THE board of the Asian Development Bank has approved a $US 360m loan for Bangladesh Railways (BR) to finance the modernisation of the company’s locomotive and rolling stock fleet. BR plans to acquire 40 new broad-gauge locomotives, 125 luggage vans and 1000 freight wagons by the end of June 2022. The total cost of the
LONDON’s Thameslink Programme moved a step closer to completion on February 26 with the launch of through services from Brighton and Horsham to Peterborough and Cambridge via London Bridge and Farringdon. Initially six off-peak services a day will operate through the new 1km link the low-level platforms at St Pancras International on the Thameslink core section with
Australia: Victoria’s Level Crossing Removal Authority has selected Coleman Rail and Lendlease Engineering for the A$588m Southern Programme to eliminate crossings on Melbourne’s Frankston line and build a stabling facility at Kananook. China: Alstom and Casco are to supply Urbalis CBTC for the first phase of Chengdu driverless metro Line 9. Germany: DB Netz has
NETHERLANDS: The Qbuzz subsidiary of FS Group company Busitalia has been formally awarded its first combined main line rail and bus operating contract in the Netherlands. The concession covers bus services in Drechtsteden, Alblasserwaard and Vijfheerenlanden municipalities in the area between Utrecht and Rotterdam, as well as the MerwedeLingelijn regional rail route between Geldermalsen and
SPANISH rolling stock manufacturer Talgo signed new orders worth €700m in 2017, the highest figure since 2011 as the company’s order backlog reached €2.8bn. Talgo reported a net turnover of €384.4m in 2017, which compared with €579.8m in 2016. The manufacturer says this decline is the result of the natural execution of its primary manufacturing
A milestone in the preparations for the opening of the core section of the Crossrail east-west link across London was reached on the night of February 25-26, when a Bombardier class 345 Aventra EMU ran under its own power for the first time through the tunnel beneath the River Thames. The train began its journey
DYNAMIC testing of the first Alstom Prima T8 double-unit electric locomotive for Indian Railways (IR) has begun at the Electric Locomotive Factory at Madhepura in the Indian state of Bihar. Alstom was awarded a Rs 230bn ($US 3.54bn) contract in November 2015 to supply 800 1676mm-gauge Prima T8s, which are classified WAG-12 by Indian Railways. The contract
INDIA: Three new footbridges intended to reduce congestion at key stations on the Mumbai suburban network were formally commissioned on February 27, at a ceremony attended by Minister of Railways Piyush Goyal and the Chief Minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis. The bridges at Elphinstone Road, Currey Road and Ambivili have been erected ‘as a matter
GREATER Vancouver Transportation Authority (Translink) announced on February 22 that it is bringing forward the acquisition of new trains for the SkyTrain automated metro network with the acquisition of 28 Hyundai Rotem cars for the Expo and Millennium lines. TransLink says the order will enable it to increase peak capacity and frequencies as passenger numbers continue to
UK: Network Rail has appointed Preservica to create a cloud-based digital archive to preserve and provide secure access to operational information and digital assets. This will include business information generated since 2002, and digitised heritage content including organisational, corporate and operational records such as annual company reports, board meeting minutes, timetables and marketing campaigns dating
