All News articles – Page 66
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NewsExpanding expertise
UK: Transport planning software and consultancy firm Tracsis plc has acquired Peeping Ltd, which has 80 staff providing demand, queuing and footfall research, primarily for UK train operators. Tracsis said the acquisition will strengthen its product offering through the addition of real demand data to its existing modelling expertise. ...
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NewsMoroccan Prima II sets off
MOROCCO: The first two Alstom Prima II locomotives ordered by national railway ONCFM have left Alstom's Belfort factory in France. Locomotive 1401 has gone to the Wegberg-Wildenrath test centre in Germany for trials, while 1402 arrived at the Belgian port of Antwerpen on August 18 ready to embark for ...
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NewsVR Group restructures in the face of market changes
FINLAND: National railway operating company VR Group announced a major corporate restructuring on August 20, as a response to the economic recession and 'sudden and partially permanent changes' in the markets it serves, particularly in the forest products sector. Freight traffic in the first six months of 2009 was 30% ...
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NewsFaster to Extremadura
SPAIN: Tenders are to be called in the last quarter of this year for the construction of a gauge-changing facility at Brazatortas-Veredas, enabling trains from Mérida and Badajoz to use the high speed line from Córdoba to reach Madrid. The work is expected to take 10 months ...
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NewsThree locos replace five on 13 000 tonne coal haul
AUSTRALIA: The first three of 23 Class 7100 25 kV electric locomotives being built for Pacific National by Siemens Mobility's München-Allach plant have entered service in Queensland. The 1 067 mm gauge locomotives were ordered in 2007, and deliveries will run to mid-2010. Three Class 7100s will replace five ...
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NewsLa Réunion picks tram-train concessionaire
FRANCE: The regional council in La Réunion selected the Tram'Tiss consortium as preferred bidder for the PPP concession to develop the Indian Ocean island's ambitious interurban tram-train route on August 13. Led by Bouygues, Bombardier and Veolia, the consortium also includes Colas, local architects and financial partners such as ...
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NewsMultiple uses of broadband
CCTV: Transmission of live security camera images and diagnostic data, plus multimedia passenger information and wi-fi access, are part of the roll-out of broadband links on trains operated by Catalan regional rail operator FGC. The technology has been developed over two years by FGC and Alstom at a cost of ...
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NewsFinal Class 395 docks in Southampton
UK: The ship carrying the last of 29 Hitachi Class 395 electric multiple-units for High Speed 1 domestic services arrived in the Port of Southampton on August 16. The trainset was delivered from Japan to the UK onboard Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics' roll-on, roll-off ship MV Tamesis, travelling 20 600 ...
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NewsAbuja backs concessioning strategy
NIGERIA: After more than two decades of abortive attempts to patch up or reconstruct NRC’s ailing 1 067 mm gauge rail network, the government is now looking to hand the whole lot to the private sector. According to Transport Minister Alhaji Ibrahim Bio, legislation is being prepared that will pave ...
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NewsReaching up
PANTOGRAPH: Indian Railways needed a pantograph suitable for contact wires at 7 450 mm as well as the standard 5 500 mm when assessing electric haulage of double-stack container trains. Kolkata-based Stone India responded by developing the Universal Intelli-Panto. It has features which will be incorporated into Stone India’s standard ...
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NewsSpotting soft spots
USA: Researchers from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln are testing prototype wagon-mounted equipment designed to identify trackbed soft spots where there is risk of rail distortion leading to derailment. The project has received $150 000 from the FRA. The prototype is mounted on a Union Pacific coal wagon which ...
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NewsAmbitious investment plans face cash shortfall
UK: The announcement on July 23 by Secretary of State for Transport Lord Adonis that the Great Western Main Line linking London, Bristol, Cardiff and Swansea is to be electrified at 25 kV 50 Hz comes almost exactly 25 years after the go-ahead for the UK’s last main line electrification. ...
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NewsAlabama Warrior Railway launched
USA: Short line company Watco Transportation Services launched Alabama Warrior Railway on August 7. The 24 km railway in Birmingham, Alabama, connects with BNSF, Norfolk Southern and CSX. The main traffic is coal for Walter Coke Inc, with other customers including LaFarge, US Pipe, Cemex, Harrison Gypsum and Performance Minerals. ...
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NewsTaiwan high speed rail refinancing agreed
TAIWAN: When it opened in May 2007, the Taipei - Kaohsiung route was hailed as ‘the world’s first privately-funded high speed line’, but Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp has been finding times tough. Whilst traffic has risen steadily to an average of 87 000 passengers/day for the first half of ...
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NewsSkoda wins Slovak push-pull orders
SLOVAKIA: National operator ZSSK has awarded Skoda Transportation the first export order for the 109E locomotive design which was unveiled last year. As well as two locomotives, the Czech firm will also supply 10 three-car double-deck push-pull trainsets and modernise 10 existing electric locomotives for Slovakia. Contracts totalling €83m ...
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NewsHigh speed scramble
USA: As expected, the decision by the Obama administration to allocate $8bn of stimulus funding for high speed rail development, followed by $5bn from the transport budget over the next five years, has triggered a flood of interest across the country. Earlier this year the federal government invited proposals ...
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NewsDB assault forces Eurostar reform
EUROPE: Five years after the collapse of Project Jupiter, another attempt has begun to transform Eurostar from an unincorporated tri-national partnership into a single coherent entity. The operator confirmed last month that negotiations were underway to position the business ready for the introduction of competition in the international passenger sector ...
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NewsRZD approves Finnish freight joint venture
EUROPE: The Russian Railways board has given the go -ahead for a planned joint venture between its First Freight Company subsidiary and Finnish national railway VR. An equally-owned joint-stock company is to be incorporated under Finnish law, and will be responsible for marketing and organising rail freight services between ...
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NewsBanerjee warns of tighter times
INDIA: Internally-generated funding is likely to fall sharply this year, according to the Indian Railways budget for 2009-10 presented on July 3 by recently-appointed Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee. Noting the ‘continuing trend of recession’, she announced ‘more realistic’ projections than those set by her predecessor Lalu Prasad in his interim ...