International Railway Journal - October 2008 - (Page 7) In brief T EST operation began on September 9 on the northern section of HSL South between Hoofddorp and Rotterdam. The month-long test programme is being conducted by High Speed Alliance (HSA), a joint venture of Netherlands Railways and KLM that will operate domestic high-speed services, and infrastructure manager Prorail. The managing director of HSA says that an hourly service will begin operating between Amsterdam and Rotterdam in mid-December 2009 using the interim locomotive-hauled trains that will be used on the line until dedicated AnsaldoBreda emus are delivered. Photo: Quintus Vosman Argentina The busy Sarmiento line in Buenos Aires is set to be placed underground, with work undertaken by Ghella, Italy, and Iecsa, Argentina. The project involves 9.2km of tunnels, and stations big enough to take nine-car double-deck emus. Australia The first pair of an additional 50 Bombardier Vlocity dmu cars has entered service with Victorian regional operator V/Line. The 50 cars include 22 already under construction, another nine three-car sets and an extra intermediate car. Australian minister for innovation, science and research, Senator Kim Carr, has launched the Co-operative Research Centre for rail innovation. The Brisbanebased centre will receive a grant of $A 21 million ($US 18 million) over seven years and will attract investment of around $A 100 million during this period. It already has 26 research projects underway. Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) has finished laying concrete sleepers on its entire network between Sydney and Brisbane. The project involved installation of 515,000 sleepers, laying of 127,000 tonnes of ballast, and 350km of rail. Construction of the 30km South Sydney freight line was approved by Australian environment minister, Mr Peter Garrett in August. The environmental approval required landscaping, extra station parking and better pedestrian access to Cityrail stations. The new line will parallel Cityrail tracks and will segregate freight trains from commuter traffic. Germany and Denmark sign Fehmarn Bridge agreement HE Danish transport minister Ms Carina Christensen and her German counterpart Mr Wolfgang Tiefensee have signed a formal agreement to build a road and rail bridge across the 20km Fehmarn Belt between Rødby in Denmark and Puttgarden in Germany. The ƒ5.4 billion link has received broad political support in both countries, and when it opens in 2018, will allow rail journey times between Copenhagen and Hamburg to be cut from 4h 34min to around three hours. The Danish government is providing ƒ4.8 billion for the construction of the bridge and associated works on the Danish side. It intends to recoup this expenditure through road tolls. Germany will only have to fund its link to the bridge and will not T receive any income from the bridge’s operation. The road and rail infrastructure works proposed on the Danish side of the link are expected to cost around ƒ4.3 billion. The project will see the electrification of the existing Ringsted - Rødby line, and a second track will be laid on the Vordingborg - Rødby section. However, the bridge across the Storstrøms Belt will remain single track. The decision means plans to add a fifth track to the Hvidovre - Høje Taastrup section of the congested Copenhagen - Roskilde Ringsted line have been abandoned in favour of a new 250km/h line from Copenhagen Ny Ellebjerg to Ringsted via Køge. This will follow the E20 and E47 highways for much of its length. Globaltrans reports strong first-half growth G G ERMAN Rail (DB) subsidiary Railion Italia has been given the go-ahead to acquire a 49% stake in Italian railfreight operator NordCargo. NordCargo was spun off from Milan-based regional operator Ferrovienord in 2003, and operates international freight services between Germany and Italy, as well as domestic services in northwest Italy. It generated revenues of around ƒ34 million in 2007, and has 182 employees. Photo: Philip Wormald LOBALTRANS, Russia’s largest private railfreight operator, has recorded strong growth and large increases in profits for the first half of this year, and CEO Mr Sergey Maltsev, is confident growth will continue during the second half and into 2009. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda), less gains from the sale of assets, increased by 56% to $US 117 million while operating profit rose by 69% to $US 98.7 million. Tonne-km increased by 11% from 29.2 billion in the first half of 2007 to 32.6 billion in the first half of this year. Maltsev attributes the increase in traffic to Russia’s continuing strong economic performance, and growth in specific markets such as metals (including raw materials, iron-ore, and coking coal) which grew by 5% during the last six months. Coal traffic has also increased following a switch from oil to coal-fired power generation. Russian Railways (RZD) has increased its freight tariffs twice this year. “RZD sets the benchmark for the whole industry which enables us to increase prices to our customers,” says Maltsev. “We have also reduced our costs by reducing the number of empty runs for gondola wagons by 19%.” Globaltrans will take delivery of 2057 new wagons this year, and plans to buy another 3500 wagons next year which will enable it to increase traffic still further. Britain The £55 million resignalling of Lincoln station was completed on time in September. The extensive project saw mechanical signalling replaced by computer-controlled LED signals. China China’s state and private railways carried 1.93 billion IRJ October 2008 7
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