All articles by Railway Gazette International – Page 1294
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News
Westrail bids shortlisted
FOUR CONSORTIA have been shortlisted for the privatisation of Western Australia’s freight and infrastructure business. The four are undertaking due diligence, which will culminate with the submission of final bids in October. Announcing the shortlist on August 9, WA Transport Minister Murray Criddle said that he hoped to announce the ...
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Light rail back on the map
One of the most astonishing policy reversals since Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott published his Transport White Paper two years ago is his new enthusiasm for light rail. Transport 2010 notes that only Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield and the West Midlands have lines in operation outside London - ’far fewer than ...
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Voters back DART expansion
CONSTRUCTION of three new light rail lines in Dallas will be accelerated by up to eight years following a vote approving a $2·9bn bond package on August 11. Over 77% approved the proposals, with only 22·8% against. Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s Executive Director Roger Snoble said he was ’humbled by ...
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Tel Aviv to tender LRT
TENDERS are to be called within three months for construction of the first light rail line in Tel Aviv, following the signing of an agreement between the promoter NTA Metropolitan Mass Transit System Ltd, the Municipality of Tel Aviv, and the Israeli government on July 23. The accord was signed ...
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Steel sleeper success in Australia
Sir - The letter by Mr Clive Budge in RG 5.00 p282 raises concerns about the use of steel sleepers. Having been involved with design, construction and maintenance of track in Australia, and especially in the use of steel sleepers, for the past 20 years, I would like to share ...
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Alicante light rail opens
SPAIN’s Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat Valenciana has launched an initial light rail service in the resort of Alicante. The 1 km segregated alignment runs from Puerta del Mar via Albufuerta to the FGC station at Marina, from which some LRVs continue over the Denia line as far as Lucentum. Next ...
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Africans build rail trolleys
MALAWI bus manufacturer PEW handed over its first locally-built maintenance gang trolley in July to the local rail operator Central East African Railways, which was awarded a 20-year franchise to run the Malawi network last summer. Owned by Kamwayi Corp, PEW mainly builds minibuses for countries in southern ...
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Advanced current collection
GERMAN Railway is currently working with its principal suppliers and the German Aerospace Research Centre on the development of a next-generation current collector. The Ultra design uses electronic control to regulate the contact pressure, improving performance at high speeds. Reliable contact at 400 km/h will only require a force of ...
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News
Bombardier agrees to buy Adtranz
Bombardier announced on August 4 that it had signed a sale and purchase agreement to acquire Adtranz from its parent DaimlerChrysler. The move had been expected following Bombardier’s unsuccessful bid for Siemens’ rail arm. The deal values the extensive Adtranz empire at just US$725m, reflecting the company’s recent lack of ...
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Freight accord
OCTOBER is due to see the launch of a joint venture company based in Paris to co-ordinate wagonload freight traffic between France and Germany. The move follows the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding in Hannover on June 23. Participating in the ceremonies were DB Chairman Hartmut Mehdorn and SNCF ...
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Loco pools stoke the open access fire
INTRO: Germany’s railway reforms paved the way for open access operators to enter the freight business, sparking a demand for motive power available on short or long-term lease. Ralf Roman Rossberg looks at the ’rent-a-loco’ business set up by suppliers who have established pools of locomotives, lending encouragement to DB ...
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Prescott promises £60bn spending bonanza
BRITAIN’s Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has unveiled plans for a massive increase in public and private investment in rail over the next 10 years. Presenting Transport 2010 on July 20, Prescott set a target of lifting passenger-km on the national network by 50% and freight tonne-km by 80% by ...
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ICE3 pioneers commercial application of eddy-current rail brakes
The dream of frictionless braking has crept closer with the installation of eddy-current rail brakes on German Railway's ICE3, but they will only be used in carefully controlled conditions
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NewsInnoTrans 2000: Giant event storms to success in Berlin
INNOTRANS: Over 800 exhibitors from nearly 30 countries will be present at the InnoTrans event on September 12-15, filling some 20000m2 of hall space within the Berlin exhibition grounds. Organiser Messe Berlin reports that the number of exhibitors is up 75% from the last InnoTrans event in 1998. Once again, ...
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Class 185 pioneers use of ETCS
INTRO: Three pre-production dual-system Class 185 freight locos for German Railway are equipped to operate using ERTMS/ETCS, although delays in the development of Specific Transmission Modules in each country to form the interface with existing signalling mean that conventional train protection systems will be used initiallyTRIALS with a trio of ...
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TV at your table
TO DEMONSTRATE its TrainView passenger entertainment and information system to operators, the Passenger Rail Division of The Network Connection (TNCi) has unveiled a ’simulator’ at its British headquarters in Derby. Furnished with seats supplied by Antolin Loire, the simulator features seatback and table-mounted 8·4in LCD screens. TrainView has been developed ...
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Workshops restructured
SWISS Federal Railways has decided not to hive off its workshops to an external supplier, but to reorganise them into service centres to trim SFr100m off the current rolling stock maintenance budget of SFr600m a year by 2005. The programme, dubbed ’Redesign Service Rollmaterial’, will mean cutting the number of ...
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PEOPLE
JR East President Masatake Matsuda becomes Chairman in succession to Shuichiro Yamanouchi, who has been appointed President of Japan’s National Space Development Agency. Vice President Mutsutake Otsuka steps up to the Presidency. In a separate move, Chief Rolling Stock Engineer Yoshihiko Sato has joined JR East’s affiliated company Nippon Rolling ...