All articles by Railway Gazette International – Page 1340
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News
TheTrainLine brings online booking to Britain
BRITAIN’s first online rail ticketing system went live on Thursday February 25. Tickets and seat reservations where available can be ordered with secure payment over the internet for services operated by all 25 British franchises using software developed by Virgin Trains and IT specialists Cap Gemini. TheTrainLine is part of ...
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BNSF boosts spending
ON MARCH 8 Burlington Northern Santa Fe announced a $2·5bn capital spending plan for 1999. This is a similar amount to recent previous years, so that by the end of 1999 BNSF will have invested almost $10bn over a four-year period.Nearly a third of the 1999 programme, $812m, will go ...
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Dutch bloomers
NS Groep NV has raised its net operating profit by just over 20% to 197m guilders, largely by improved performance from the passenger business NS Reizigers. Revenue grew by 9%, but operating costs fell, despite a 5% increase in the number of trains running from May 1998, and a fares ...
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Underground PPP bids soon
ON MARCH 15 London Transport announced that a formal procurement process for the London Underground Public-Private Partnership would start ’later in the spring’. Invitations to tender will be issued before the end of this year for three infrastructure companies - Sub Surface Lines, Infraco BCV (Bakerloo, Central, Victoria and Waterloo ...
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Berlin seen as centre of signalling expertise
Stuttgart-based Alcatel SEL has picked Berlin as a key location for development of radio-based train control systems. According to Friedrich Smaxwil, Chief Executive of Alcatel SEL’s transport business, between DM100m and DM120m may be spent in the next five to 10 years on developing the European Rail Traffic Management System ...
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Berlin U-Bahn needs repairs
BERLIN transport operator BVG has revealed that it needs to spend DM330m over the next five years for urgent repairs on the three U-Bahn routes serving the eastern part of the city. Decaying steelwork and water leaks have weakened the tunnel structures, and many stations are in need of major ...
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First blast launches Gotthard base tunnel
Sedrun's access shaft was the scene of the first blasting work for the Gotthard base tunnel on February 4. Andrew Hellawell was there to witness it first hand
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ONCFM awards signalling deal
MOROCCAN National Railways awarded a contract worth 53m euros to Alstom Transport on March 8 for resignalling work over the next four years. The contract covers 550 km from Kenitra to Oujda, which is electrified as far as Fes, and 200 km of the southern line from Sidi El ...
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Asturian link completed
SPANISH narrow gauge operator Feve inaugurated a cross-city link through the Asturian capital Oviedo on February 4. Separate termini built by different private railways serving eastern and western routes have been replaced by a new cross-city route, serving metre-gauge platforms within Renfe’s broad gauge station. Total cost of the project ...
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Exhibitors bank on Asian market revival
INTRO: Singapore Expo CentreApril 14-16SINGAPORE is the host city for the Exporail (Asia) 99 trade exhibition, being staged on April 14-16 at the Singapore Expo Centre. Organised by Interfama Brooks Exhibitions, the show is taking place at the same venue as the 1999 International Symposium on Public Transit for the ...
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Profits up at Ansaldo Signal
PRESENTing its results for the 1998 financial year on March 10, Ansaldo Signal reported revenue of US$354·5m, up 11·4% from 1997. Gross profit was up 40·2% at $77·1m and net income was $6·5m or $0·32 per share. This compares with Wall Street estimates of $0·15 for 1998 and a loss ...
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SRT investment hits all time high
BYLINE: Saravudh DhamasiriGeneral ManagerState Railway of ThailandDOUBLE TRACKING, electrification, new rolling stock and resignalling are spearheading investment plans in Thailand. More than 180bn baht (US$4·5bn) will be spent by SRT over the next 10 years.The package of modernisation measures includes construction of several new lines (Table I), which will in ...
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Brisbane airport BOT
QUEENSLAND’s state government has awarded a build-operate-transfer concession to the Airtrain Citylink consortium for construction of an 8·5 km rail link to Brisbane airport at a cost of A$223m. Work is expected to take two years, followed by a 35-year operating period before the line is handed over to the ...
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WMATA looks ahead
WITH COMPLETION of the US capital’s 166 km metro network approaching after 30 years, planners in Washington DC are discussing possible extensions, to serve new suburbs and raise daily ridership to 2 million.Favoured projects include a new Red line station at Florida and New York Avenues, extension of the Blue ...
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Madrid metro extends again
ON MARCH 3 the President of the City of Madrid inaugurated a 2·8 km extension of metro Line 1, which has been built at a cost of Pts8·9bn. It is the eighth in a series of metro extensions to be opened in the Spanish capital over the last 15 months ...
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NewsAcela relaunches Northeast Corridor
As the first of Amtrak's fleet of high-speed trainsets for the Washington DC - New York - Boston corridor prepares to start test running at Pueblo, infrastructure upgrading is in full swing along the route.
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Series 700 derivative will replace Doctor Yellow
INTRO: JR Central is developing a Shinkansen infrastructure inspection train able to measure track and overhead wire parameters at 270 km/hBYLINE: Seiichi IshizuChief Engineer, Technical Research & Development Division, Central Japan RailwayKNOWN as Dr Yellow because of its bright canary paint scheme, JR Central’s Shinkansen Multiple Inspection Train is a ...
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Brief Encounter with Mega 3
INTRO: Richard Hope takes a ride with an innovative multi-purpose piggyback/container wagon designed for the restrictive British loading gaugeA TEST RUN from Derby to Carnforth and back, one of three carried out during February by Serco, provided an opportunity to assess the ride quality at 145 km/h of Babcock Rail’s ...
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Taiwan tendering starts
THIS MONTH is due to see the start of pre-construction works for the 345 km Taipei - Kaohsiung high speed line, paving the way for civil engineering to begin in earnest at the end of May. During January BOT concessionaire Taiwan High Speed Rail Consortium issued tender documents for the ...
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Sidetrack
Play on, play onIN A BID to brighten up some of its stations, which our correspondent describes as ’architecturally challenging’, and improve passengers’ perceptions of security, Rotterdam metro has decided to introduce live music. Rules on busking are to be eased, and itinerant musicians will be encouraged to come and ...