All News articles – Page 412
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News
HZ loan deal
CROATIAN Railways General Manager Marjan Klaric announced on January 18 the award of a US$101m modernisation loan from the World Bank. HZ will use this to launch a further investment programme later this year, as part of a recstructuring and renewals package.The biggest elements are US$33·4m to cover the redeployment ...
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DB sells itself
GERMAN RAILWAY is to launch a series of marketing offensives aimed at keeping passengers on trains following an increase in the base kilometric tariff. This sees a unified structure applied across all Länder for the first time since reunification.To counterbalance the fares increase, DB is changing a number of ticketing ...
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Via reaches a critical watershed
BYLINE: Rod MorrisonPresident & Chief Executive OfficerVia Rail CanadaAT THE END of the 1990s, Via Rail Canada has a new spirit of vitality and a commitment to explore the fresh thinking needed to take Canada’s passenger rail services into the next century. Over the past two decades we have delivered ...
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Tax cut would cripple interstate rail freight
A proposed tax reform in Australia threatens to wipe out interstate freight hauls below 1000 km. This comes just as private rail freight operators prepare to compete for the modest tonnages available between the five mainland state capitals. Incredibly, economists who proposed the tax change argued that it would level ...
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Lufthansa’s TGV connection
SNCF and Lufthansa have implemented an accord which provides TGV feeder services to Lufthansa flights from Paris Charles-de-Gaulle. This enlarges the extent of air-rail co-operation from joint marketing or frequent flyer packages (RG 2.99 p85) to integrated ticketing. From February 1 passengers have been able to purchase a single ticket ...
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Octra concessioned
GABON: Belgian consultancy Transurb Consult, part-owned by SNCB and Brussels transport authority STIB, is to operate the 650 km Trans-Gabon railway under a 20-year concession awarded to a multinational private-sector consortium. The Gabonese government announced on January 6 that it had selected the Transgabonais consortium as preferred bidder to take ...
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Thessaloniki metro concession
GREECE: On February 5 the Greek Ministry for Environment, Physical Planning & Public Works signed a build-operate-transfer concession for the construction of a 9·4 km automated mini-metro in the city of Thessaloniki. The 20-year concession has been awarded to an international consortium led by French civil engineering group Bouygues SA ...
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Gayssot completes TGV Est funding package
CONSTRUCTION of the long-planned high-speed line between Paris and Strasbourg will begin next year, with revenue services expected to start in 2005-06. On January 29 French Transport Minister Jean-Claude Gayssot signed an accord with other partners in what is now known as TGV Est-Européen. This sets out the funding for ...
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Contracts cut commissioning
Substantial efficiency gains have been achieved by Denmark’s infrastructure manager, Banestyrelsen, thanks to a law introduced on January 1 1997 which requires materials and work to be procured by open tender - although it has not been fully applied yet.Director of Infrastructure Services Jesper Toft told AiC’s Infrastructure Maintenance & ...
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Virgin Rail signs West Coast train order
On February 9 British inter-city train operator Virgin Rail Group signed the long-awaited Train Service Provision leasing deal for Alstom Transport and Fiat Ferroviaria to design, supply and maintain a fleet of 225 km/h tilting trains to operate its West Coast inter-city franchise. The deal is valued at 1·8bn euros, ...
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CN plans for the next millennium
BYLINE: Paul M TellierPresident & Chief Executive OfficerCanadian National RailwayCANADIAN NATIONAL has taken decisive steps to meet the challenges and opportunities of the next millennium. By the end of this year CN and its customers will be positioned to reap the benefits of the increasing integration of the North American ...
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City NEWS
CAPTION: Helsinki Transport has started testing the first of 20 Variotrams ordered from Adtranz and Rautaruukki Oy in July 1996. The bodies were built at Otanmäki, to a design styled by Creadedesign, with trucks from Siegen, six IGBT inverters from Mannheim and 12 x 45 kW traction motors from Wien. ...
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DB Cargo - MThB pact
GERMAN Freight operator DB Cargo signed a co-operation agreement with Switzerland’s Mittelthurgau Railway on February 2. MThB operates the 40 km line from Konstanz on the German border to Wil, which already carries 1 million tonnes of freight a year.Both railways see considerable potential for growth, and the agreement is ...
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Deregulation changes the face of Canadian railroading
Since the Canada Transportation Act came into force in 1996, the country's rail industry has undergone a dramatic transformation, with modernisation and restructuring at the two big national operators matched by a mushrooming of small and medium-sized feeder railways
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Ferroban moves to Campinas
RESTRUCTURING is getting under way at the former São Paulo state railway Fepasa following its transfer to the Ferrovias Bandeirantes SA concessionaire on January 1. Ferroban President José Lindoso de Albuquerque announced on January 24 that the board of directors had decided to move the railway’s headquarters to Campinas, where ...
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Kaohsiung BOT moves closer
CONSTRUCTION of the long-planned four-line metro in the Taiwanese second city Kaohsiung is set to get under way in 2001, with two routes totalling 42·7 km now expected to open in stages between 2004 and 2007. Kaohsiung has grown rapidly in recent years, and now has over 3 million inhabitants. ...
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Partnerships to boost income
ON JANUARY 20 Amtrak President & CEO George Warrington announced a series of ’business partnerships’ intended to cut costs and generate extra revenue, as part of a programme to enable the US national passenger operator to break even by 2002. A seven-year contract with airline caterer Dobbs International Services will ...
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Darwin bidders get serious
All three groups chosen to submit bids by March 31 to build and operate the 1410 km railway from Alice Springs to Darwin have recruited new members, raising hopes that the project may finally go ahead. The successful bidder would also lease the line from Alice to Tarcoola on the ...
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Berlin S-Bahn offers panoramic tours
CAPTION: A three-car Panorama S-Bahn trainset converted from 1943-built Class 477 vehicles has been unveiled at the S-Bahn Berlin GmbH main workshop at Sch
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Paris ticketing roll-out begins
Schlumberger has begun deployment of a new design of ticket-issuing terminal across all RATP’s stations. A pilot installation of 40 machines at key stations on the Paris Métro has proved successful, and so Schlumberger has begun installation at all other stations; when complete, there will be over 1000 machines in ...