All articles by Railway Gazette International – Page 1214
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News
EDI sales at record high
ON August 26 Australia’s Downer EDI announced record revenue of A$2·4bn for the year ended on June 30, with profits after tax up at A$56·4m compared with A$45·5m in 2001. Turnover for the rail division soared by 145% to A$428·4m; this represented 16·5% of the business.Downer EDI Managing Director Stephen ...
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Swazi downsizing
TROUBLE is brewing on Swaziland Railway, which operates 301 km of 1067mm gauge line between Golela and Goba, providing a key link between South Africa and Mozambique. Our correspondent reports that SR wants to halve its 600-strong workforce to improve its financial performance. Early retirement is being offered to employees ...
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WC technology develops
Microphor has introduced a water-saving, air-assisted flush toilet for applications where water conservation is important. Microflush models LF-810 and LF-820 require less water per flush than other designs available from Microphor. This extends the time interval between servicing, thus allowing the vehicle to be in operation longer.A cost-effective alternative to ...
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CTRL power supply order
LONDON Electricity Services has awarded a £4m contract to ABB Utility Power Systems for the supply of Static VAr Compensators. These are for use at the Singlewell and Barking feeder stations on Section 2 of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. Due to be installed next year, the SVCs will stabilise ...
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Courts fuel insurance worries
MORE than four years after a resilient wheel broke up at nearly 200 km/h, killing 101 people on June 3 1998 when a derailed ICE1 brought down a road overbridge at Eschede, three professional engineers found themselves in the dock at Celle on August 28. Volker Fischer and Joachim Thilo ...
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Victoria to renegotiate Melbourne contracts
THREE YEARS after they were awarded by the state government of Victoria, all five franchises for the operation of passenger trains and trams in and around Melbourne had effectively collapsed by the end of August. The three operators, National Express, Connex and Yarra Trams, faced unsustainable losses if the 12 ...
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Design of Taiwan’s high speed train fleet confirmed
INTRO: A fleet of 51 trainsets derived from the successful Series 700 shinkansen design will operate 300 km/h services on the Taipei - Kaohsiung high speed line. Detailed design changes are now being finalised, and the first unit is on course to roll out in April 2004WHEN THE government of ...
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Millennium line complete
VANCOUVER’S Skytrain expanded further on August 31 when Line 2, also known as the Millennium line, was formally opened between Broadway-Commercial and Columbia by British Columbia’s Transport Minister, Judith Reid, in a ceremony at Lougheed Town Centre station. There are 14 stations on the new line including the two that ...
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Coal contract
CONSTRUCTION of the 46·5 km North Bowen Basin rail link serving the Hail Creek coal mine in Queensland is expected to be completed by October 2003. An A$70m contract for the project was awarded on August 27 to civil engineering company Abigroup in partnership with Queensland Rail.The Hail Creek branch ...
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JR Central opens Komaki research centre
CENTRAL JAPAN Railway has opened its own research centre at Komaki in Aichi prefecture, about 20 km north of Nagoya. Japan’s Railway Technical Research Institute already operates a major research facility with a wind tunnel at Maibara, but JR Central says that the RTRI wind tunnel is in great demand ...
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CARE selected for Docklands
CITY Airport Rail Enterprises is the preferred bidder to design, finance, build and maintain for 30 years the latest 4·4 km extension to London’s automated Docklands Light Railway. DLR says it expects contracts to be signed in mid-December, with work starting in January.Capital cost of the project that will see ...
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Spare capacity for upgrade
LONDON’S Docklands Light Railway is planning a £20m mid-life refurbishment of its fleet of 70 automated metro vehicles, to bring the whole fleet up to the same standard as 24 new vehicles now entering service. To increase reliability, mechanical and electrical equipment will be modernised, using experience gained since the ...
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Wien buys MoMo cars
WIEN City Transport has ordered 25 six-car trains worth €192m from a consortium headed by Siemens. They are to be used on Lines U1 and U2, and will be among the first to be built to the MoMo modular concept (RG 8.00 p473).The order represents the first tranche of rolling ...
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CIS business unit sold
INTERNATIONAL transport company Transfracht Internationale Gesellschaft für Kombinierten Güterverkehr has sold its Commonwealth of Independent States business unit to InterRail Services. The price was not disclosed, and the deal is backdated to September 1. IRS is a 50:50 joint venture of Intercontainer-Interfrigo and Transasia Holding AG.TFG is adopting a strategy ...
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Leuven - Liège brings the European high speed network a step closer
Belgium's second purpose-built 300 km/h line will bring the capital of Europe closer to the east, and improve communications between the Ile de France and the Ruhr
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Koreans resume border link
SEPTEMBER 18 saw a ceremony at Dorasan to mark the formal resumption of work on reconnecting the Gyeongi line across the Demilitarised Zone from Seoul to North Korea. Bilateral talks at the end of August were followed by the signing of a technical agreement on September 12 at Panmunjom between ...
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Better service on line
WE ARE pleased to announce that Railway Gazette International is now offering a weekly update of our on-line railway information service, www.railwaydirectory.net Frequent changes in staff, organisation and business structures make it hard to keep track of all developments in the worldwide railway market, but railwaydirectory.net is now better able ...
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‘Light rail’ ready in Beijing
THE OPENING to passengers of the trial section of the 41 km ’light rail’ line through Beijing’s northern suburbs was scheduled for September 28, after final commissioning runs that commenced 24 days earlier had been completed. Designated Line 13 on the capital’s planned metro network, this is the first to ...
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CAIB becomes VTG Rail UK
VTG-Lehnkering, part of the Hapag-Lloyd Group, in co-operation with Banker MM Warburg, has acquired the European rail logistics activities of Brambles European Rail Division.The UK arm, formerly CAIB UK, becomes VTG Rail UK Ltd. The former ERD’s 120 personnel and fleet of 21000 vehicles has been integrated into VTG-Lehnkering.
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Rail profits at Balfour Beatty
BALFOUR Beatty’s interim results for the half year to June 29 showed pre-tax profits of £48m. The rail sector had a profit of £16m, up from £7m in the equivalent period last year. There was a significant improvement in performance of the European electrification and power and US trackwork and ...