All articles by Railway Gazette International – Page 1343
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News
Gayssot completes TGV Est funding package
CONSTRUCTION of the long-planned high-speed line between Paris and Strasbourg will begin next year, with revenue services expected to start in 2005-06. On January 29 French Transport Minister Jean-Claude Gayssot signed an accord with other partners in what is now known as TGV Est-Européen. This sets out the funding for ...
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Contracts cut commissioning
Substantial efficiency gains have been achieved by Denmark’s infrastructure manager, Banestyrelsen, thanks to a law introduced on January 1 1997 which requires materials and work to be procured by open tender - although it has not been fully applied yet.Director of Infrastructure Services Jesper Toft told AiC’s Infrastructure Maintenance & ...
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Virgin Rail signs West Coast train order
On February 9 British inter-city train operator Virgin Rail Group signed the long-awaited Train Service Provision leasing deal for Alstom Transport and Fiat Ferroviaria to design, supply and maintain a fleet of 225 km/h tilting trains to operate its West Coast inter-city franchise. The deal is valued at 1·8bn euros, ...
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CN plans for the next millennium
BYLINE: Paul M TellierPresident & Chief Executive OfficerCanadian National RailwayCANADIAN NATIONAL has taken decisive steps to meet the challenges and opportunities of the next millennium. By the end of this year CN and its customers will be positioned to reap the benefits of the increasing integration of the North American ...
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City NEWS
CAPTION: Helsinki Transport has started testing the first of 20 Variotrams ordered from Adtranz and Rautaruukki Oy in July 1996. The bodies were built at Otanmäki, to a design styled by Creadedesign, with trucks from Siegen, six IGBT inverters from Mannheim and 12 x 45 kW traction motors from Wien. ...
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DB Cargo - MThB pact
GERMAN Freight operator DB Cargo signed a co-operation agreement with Switzerland’s Mittelthurgau Railway on February 2. MThB operates the 40 km line from Konstanz on the German border to Wil, which already carries 1 million tonnes of freight a year.Both railways see considerable potential for growth, and the agreement is ...
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Deregulation changes the face of Canadian railroading
Since the Canada Transportation Act came into force in 1996, the country's rail industry has undergone a dramatic transformation, with modernisation and restructuring at the two big national operators matched by a mushrooming of small and medium-sized feeder railways
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Ferroban moves to Campinas
RESTRUCTURING is getting under way at the former São Paulo state railway Fepasa following its transfer to the Ferrovias Bandeirantes SA concessionaire on January 1. Ferroban President José Lindoso de Albuquerque announced on January 24 that the board of directors had decided to move the railway’s headquarters to Campinas, where ...
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Kaohsiung BOT moves closer
CONSTRUCTION of the long-planned four-line metro in the Taiwanese second city Kaohsiung is set to get under way in 2001, with two routes totalling 42·7 km now expected to open in stages between 2004 and 2007. Kaohsiung has grown rapidly in recent years, and now has over 3 million inhabitants. ...
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Partnerships to boost income
ON JANUARY 20 Amtrak President & CEO George Warrington announced a series of ’business partnerships’ intended to cut costs and generate extra revenue, as part of a programme to enable the US national passenger operator to break even by 2002. A seven-year contract with airline caterer Dobbs International Services will ...
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Darwin bidders get serious
All three groups chosen to submit bids by March 31 to build and operate the 1410 km railway from Alice Springs to Darwin have recruited new members, raising hopes that the project may finally go ahead. The successful bidder would also lease the line from Alice to Tarcoola on the ...
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Berlin S-Bahn offers panoramic tours
CAPTION: A three-car Panorama S-Bahn trainset converted from 1943-built Class 477 vehicles has been unveiled at the S-Bahn Berlin GmbH main workshop at Sch
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Paris ticketing roll-out begins
Schlumberger has begun deployment of a new design of ticket-issuing terminal across all RATP’s stations. A pilot installation of 40 machines at key stations on the Paris Métro has proved successful, and so Schlumberger has begun installation at all other stations; when complete, there will be over 1000 machines in ...
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BART cars refurbished
ON JANUARY 14, San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit District unveiled the first three of 439 Rohr cars to be remanufactured by Adtranz in Pittsburg, under a $454m contract due to be completed in 2002. Built more than 25 years ago, the cars are being converted from DC to AC ...
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More Madrid - Barcelona contracts let
On February 12 the Spanish government gave its approval for the letting of a Pts4·4bn contract for civil works on the 23 km Aldeanueva de Guadalajara - Gajanejos section of the Madrid - Barcelona high speed line. The contract is expected to take 14 months.High speed infrastructure authority Gestor de ...
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Rivals back competing routes to viability
ANYONE seeking an insight into high level thinking on the strategic plans of European Railways would have been well rewarded by attending the EuroRail Congress ’99, staged in Paris on January 26-28 by AiC Worldwide. Delegates were treated to agenda-setting presentations and forthright views from senior figures on competition, open ...
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DB back on the defensive
DESPITE the widely-trumpeted reform programme that puts German Railway on a fresh footing with a holding company and quasi-independent subsidiaries, the organisation’s trials and tribulations are far from over. Problems with the Class 611 tilting diesel sets continue, and the latest timetables show a 20min journey time increase on the ...
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Sydneysiders await Millennium double-deckers
INTRO: From 2001 commuters in Australia’s largest city are set to benefit from a fleet of 20 double-deck trains to be built and maintained by Clyde Engineering. These fourth generation Millennium trains will continue the progress achieved by the Tangara fleet, with the latest traction equipmentBYLINE: Colin F G Butcher*Director,ACB ...
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Wien avoiding line under way
LAST MONTH was due to see work start on a long-planned chord through the southwest suburbs of Wien, allowing freight trains to avoid the city. Starting at Hadersdorf-Weidlingau on the Westbahn, the line runs in the 13 km Lainzer tunnel to Hetzendorf on the Südbahn. A spur continues southeast to ...
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RZD launches Blue Arrow
RUSSIAN Railways has put into traffic a second ER200 high-speed train, and accelerated the premier inter-city service between Moscow and St Petersburg. Introduction of the additional 200 km/h trainset, known as the Blue Arrow, on January 14 has allowed the original ER200 to be taken out of use for a ...