All articles by Railway Gazette International – Page 966
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NewsCable production joint venture agreed
INDIA: Cable manufacturers Nexans and Polycab signed an agreement on March 3 establishing a joint venture to produce cables for the rail, maritime, materials handling, high voltage and wind power markets. Nexans will hold a majority stake in the joint venture, which will be based at Vadodara in Gujarat. ...
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NewsBrussels buys more Boa metro trains
BELGIUM: Brussels transport operator STIB signed a contract for an additional six metro trains with Spanish rolling stock supplier CAF on February 25, with an option on a further seven. The order is an extension of the original contract for 15 of the Boa trains which was signed in ...
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NewsAndalucian tram projects
SPAIN: Plans to build three new tram systems in Andalucía are progressing. Following signature of an agreement between the mayor of Chiclana and the Andalucian Minister of Transport on February 2, a €51·4m tender will shortly be launched for the 3·5 km seven-station Chiclana section of the Bahía de Cádiz ...
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NewsIndustry News in Brief
Under a strategy to reduce cyclical demand, which makes it hard to maintain staff skills needed to work with small vehicle fleets, Stadler and Rhätische Bahn are to co-operate in the overhaul and repair of metre-gauge vehicles. Stadler will be general contractor and responsible for engineering, while RhB will undertake ...
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NewsIarnród Éireann orders DMUs
IRELAND: Iarnród Éireann has placed a €140 order for 51 DMU cars with a partnership of Mitsui, Hyundai Rotem and Tokyu Car Corp. The vehicles will be delivered in the second half of 2011 for use on longer distance commuter services into Dublin from Dundalk, Kildare and Longford. They ...
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NewsShanghai - Hangzhou high speed line groundbreaking
CHINA: A groundbreaking ceremony in Shanghai on February 26 marked the formal start of construction works on a 160 km passenger dedicated line which will halve journey times between Shanghai and Hangzhou to 38 min from 2011. The line forms one side of a triangular high speed network which ...
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NewsNews in Brief
Following the completion of a major modernisation programme, last month Russian Railways transferred Moscow Kurskaya station to the BFM-Kursky subsidiary of Mirax Group under a five-year management concession. ‘Kurskaya railway station will become the pride of Russian Railways and Moscow’, said the head of RZD’s stations department, ...
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NewsInner Mongolia coal line
CHINA: The construction of a 350 km railway from Baotau in Inner Mongolia to Ganqimaodu on the Mongolian border has been launched by Shenhua Group Corp. The 4·7bn yuan line is expected open in 2011, and will have the capacity to carry 60 million tonnes of coal and copper ...
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NewsGreen and black money
DENMARK: Parliament agreed a DKr94bn transport infrastructure plan running to 2020 on January 29. This brings forward infrastructure projects which had been planned for 2010 onwards, and was described by Transport Minister Lars Barfoed as ‘two-thirds green, one third black’, reflecting the split between public transport and roads. ...
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NewsUniversity link funded
USA: A full-funding grant agreement for the 5·1 km University Link light rail extension in Seattle was signed by Sound Transit and the Federal Transit Administration on January 15. This provides federal funding to cover 40% of the $1·9bn cost, conditional on a $127m increase in the contingency reserve to ...
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NewsIstanbul extends
TURKEY: Four more stations were opened in Istanbul on January 30, when heavy metro Line M2 was extended to 15 km. Sishane lies to the south of Taksim, and Sanayi Mahallesi, ITU Ayazaga and Atatürk Oto Sanayi are north of 4 Levent. End-to-end journey time is 25 min. The extensions ...
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NewsCool pictures of Velaro RUS
AUSTRIA: Two vehicles from the Russian variant of Siemens' Velaro high speed train family are being subjected to extreme conditions at the Rail Tec Arsenal climatic wind tunnel in Wien. One Velaro RUS driving car and one intermediate vehicle have been sent from the Krefeld factory for testing. ...
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NewsResearch cuts 25 kV insulator failures
INDIA: A better understanding of processes, materials and standards used by manufacturers of solid core porcelain insulators has the potential to cut mechanical failures from five to two a year per 10 000 installed. The higher service reliability should help Indian Railways lift annual freight tonnage from 800 to 1 ...
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NewsDelhi metro car delivered by air
INDIA: The first of 424 Bombardier metro cars for Delhi arrived in India onboard an Antonov Airlines AN-124-100M high capacity freight aircraft on February 26. The 45 tonne, 22·5 m long and 3·2 m wide metro car had been moved by road from Bombardier's Görlitz plant in eastern Germany ...
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NewsSolid growth at wagon builder
IRS: Wagon manufacturer International Railway Systems saw substantial growth in output during 2008, despite ‘problems that impacted the entire industry’. The Luxembourg-based company’s 14 plants in the Czech Republic, Germany, Romania, Slovakia and Switzerland produced 4 400 wagons in 2008, up from 3 880 in 2007. ‘I am very pleased ...
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NewsFree travel marks opening of Epping - Chatswood link
AUSTRALIA: The Epping to Chatswood rail link in the northern suburbs of Sydney opened on February 23, with New South Wales Premier Nathan Rees joining state Transport Minister David Campbell to ride the first train. The link is currently being operated as an Epping - Chatswood shuttle, with trains ...
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NewsBilbao Line 3 tendering launched
SPAIN: Basque infrastructure authority Euskal Trenbide Sarea has launched a tender to construct the first phase of Bilbao metro Line 3 between Etxebarri and Txurdinaga, which includes 2·1 km of tunnel and two new stations, with a budget of €65·5m and an execution period of 45 months. Offers were to ...
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NewsVictorians seek more VLocity
AUSTRALIA: The Victoria state government has awarded Bombardier Transportation a €75m contract to supply a further 32 VLocity DMU cars. They will be delivered in 2010-11 as a mix of two and three car sets. VLocity DMUs entered service on 1 600 mm gauge V/Line Passenger routes between ...
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NewsFreight loco sets off for Australia
AUSTRALIA: Siemens' München-Allach plant has rolled out the first of 23 electric locomotives ordered by Pacific National in 2007. The 1 067 mm gauge Class 7100 locos will be used on coal traffic in Queensland. The first is due to arrive in Brisbane at the beginning of April, with the ...
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NewsErie scales back
GE: Locomotive production at General Electric Transportation’s Erie plant is to be cut by approximately 40% this year in response to the global economic slowdown. The company expects to complete around 485 locos in 2009, compared with 861 in 2008 and 907 in 2007. Around 350 of the 5 600 ...