on the Beijing metro eastern extension to Bawangfen with effect from June 24, completing an eight-year project costed at 7·5bn yuan. The line had originally been intended to open in 1996, but was delayed by funding problems. Test running began on the 10·7 km section between ...
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Regional AVEs
SPANISH National Railways has called tenders for a fleet of high speed trains for short distance services. The Madrid - Ciudad Real shuttles worked by the original AVE fleet have proved very popular, and Renfe plans to introduce similar services between other city pairs such as Córdoba - Sevilla and ...
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Automated metro washer
As part of its contract to supply rolling stock for the Tehran Metro, China’s Locomotive & Rolling Stock Industry Corp has also supplied an automated train washer developed by the Harbin Railway Institute of Science & Technology. The unit will clean both car ends, roof and sides; at a passing ...
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ATB tangle hits Dutch
THIS is the year by which Railned was to fit automatic train protection throughout the Dutch network, and all trains down to the level of track maintenance machines were to be equipped. It is not going to happen, but the transport ministry’s bungling attempts to impose deadlines, coupled with draconian ...
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Touch-screen ticket vending arrives
PASSENGERS on the London Underground had their first chance to use touch-screen ticket vending machines this summer. Installed by the TranSys consortium, the first machines replaced the existing Multifare TVMs at Temple and West Brompton stations. Over 60 stations were to be equipped by the end of July, and around ...
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Smart cards arrive in Paris
PARIS Transport Authority and French National Railways’ Ile de France business announced on July 11 that they had selected two suppliers for a programme to introduce smart card ticketing across the city’s metro, rail and bus networks.RATP has awarded a Fr60m contract to Ascom for the conversion of around 2000 ...
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STB wins another round
DESPITE last minute lobbying efforts, Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Canadian National have lost the court battle to overturn a government suspension of railway mergers. On July 14 the Court of Appeals in Washington ruled 2:1 that the Surface Transportation Board was legally empowered to impose such a moratorium and ...
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Madrid heads south again
ON JULY 11, the Transport Secretary for the Madrid regional government, Luis Eduardo Cortés, announced plans for a further suburban rail branch, linking Atocha with the town of San Martín de la Vega, approximately 22 km south of the capital. Due to be built over an 18-month period at a ...
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Chopped again
ON JULY 10 the Queensland government announced it was dropping plans for a light rail line in central Brisbane. This is the second time that local politicians have ditched a light rail scheme for the state capital, the first occasion being when bids for a 14 km Briztram route (RG ...
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Dizzy after whizzy ride
CHINESE Premier Zhu Rongji levitated on July 2 at up to 400 km/h on the Transrapid maglev guideway in Germany’s Emsland. He was clearly impressed by his experience, although he confessed to suffering from ’a little dizziness’ after the trip, on which he was accompanied by German Transport Minister Reinhard ...
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AC diesels roll out
ON JUNE 28 the first of two prototype diesel locos being built for Chinese Railways was rolled out of the Dalian Locomotive & Rolling Stock Works. Derived from the proven DF4d, the six-axle 4000hp locos are part of CR’s strategy to develop AC transmissions, being equipped with the latest Siemens ...