All News articles – Page 373
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News
Greenbrier butterfly isout of the chrysalis
FOLLOWING its acquisition of the Adtranz freight wagon business in Siegen, Germany, earlier this year (RG 2.00 p118), US-based builder The Greenbrier Companies is strengthening its foothold in Europe. Using Siegen as a design and contract management office, the company is developing manufacturing activity at the Swidnica plant in Poland, ...
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Metropolitan taps the business market
NINE MONTHS after the launch on August 1 last year of Metropolitan services between K
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Broad gauge extends
THIS MONTH, India’s Northeast Frontier Railway is due to complete a feasibility study for a fourth rail bridge across the Brahmaputra, linking Bogibeel and Dibrugarh. According to General Manager, Construction, G P Madan, NFR has spent over Rs7bn on infrastructure works in the last three years and has works in ...
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RFF brings fresh thinking on infrastructure investment
INTRO: As owner of the national network, Réseau Ferré de France is playing a key role in the railway reform programme that began in 1997. RFF President Claude Martinand explained to Robert Preston how the infrastructure authority is bringing a new approach to investment projects, applying stricter financial criteria ...
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Timetable brings ’regional’ Eurostar
THE START of Britain’s summer timetable on May 28 saw the introduction of regional Eurostar trains on the East Coast route. Two 14-car sets with crews have been leased by Great North Eastern Railway (right) to operate stopping services between London and York, relieving overcrowding on long-distance trains to Newcastle ...
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Investment outlook brightens under the private sector
INTRO: Concessioning and privatisation started to transform the management of state-run railways about 10 years ago. Experience to date suggests that private sector managers handle investment projects better than their public sector counterparts and do not sign up to vote-catching white elephantsBYLINE: Louis S ThompsonRailways AdviserThe World BankRAILWAYS are changing. ...
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Products in Brief
Road-rail track maintenance vehicles being adapted from ERF road vehicles by Harsco Track Technologies for British infrastructure maintenance companies are now being fitted with control equipment supplied by Siemens Automation & Drives. The range includes Simatic S7-200 programmable logic controllers, Simatic HMI TP27 BERO inductive sensors, and 3SB1 push buttons.Ultrasonic ...
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Industry in Brief
Australia: Evans Deakins Industries has agreed to purchase the Powerlines, Telecommunications & Railways division of ABB for A$25m. PTR has maintenance contracts for rail installations in Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales, with a turnover of A$110m a year.British-based Rail Training International and French simulator manufacturer Corys jointly took ...
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Passenger in Brief
Rail Gourmet has acquired 40% of SSG Speisewagen AG, the rail catering business of Passaggio Holding, which has long-term contracts with SBB and other Swiss railways, creating a new company Passaggio Rail AG. Passaggio will start to replace SSG as a brand name when SBB’s new Bistro cars are introduced ...
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Bremen plans dual-mode LRT
CONSULTANTS have recommended a two-stage programme to launch through running of Bremen tram services onto regional rail routes. Depending on the size of the dual-mode network, traffic is estimated to increase by up to 50%.Because through running can be introduced at relatively low cost on routes serving Nordenham and Oldenburg, ...
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Branches under threat
IT WAS DISINGENUOUS of German Railway Chairman Hartmut Mehdorn to imply at DB’s 1999 annual results press conference on May 10 in Berlin (p333) that Austrian Federal Railways’ announcement the previous day about plans to withdraw rail services from a quarter of its 5653 km network pointed the way ahead. ...
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Invensys sells Westinghouse Brakes
INDUSTRIAL conglomerate Invensys plc - formed last year through the merger of BTR and Siebe - announced on April 25 that it had decided to sell its Westinghouse Brakes business units to Knorr-Bremse of Germany, for an aggregate cash consideration of £65m. Based at Chippenham in Great Britain and Sydney ...
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Spending bonanza levels off
INTRO: Although investment may have passed its peak as North America's railways complete capacity enhancement programmes, spending levels remain high following recognition that deferral of expenditure on infrastructure and motive power is a false economy. Julian Wolinksy reports THE HEADLONG rush of capital spending by North America's Class ...
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Big projects are poised to go
INTRO: In this comprehensive guide to spending plans and projects in Australia, Mark Carter finds that more than A$8bn will be committed in 2000-01, with the possibility of that figure doubling in the short to medium termIN A COUNTRY not known for its commitment to rail investment, the short to ...
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NS starts ’basic service’ trials
FOLLOWING last year’s decision to withdraw staff from its smaller stations, Netherlands Railways is beginning trials at 12 locations of the basic facilities that are to be provided. After consultation with consumer groups, NS has designed a ’service unit’ that combines ticket vending and money-changing machines, a timetable poster, an ...
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Madrid - Barcelona race
SPANISH National Railways announced on May 10 that five groups had registered to supply between 26 and 40 high speed trains for the 350 km/h line from Madrid to Barcelona. Renfe is evaluating the proposals and will shortly issue a formal invitation to bid, giving suppliers three months to respond. ...
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Ballastless track on TGV-Méditerranée
FRENCH engineering groups Travaux de Sud Ouest and Société Européenne de Travaux Ferroviaires last month completed laying ballastless track through the 7·8 km tunnel that will carry TGV Méditerranée on the approaches to Marseille, using a new design of vibration-absorbing twin-block sleeper developed by Sateba.The SAT S312NAT design has two ...
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SJ takes West Coast back
SWEDISH State Railway resumed operation of the West Coast corridor between G
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Ministers back base tunnel
MEETING in Modane on May 15, French Transport Minister Jean-Claude Gayssot and his Italian counterpart Pier-Luigi Bersani agreed to push ahead with work on the Mont Cenis base tunnel and the Lyon - Torino high-speed line as part of a programme to divert transalpine traffic from road to rail. Despite ...
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Single axles to speed postal vans
LAST MONTH, Swedish State Railway’s workshops and maintenance subsidiary TGOJ ordered 70 sets of TF25SA single axle suspensions from Powell Duffryn Rail for around £2m. Derived from the company’s TF25 ’track-friendly’ bogies (RG 11.99 p739), the suspensions are to be used to uprate SJ freight vans for 160 km/h operation ...