International Railway Journal - August 2007 - (Page 13)

In brief Marseille opens light rail Line 1 Bangkok Changchun Railway Vehicles, a subsidiary of China Northern Locomotive & Rolling Stock Industry, has been awarded a $US 65 million contract to supply 48 metro cars for Bangkok. not yet said how much it is willing to contribute to the project, or whether it will subsidise services. London The first train over the 1.7km Piccadilly Line extension to Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 ran on July 18. The line will open on March 27 2008. Transport for London (TfL) has awarded Bombardier a £36 million contract to supply and maintain an additional 36 Electrostar emu vehicles for its London Overground surface rail operations. GrantRail, Britain, and Skanska, Sweden, have been awarded a £67 million contract to convert the Canning Town Stratford line to light rail and extend it to Stratford International. Changchun Construction of the city’s first metro line will begin in 2010. The $US 792 million Line 1 will run for 12km from the main station to Weixing Square. China The Ministry of Construction says China will spend Yuan 620 billion ($US 82 billion) on metro and light rail projects over the next decade. Around 1700km of new lines will be built in 15 cities including Beijing, Guangzhou, Chongqing and Shenzhen. F RENCH President Mr Nicolas Sarkozy and the Mayor of Marseille Mr JeanClaude Gaudin have inaugurated the first of three new light rail lines in Marseille. Line 1 runs for 9km from Euromediterranee (Gantes) in the west across the city centre to Caillols in the east. The €468 million line was built in less than 30 months by the Marseille Modern Tramway (TMM) consortium, which was headed by project supervisor Egis Rail (formerly Semaly). Bombardier is delivering a fleet of 26 bi-directional 32.5m Flexity Outlook LRVs, each of which has capacity for 200 passengers. The first 2.1km section of Line 2 from Blancarde to Noailles, and a 0.6km extension from Euromediterranee to Arenc will open next year. Further extensions of Line 2 are planned and the network is expected to reach 16km by 2011. Manila The Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA) says it will invite bids for the northern extension of light metro line MRT3 by the end of the year. The 5.4km elevated extension from North to the Line 1 terminus at Monumento will cost around Pesos 6.2 billion ($US 137.8 million). Dublin Irish Rail (IE) has begun public consultation on plans to build the 5.2km Interconnector tunnel. The €1.3 billion singlebore double-track tunnel will connect Docklands and Heuston stations with a new underground station at Spencer Dock. Edinburgh Construction has started on the city’s first light rail line after the newly-elected Scottish Nationalist government failed in its bid to scrap the £545 million project. The 19.3km line will open in 2011. Paris The 1.6km extension of Météor Line 14 from Bibliothèque de François Mitterand to Olympiades opened on June 26. Paris Transport Authority (RATP) opened its new energy control and maintenance centre (PCEM) on July 6. PCEM was supplied by the Alstom-Inéo Infra consortium, and controls electricity supply to the metro and RER networks. Line B inaugurated in Toulouse T HE FRENCH city of Toulouse inaugurated its second Val-type automatic metro line on June 30. Line B runs underground for its entire 15km length from Ramonville in the south to Borderouge in the north, intersecting with Line A at Jean Jaurès Capitole in the city centre. The line has 20 stations and is controlled from the existing Line A control centre. Construction started in 2002 and the line was built by Siemens as a turnkey project, which included the supply of 56 two-car Val 208 trains. Hong Kong MTR Corporation is seeking a $HK 10 billion ($US 1.3 billion) loan to facilitate its proposed merger with Kowloon Canton Railway. If the merger plan is approved by minority shareholders, MTR will be required to cut fares across the combined network and cannot raise them until June 2009. R OTTERDAM Electric Tramway (RET) is set to become the world’s largest operator of Citadis LRVs after selecting Alstom as its preferred bidder for a €100 million contract to supply an additional 53 LRVs. The 30m LRVs will be delivered from mid-2009 and will take RET’s Citadis fleet to 113. The contract is expected to be signed in October. Rio de Janeiro Metro operator Opportrans has had its concession to operate the Metro extended until 2037. Opportrans will extend Line 2 from São Cristovão to Central Station by 2009, and buy 18 more six-car trains. Lima Metro Lima is expected to invite bids for a concessionaire to operate the city’s 9.2km metro line. The new operator will have to build an 11.7km nine-station extension to Hospital 2 de Mayo, although the Peruvian government has Shenzhen A consortium of Siemens and China Railway Signal & Communication (CRSC) has been awarded a €28 million contract to supply signalling systems for the extension of Line 1. IRJ 13

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of International Railway Journal - August 2007

Contents This month News Market News Transit News News Analysis Voith Goes For Maxima Impact First Gauge-Changeable Loco Under Test Power Surge China Feels the Need For Speed A Firm Foundation For Chinese High-Speed Testing Times on the Betuwe Route Tough Tests For Mass Transit Software A Measure of Success Rendezvous Full Contact List Advertisers Index The Last Word

International Railway Journal - August 2007

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