One of the 26 Škoda Transportation 41T ForCity Smart trams being supplied to Bonn under a contract awarded in December 2019 has been tested at -25°C in the Rail Tec Arsenal climate chamber in Wien. The first trams are to be delivered to in late 2022 to gradually replace Siemens/Duewag Type R1.1 trams.
The first of 13 Alstom Citadis X05 trams ordered for Paris Line T10 at a cost of €35m was delivered to the Chatenay-Malabry depot on August 25.
Construction of the northeastern extension of Warszawa metro Line M2 to Bródno station has been completed, with opening planned for late September or October. The work was undertaken by a consortium of Gülermak and Astaldi under a 1·4bn złoty contract awarded in September 2018.
The city of Calgary has awarded Advanced Rail Management (Canada) Inc a one-year contract with four optional years for rail grinding on the light rail network. ARM will develop a programme to gradually restore the design rail profile on open and tunnel tracks, including at-grade embedded track sections across 60 route-km of double track, addressing the Blue and Red lines alternately each year.
The Nottingham Trams Ltd 80:20 joint venture of Keolis UK and Trent Barton which operates the Nottingham Express Transit network has appointed Chris Wright as Managing Director. He was previously Commercial Director for East Midlands Railway, and has held senior roles as Fleet Director at East Midlands Trains, Engineering & Commercial Director at Vossloh Kiepe UK, and Depot Manager for London Midland’s Soho and Tyseley maintenance centres neat Birmingham.
Chicago Transit Authority has awarded Action K-9 an 18-month contract worth $30·9m to provide up to 100 unarmed security guards and 50 dogs per day, which will operate in teams of two guards and one dog near station turnstiles to deter fare evasion and increase the overall security presence at stations. CTA says it has been developing ways to target fare evasion ‘before it leads to other illicit activities’ as part of its Meeting the Moment: Transforming CTA’s Post-Pandemic Future action plan.
Moscow Metro is to install 1 000 new-generation validators on ticket gates on lines 2, 7 and 9 during September, speeding up processing and allowing passengers to pay using a bank card. Large LED screens will show ticket status and balance, with bright outlines and Braille for visually impaired passengers. QR code fare payment is planned for the future, along with a complete renewal of the metro’s ticket gates to accept bank cards at all stations by the end of the year. ‘The new equipment is made by domestic manufacturers using Russian software’, said Maksim Liksutov, Deputy Mayor for Transport.
