All articles by Railway Gazette International – Page 1251
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News
Line 6 opened
THIS MONTH is due to see the opening of the final four stations on Seoul metro Line 6. These remained uncompleted when services began on the final section of the line on December 15. Fitting out and commissioning of the four stations was delayed when contractor Shinhwa Construction went bankrupt ...
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DB joins the 300 km/h club
INTRO: Trial running at up to 330 km/h starts this month on German Railway’s Neubaustrecke between Köln and FrankfurtTHIS MONTH should see a specially-equipped ICE3 trainset begin test running along almost the whole length of German Railway’s first Neubaustrecke designed for commercial service at 300 km/h. Under construction since December ...
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VAG U3 automation contract
NÜRNBERG transport authority VAG awarded a €185m contract to Siemens on November 16 covering the supply of automatic train control equipment for its Rubin project. This covers the construction of a fully-automated U-Bahn Line U3, and the conversion of Line U2. The deal also includes the supply of 30 ATO-equipped ...
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CityRail gets A$273m
NEW SOUTH Wales is to invest an extra A$273m over the next four years to improve the safety and reliability of Sydney’s urban rail network. Announced by NSW Premier John Carr on December 22, the package will be targeted at lines with the greatest increase in passenger numbers and the ...
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HSL-Zuid concessions
NETHERLANDS: This month is due to see the signing of a formal contract for operation of services on the HSL-Zuid high speed line between Amsterdam, Rotterdam and the Belgian border. The Dutch Ministry of Transport & Water Management announced on October 17 that it had reached agreement with the ...
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China speeds up again
CHINA: October 21 saw the introduction of Chinese Railways’ 2001-02 national timetable, implementing a further network- wide increase in train speeds. Vice- Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun announced that passenger train speeds would be raised from 120 to 140 and 140 to 160 km/h, following the completion of upgrading ...
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NewsEcotram research aims to cut tram energy consumption
AUSTRIA: Technische Universität Wien is heading a consortium of Wien transport operator Wiener Linien, Siemens, Vossloh Kiepe, Rail Tec Arsenal and SCHIG, which is undertaking research into operating strategies and design alterations which could lower the energy consumption of trams. Launched in March 2010 and backed by Austrian research agency ...
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Toronto turnround
THREE YEARS ago, the Conservative government in the Province of Ontario dumped financial responsibility for GO Transit on local authorities under a deal that saw it taking on funding of education. It also scrapped subsidies for Toronto Transit Commission. Now it has had second thoughts.The province intends to restore funding ...
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Sidetrack
No go at Lo WuMORE than 200 passengers were stranded at Hong Kong’s Lo Wu border crossing on September 29, after refusing to leave a KCR East Rail train. Newspapers had incorrectly reported that opening hours at the checkpoint had been extended by 30 min to handle extra passengers on ...
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Subways recover swiftly
NEW YORK City Transit officials were amazed how well subway lines near the World Trade Center withstood the collapse of the two towers on September 11, especially as the top of some 85 year-old tunnels ran just 1·5m below street level. Credit was given to the subway’s designers, who supported ...
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Pointers
n Watch for firm plans to be drawn up for the 300 km link between Kashi in Xinjiang province and Andizhan in Uzbekistan, through Kyrgyzstan, following China’s formal agreement in September to participate in the scheme (RG 4.01 p223).n Look for Iranian Islamic Republic Railways to announce plans ...
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PEOPLE
PEOPLEMohammad Saeedi Nejad has become head of Iranian Islamic Republic Railways.Priyal de Silva was appointed General Manager of Sri Lanka Railways from October 6. On October 1 Robert Etmans took over as Director of Personnel for DB Cargo, succeeding Birgit Gantz-Rathmann who moves to a similar post at DB’s headquarters ...
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A recipe for paralysis
IFTRANSPORT Secretary Stephen Byers had intended to bury the bad news about Railtrack by announcing it just before the bombing of Afghanistan commenced, he did not succeed.The immediate result of his action, which could at worst see shareholders left with nothing, was to enrage the financial institutions. Anthony Bolton at ...
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Panama Railway reopens
FREIGHT TRAINS were due to begin running on the Panama Canal Railway in mid-October, following a US$76m reconstruction and conversion to standard gauge. Passenger services resumed in July, using ex-Amtrak locos and coaches.The complete overhaul of the 75·6 km route, including new ballast, sleepers and rails, has taken nearly two ...
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Prima orders
ON SEPTEMBER 27 French National Railways announced that it had confirmed options to order a further 120 Prima electric freight locos from Alstom Transport SA, and taken another option for 80 more. Deliveries are scheduled to run from October 2005 to March 2007. The contract was formally approved by the ...
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RWMS monitors quality of rail welding
THE QUALITY of rail welding work can be monitored and recorded with a computer-controlled Rail Welding Monitor System recently developed by Plasser American Corp. Running on a Microsoft Windows platform on a notebook computer, the software automatically records and analyses rail welding as it is carried out by Plasser machines.A ...
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Metros
Bosnia-Herzegovina: Kosice Transport of Slovakia has delivered two 1989-built Tatra KT8D5 trams to Sarajevo. Pars Sumperk and Siemens are to refurbish 37 Tatra K2 trams for Sarajevo Tramway over five years.Canada: Services began on Ottawa’s O-Train diesel light rail line on October 15, using three Class 643 Talent DMUs. Mayor ...
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‘Shoddy and unacceptable’, says Marshall
Railtrack Chief Executive Steve Marshall tendered his resignation on October 8, describing the government’s treatment of his company and its shareholders as ’shoddy and unacceptable’. Intending to work out his six-month period of notice, Marshall said that his priorities now were to ’support the company, its people and the administrator’s ...
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Market
Australia: New South Wales SRA is calling tenders for 14 diesel railcars for use in the Hunter Valley, and for 40 double-deck outer suburban EMU cars.Austria: Elin EBG has won a contract to fit radio remote control to 10 of ÖBB’s Class 1044 electric locomotives for mid-train working, with an ...
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‘You cannot live without research’
INTRO: One of the organisations influencing railway research in Europe is the Union of European Railway Industries. General Manager Drewin Nieuwenhuis feels ’the political winds are in favour of rail’, telling Murray Hughes in Brussels that he expected a positive response to UNIFE’s application for EU research fundsDURING THE late ...