All articles by Railway Gazette International – Page 1328
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News
Pointers
n Australia’s federal government has agreed that from July 2000 the railways will no longer have to pay the diesel fuel excise levy used to fund road maintenance and construction; this will cut A$70m from the railways’ tax bill in 2000-01 (RG 3.99 p127).n The Nigerian government has signed a ...
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PEOPLE
Swiss Federal Railways’ Infrastructure Director Pierre-Alain Urech has joined the board of DB Netz AG. Anna Ottavianelli of FS has been named Secretary-General of the Community of European Railways, replacing Trevor Halvorsen. Carl-Henrik Lundstrøm of DSB been appointed to the newly created position of Deputy Secretary-General.As part of the latest ...
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Penn rebuild
US PRESIDENT Bill Clinton has formally inaugurated a US$484m project to develop a new main building for New York’s Pennsylvania Station, which currently handles almost 160 million passengers a year. In the ceremony on May 19 plans were unveiled to convert the neo-classical Farley Building, which was built for the ...
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Trackwatch for Metrorail
South African commuter operator Metrorail has ordered a Trackwatch system from Solartron to monitor signalling equipment at the Maitland interlocking in the Cape Town suburbs. Data prepared using the system’s PC-based analysis software will be exported to assist with the implementation of a condition-based maintenance strategy.Within the modular Trackwatch system, ...
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Merger signed
ON JUNE 22 Netherlands Railways President Rob den Besten and German Railway Chairman Dr Johannes Ludewig signed an agreement in Frankfurt which seals the merger of the two railways’ freight businesses, DB Cargo and NS Cargo. German Transport Minister Franz Münterfering was present, as were DB Cargo chief Dr Eberhard ...
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MPI and WAB to merge
US railway equipment suppliers MotivePower Industries and Westinghouse Air Brake Company announced on June 3 that they had signed a definitive agreement to merge. Subject to regulatory and shareholder approval, the ’merger of equals’ is expected to be completed by the third quarter of this year. WAB shareholders will receive ...
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Market
Marketal six Class 57 conversions of Class 47 locos from autumn this year, with both orders financed by Porterbrook Leasing.Connex Rail has extended to 2011 a 10-year lease on 93 Networker EMUs owned by Angel Train Contracts, due to expire on March 31 2004. Under the new contract, the leasing ...
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Signatur strives to make Norway smaller
INTRO: Later this year Norwegian State Railways will put into service the first of 16 tilting trains on routes from Oslo to the north, south and west of the country. Cutting journey times by around 1h on four long-distance corridors, they will help improve NSB’s competitive edge over buses, cars ...
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SJ loses sleepers
SWEDISH State Railways has lost another tender for the operation of subsidised passenger services from January 1 2000. On June 1 the state rail traffic office Rijkstrafiken selected the newly-formed Svenska Tågkompaniet to operate overnight services to the far north of Sweden and local services on the Luleå - Kiruna ...
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Pilbara lines in a tangle
Confirmation on June 15 that Rio Tinto and BHP are negotiating a joint venture to merge their iron ore operations in Western Australia has introduced a new dimension to the increasingly bitter dispute with North Ltd over access to Rio Tinto’s Hamersley Iron Railway. The news followed a May 27 ...
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Midland Metro opened at last
BRITAIN’s third modern light rail line was formally opened on May 30 by the Deputy Lord Mayor of Birmingham Sue Anderson. Public services on Midland Metro Line 1 between Birmingham Snow Hill and Wolverhampton St George’s (right) began the following day. Trams initially run every 10min, but operating concessionaire Travel ...
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INTELLIGENCE
Argentina: Following government approval, Industrias Metalúrgicas Pescarmona SA has sold its 70·5% stake in the Mesopot
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ZSR struggles with the yoke of independence
INTRO: Neglect is taking its toll on Slovak Republic Railways, as Murray Hughes found in Bratislava. General Director Andrej Egyed believes KS3·5bn a year needs to be spent to regain lost ground, with corridors for transit freight taking priority for investmentBYLINE: Andrej Egyed General Director Slovak Republic Railways LEAVING Bratislava ...
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Red line reaches Hollywood
THE TROUBLED 7·4 km Hollywood extension of Los Angeles’ Red line metro was dedicated on June 11. Dignitaries participating included LA Mayor and MTA Chairman Richard Riordan (centre of photo), FTA Administrator Gordon Linton (rear), and the honorary mayor of Hollywood Johnny Grant (right). Following ceremonies at Hollywood Boulevard/Vine Street ...
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VDEI show highlights
HELD in Wien on June 2, the 44th Permanent Way Convention of the Association of German Railway Engineers was staged in conjunction with a three-day exhibition of track maintenance machinery and other permanent way technology. Opened by Deputy General Manger of Austrian Federal Railways Dipl-Ing Helmut Hainitz, the show occupied ...
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Integral production grinds to a halt
WHEN Czech Railways ordered a fleet of 10 Class 680 tilting trains for high speed services in August 1995 from a consortium of CKD, MSV Studénka, Fiat and Siemens, the intention was to have the first Integral unit ready for trials in late 1997. Nearly two years later, there is ...
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Sustainable mobility is the goal
’ALL INDIVIDUALS need accessibility to employment, education and recreation. Achieving environmentally-sustainable mobility must include an expanded role for public transport, and requires many kinds of action. Well-managed, well-utilised public transport will make a major contribution to the quality of life in global communities in the next century.’Thus begins the Toronto ...
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Railtrack gets head start in PPP race
In return for a promise not to bid for London Underground’s deep tube lines, Railtrack has won exclusive rights to negotiate to take over the sub-surface lines which share a common loading gauge with its network. Announcing the deal on June 15, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott said ’for ...