All News articles – Page 396
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News
Double-deck orders
ON JULY 16 Bombardier Transportation announced that its BN subsidiary in Belgium had won an order from SNCB to supply 210 double-deck coaches, in consortium with Alstom. The long-awaited BFr8·5bn contract requires deliveries over a two-year period beginning in May 2001. The vehicles will be assembled by Bombardier’s Atlantic Europe ...
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Terminal decision
ON JUNE 21 Aéroports de Paris finally called a halt to testing with the 4·4 km SK-6000 peoplemover installed at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport. The cable-powered vehicles developed by Soulé were intended to run on two routes linking the airport’s terminals with the TGV and RER station, replacing the present ...
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Melbourne deals done
ON JULY 13 Victoria’s state Premier Jeff Kennett announced the award of a 15-year franchise to Melbourne Transport Enterprises to run Hillside Trains. Led by CGEA Transport Asia Pacific Ltd, MTE is to invest A$314m in 29 six-car trains for delivery from 2002 and A$75m in refurbishing 45 older EMUs. ...
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Last minute deals
GOVERNMENT officials in Taiwan met representatives of Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp and banking representatives on July 14 in Taipei to seek a formula to rescue the project for a 345 km high speed line from Taipei to Kaohsiung (RG 7.99 p426). The outcome was a promise from Finance Minister ...
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DB and NS sign freight merger
ON JANUARY 1 2000 DB Cargo and NS Cargo will formally merge into a single business. Trading with the working title of Rail Cargo Europe, the combined operations of the two companies will form a private limited company which will later become a public limited company under German law. The ...
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Gayssot wins the day
HARK YE, all ye liberal-minded operators and budding open access companies! Put your plans and aspirations back in your filing cabinets, for ye have lost this year’s battle for market freedom on Europe’s railways.At a meeting of Europe’s transport ministers in Luxembourg in June, French representative Jean-Claude Gayssot succeeded in ...
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CSX to track locos by GPS
FOLLOWING a three-month pilot programme CSX Transportation has decided to equip its 2800 main line locos with a GPS tracking system, the first in North America to do so. CSX awarded a contract last month to GE Harris Railway Electronics for its Pinpoint equipment, which had been tested on 25 ...
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High speed experts confer in London
LEADING industry figures outlined key developments in high speed and tilting train services at a congress in London on June 30 - July 2. Organised by AiC Worldwide in association with Railway Gazette International, the High Speed Rail & Tilting Train Congress attracted senior engineers and managers involved in the ...
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DB learns to live with competition
INTRO: On June 1 German Railway’s subsidiary businesses were given the status of legally independent companies. This took Germany’s railway reform programme one step closer to privatisation, but the national railway is already facing competition for freight and regional passenger traffic. Ralf Roman Rossberg looks at the line-up of ...
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Three minutes to cross the city
FRENCH Prime Minister Lionel Jospin was the star guest at ceremonies held on July 12 to mark completion of the first stage of Line E of the Paris RER network. Two days later it was Bastille day, and Parisians lured by free travel to and from the eastern suburbs stormed ...
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Regionals set the pace of change
INTRO: Gordon Wiseman takes a look at some of Germany’s up-and-coming passenger operatorsBY THE START of the summer timetable in May 2000, around 3500 km of regional lines will have passed from German Railway to the local sector since regionalisation started in the early 1990s. This compares with 896 ...
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Excelsior cars to Paris
NEXT MONTH is due to see the formal launch of the Excelsior luxury sleeping cars on the international overnight services between France and Italy. Being built for Italian Railways by Costaferroviaria with styling by Giugiaro, the 20 Excelsior cars include a centrally located suite with double bed and a reception ...
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Wide-bodied EMUs offer extra capacity at low cost
INTRO: Studies in Sweden have found that wide-bodied passenger and freight vehicles can be accommodated with only minor modifications to the existing loading gauge. For passenger trains capacity can be increased by 20 to 30% without many of the complications inherent in double-deck vehiclesBYLINE: Per Wadman and Anders Wermelin-Bj
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Builders rise to standard trains challenge
INTRO: Train procurement in Britain has seen radical change following privatisation. Roger Ford describes how manufacturers are creating standard designs to be bought off-the-shelf rather than made-to-measureIN MANY European countries state railways continue to have a major say in the design and technology of new traction and rolling stock. Procurement ...
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Passenger in Brief
n Chinese Railways has put into service a luxury six-car electric multiple-unit to carry tourists between Kunming and historic sites at Shilin. Built by Zhuzhou works, the Stone Forest Express can carry 602 passengers at a maximum speed of 120 km/h. The train is timetabled to cover the 130 ...
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Marie’s brave promise to boost light rail
AT A FORUM in London on July 8 the President of the Union of European Railway Industries Rolf Eckrodt and his counterpart at the International Union of Public Transport Jean-Paul Bailly signed a Memorandum of Understanding on terms and conditions for procurement contracts. Although largely symbolic, the MoU marks the ...
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Postal boost
NEXT YEAR will see the strengthening of postal traffic on German Railway, with the introduction of a network of Parcel Intercity trains. On July 15 DB President Johannes Ludewig signed a co-operation accord with his counterpart at Deutsche Post Dr Klaus Zimwinkel. Also participating in the event were the respective ...
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Railways Bill will force investment
A KEY ELEMENT of the Railways Bill introduced on July 7 by Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott is the power given to the Rail Regulator to direct ’facility owners’, notably Railtrack, to invest in projects deemed necessary by the new Strategic Rail Authority. The SRA is being established primarily ...
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Family compartments back
FRENCH National Railways has started developing economy sleeping cars designed to attract families back to its 24 conventional overnight services. Each car would accommodate 46 passengers in 10 three-berth and 8 two-berth ’rooms’. These would have longitudinal berths above and below the windows, with the third bunks arranged on an ...
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Monserrat back on the rack
ON JULY 12 the President of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Jordi Pujol, announced that a rack railway will be built between Monistrol and Monserrat at a cost of Pts6·6bn. Construction is to get under way immediately, with opening envisaged by the spring of 2002.An Abt rack railway to Monserrat was ...