All News articles – Page 411
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News
Letters
Maunsell tooSir - Whilst we were delighted to see your article on the København Metro (RG 1.99 p35), we were disappointed that you did not acknowledge the important role that Maunsell Ltd has played as principal designer to Comet, the civil works contractor, in the design and construct contract. The ...
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TBM launched
CEREMONIES were held in Bangkok on February 5, when Thai Prime Minister Chuan commissioned the first tunnel boring machine for the northern section of the Blue line metro. According to the Mass Rapid Transit Authority, work on the 11 km northern section from Rama IX Road to Bang Sue is ...
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Konkan Ro-Ro
INDIA’s Konkan Railway Corp announced in January that it was to launch a piggyback service to carry lorries between Kolard, south of Mumbai, and Suratkal near Mangalore. The 700 km trip is expected to take around 20h, compared to three days for a road journey on the congested coastal highway.KRC ...
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Intelligence
Metros Australia: The federal government is to provide A$65m towards the construction of Brisbane's revised light rail project, also supported by the state government and the city council (RG 2.99 p71). Canada: Edmonton city council has amended its 20-year transport plan to include an LRT extension from the ...
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INTELLIGENCE
CAPTION: British civil engineering contractor Balfour Beatty Rail Engineering announced at the beginning of February that it had completed the first phase of track renewal at London’s Euston terminus under a £100m remodelling contract which forms part of Railtrack’s £2bn West Coast main line upgrading
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INTELLIGENCE
FinanceChina: Hong Kong’s MTR Corp has raised HK$1bn through a fixed rate note issue, split into equal tranches of four-year notes with a coupon of 7·28% per annum and five-year notes at 7·43%. A further US$750m has been provided by a 10-year global bond issue.Europe: Eurotunnel has completed the refinancing ...
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INTELLIGENCE
CAPTION: Metro Rail Transit Corp is pushing ahead with construction work on the first phase of Manila Line 3, which is due to be completed by November this year (Metro Report 98 p49). One of the most distinctive civil engineering structures to be put in place in the last few ...
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INTELLIGENCE
Australia: Australia Southern Railroad has secured long-term contracts from Australian Wheat Board, Australian Barley Board and South Australia Cooperative Bulk Handling, which is to upgrade loading facilities at Bowmans and Gladstone. Trains of up to 50 grain wagons will use the Tailem Bend - Pinnaroo line converted to standard gauge.Austria: ...
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Ibara Railway inaugurated
JAPANESE Transport Minister Jiro Kawasaki attended ceremonies on January 11 to mark the opening of the 38·4 km Ibara Railway, linking Kiyone on JR West’s Hakubi line with Kannabe on the Fukuen line Also attending were Governor Masahiro Ishii of Okayama Prefecture, and the President of Japan Railway Construction Public ...
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Kashmir link heads IR plans
INDIAN RAILWAYS Construction Corp (Ircon International) has been instructed to start work on a rail link to Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir. Railways Minister Nitish Kumar says that construction of the 90 km Kashmir Valley section linking Baramula, Srinagar and Qazigund near Anantnag should get under way in the current ...
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Golden promise and major threat
EXTRA CASH for urban rail projects, diverted from fuel taxes dedicated to road construction, has been proposed by President Clinton for the US fiscal year commencing October 1 1999. He wants Congress to endorse a 14% increase in transit funding to $6·1bn, even more than the $5·8bn projected in last ...
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Scrap into gold
WHAT DO you do when you have converted over 5000 route-km of metre-gauge line to broad gauge, and have an fleet of relatively modern rolling stock surplus to requirements? That was the question Indian Railways posed to Rail India Technical & Economic Services.Rites was asked to find new uses for ...
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Mixed fortunes in the railcar market
INTRO: The wide variety of lightweight diesel railcar designs ordered for regional services in Europe are proving popular with passengers, but most have failed to meet the operators’ ambitious delivery timescales. Harry Hondius MSc Eng reviews developmentsLOOKING AT THE lightweight diesel railcar industry at the end of 1998, it is ...
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Flangeways at risk
A RULING by the Supreme Court of Canada on January 28 could have a serious impact on the ability of rail to service industry over tracks laid in public highways, common in North America.Murray Ryan was badly injured in 1987, when the wheel of his motorcycle dropped into the flangeway ...
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Subway expansion floated
A surge of Subway building reminiscent of the 1930s could engulf New York City under a grandiose scheme dubbed MetroLink by the Regional Plan Association. It would cost $13bn, add 20% to the network length, serve new areas of the city and add capacity for 250000 daily riders, says RPA.The ...
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Expansion ends innovations
LAST MONTH Canadian Pacific’s eastern subsidiary St Lawrence & Hudson was to boost the capacity of its Montreal - Toronto roll-on, roll-off piggyback service by putting into revenue service the original experimental Iron Highway trainset. This is a holding move pending the arrival of another 240 platforms ordered from National ...
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Gauge-changing EMU on the road to success
Last November, Japan's Railway Technical Research Institute unveiled the world's first multi-voltage gauge-changing trainset. Following tests on JR West, the unit will be run at up to 250 km/h in Pueblo from April
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UIC sets European emissions standards
INTRO: Diesel traction offers flexibility for international freight operation in a liberalised European market, but railways need to maintain their green credentials at a time of growing environmental awareness and ever-stricter emissions limits. Revised UIC emissions standards offer an alternative to individual tests by national approval authorities BYLINE: Hans PaukertProject ...
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Mid-City link to open early
THE MISSING LINK in the Washington DC Green Line is to open on September 18. WMATA announced in January that work on the $643m 4·7 km segment would be completed three months ahead of schedule. With stations at Columbia Heights and Georgia Avenue-Petworth, the mid-city section will finally link ...
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EMA fault detection
Alstom Train Services, the British-based maintenance, overhaul and technical support division of Alstom Transport, expects by the middle of this year to be able to offer a wheel and axle inspection service using electro-magnectic array technology. The planned Electro-Magnetic Metal Fatigue & Crack Inspection Service (EMMFaCIS) would be based on ...