All articles by Railway Gazette International – Page 1196
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News
Metronet consortium completes PPP deal
ON APRIL 4 the Metronet consortium of WS Atkins, Balfour Beatty, Bombardier, Seeboard and Thames Water achieved financial close on its two contracts for the London Underground Public-Private Partnership. Over the following weekend, 2585 LU staff at Infraco BCV and 2510 at Infraco SSL transferred to the private sector firms ...
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Competition will reshape Europe’s railways
MARCH 28 saw the Council of Transport Ministers vote to accelerate proposals to introduce more competition on Europe’s rail network. The Council’s position on the Second Railway Package brings forward from 2008 to January 2006 full deregulation of international rail freight, not just on Terfn routes where competition became legal ...
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A tale of two cities - more electronics and more software
This month sees the world's two largest track maintenance exhibitions take place just five days apart on different continents. David Burns highlights the latest developments that jetsetters can compare at the Railway Engineering Maintenance & Supply Association show in Dallas and the German Railway Engineers' Association (VDEI) exhibition in Münster
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Sitram orders Citadis
MULHOUSE transport authority Sitram has ordered 20 Citadis trams from Alstom at a cost of €48m, with an option for a further seven. On delivery in 2005, the all-low-floor cars will run on the initial 12 km urban section of the city’s Tram-Train network.The urban network will consist of an ...
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Change in the wind
UNDER the tutelage of its ousted Chief Executive Etienne Schouppe, Belgian National Railways remained largely unscathed by the European Commission’s directives aimed at introducing intra-modal competition. Separation of infrastructure and operations was nominal at best, but there are signs that Karel Vinck, appointed as Managing Director last year (RG 8.02 ...
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UITP to debate ’the ultimate challenge’
AROUND 2000 delegates are expected to attend the 55th World Congress of the International Union of Public Transport, being held in Madrid on May 4-9. Theme of the event is ’The Challenge of Integration: Turning Multimodality into Seamless Mobility’. UITP Secretary-General Hans Rat says ’the integration of transport services is ...
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Smart cards in Madrid
FUENLABRADA, a town of 200000 inhabitants 17 km south of Madrid, is the location for live trials started last month of the BIT city-wide smart card ticketing system, which has been under development since 1997. The multimodal card will eventually encompass all public transport-metro, EMT bus and Renfe suburban trains- ...
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Cross County ground broken
CONSTRUCTION of St Louis Metro’s Cross County light rail extension was inaugurated on April 9 with a ground-breaking ceremony at the site of Forsyth station, Missouri. The 13 km route links the existing Forest Park station, which will be rebuilt, with Clayton and Shrewsbury, running largely at grade but with ...
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Linx signs broadband deal
FROM JUNE 1 Nordic inter-city operator Linx AB will offer broadband internet access in First and Business class on all X2000 trainsets operating Stockholm - Oslo and G
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Industry News in Brief
Czech rolling stock builder CKD Vagonka has reported sales worth KC760m last year, up from KC273m the previous year. A significant contribution came from a KC850m order to supply 16 DMU cars to Finland’s VR by 2006.Holland LP’s Railroad Mechanical Group has opened five M-Bar-D wagon repair and inspection facilities, ...
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Passenger News in Brief
Venice Simplon-Orient Express and Queensland Rail are to suspend services of the Great South Pacific Express luxury train from June 8, blaming a downturn in the international tourist market.Hellenic Railways real estate wing GaiaOSE has appointed Planet Ernst & Young to advise on the development and management of its real ...
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Products in Brief
Peguform GmbH is using Araldite AW2101/HW2951 two-part epoxy adhesive from Vantico to bond moulded sheet components to aluminium rails during the assembly of electrical equipment housings for Bombardier-built S-Bahn trains for Berlin.HAR1000 is the first in LEM’s range of low-power consumption open loop principle Hall-effect current transducers for traction applications. ...
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First Engineering boost
REPORTING its results for the year to January 4 2003 on March 25, Peterhouse Group announced a 21% increase in turnover from £369m to £447m and 6% growth in profit to £16·7m. Executive Chairman David Jackson said the group had ’completed the final strategic moves’ in its transformation from a ...
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Saudi passenger boost
SAUDI Railways’ Dammam-Riyadh services will benefit from refurbished rolling stock in a programme launched on April 10. The railway’s entire passenger fleet of 49 saloons and nine restaurant cars is being renovated to provide higher comfort and improved safety standards in advance of delivery of new stock. Local firms are ...
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UK franchise bidding hots up
SERCOGroup announced on April 23 that it had been selected as preferred bidder for a 25-year concession to run the Merseyrail Electrics suburban network in the UK, in a joint venture with NS subsidiary NedRailways (RG 4.03 p222). The £3·6bn contract is due to start on July 20, when responsibility ...
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Drains become piles
MEMBRA vertical pipes normally used to drain surface water through a clay layer to permeable material below have been adapted by Cobra to form piles supporting 28 km of track in Malaysia. The company is hoping for an order covering a further 50 km on KTM’s Kuala Lumpur - Padang ...
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Basel boost
MEETING in Basel in March 20, the chief executives of national railways in France, Germany and Switzerland resolved to launch a programme to raise the capacity of rail routes in and around the city. Because of rising transit freight traffic, the forthcoming completion of the two Swiss base tunnels, ambitious ...
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Australian boost
Barclay Mowlem Construction Group reported strong performance in 2002, with turnover up by 24% to A$823m and an operating profit of A$19·8m. Managing Director David Hudson attributed the success to the ’particularly robust’ Australian construction business. Barclay Mowlem is a partner in the ADrail joint venture building the Alice Springs ...
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Steady growth at Arup
CONTNUED steady growth in turnover was seen at Arup during 2002. Overall turnover for the period to March 31 this year exceeded £400m, with profits of over £20m. There was a 17% increase in global turnover, 3% increase in profit, and a stable profit margin of 5%, despite an 11% ...
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Applying proactive maintenance on CTRL
INTRO: The Channel Tunnel Rail Link will need maintenance standards ’an order of magnitude higher’ than on the rest of the UK network. Chris Jago, Managing Director of Union Railways South, briefs Murray Hughes on plans to maintain Britain’s first 300 km/h railway’IF THE NAKED EYE can see an irregularity ...