BRAZIL's federal government says it has received 81 study proposals from 19 groups for the construction of six new railway corridors totalling 4676km.

 

The projects are:

 

• the 990km Sinop, Matto Grosso – Mirituba, Pará, freight corridor, which received 16 proposals

 

• the 659km Estrela D'Oeste, São Paulo, - Dourados, Mato Grosso do Sul line, which received 15 proposals

 

• the 950km Sapezal, Mato Grosso, - Porto Velho, Rondonia, which also received 15 proposals

 

• the 457km Açailândia, Maranhão, to Barcarena, Pará, line which received 14 enquiries

 

• the 775km Anápolis, Goiânia - Corinto, Minas Gerais, line which received 11 proposals, and

 

• the 845km Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, to Guanambi, Bahia, line which received 10 proposals.

 

The interested consortia will have six months to develop studies for the Açailandia - Barcarena, Anápolis - Corinto, Belo Horizonte - Guanambi and Estrela D'Oeste - Dourados projects, and a further eight months for Sinop – Mirituba, and Sapezal - Porto Velho lines, which the government only announced that it was looking to build in late June.

 

All these new railways will operate under Brazil's new open-access model.

 

 

 

 

 

THE government of the Mexican state of Nuevo León has awarded CAF, Spain, a Peso 3.26bn ($US 251m) contract to supply and maintain 22 trains for Line 3 of the Monterrey metro.

 

In addition to the 20 year maintenance contract, CAF will provide spare parts for two years, while the contract includes an option for the purchase of four more trains for the network's operator, Mettrorey Public Transport.

 

The 8km Line 3 is currently under construction after the state government awarded a consortium of Garza Parke, Moyeda Construction and Alstom a Peso 2.17bn contract in November 2013. Mexico's Ministry of Communications and Transport (SCT) and the Nuevo León government signed a collaboration agreement for the project, which is budgeted at Pesos 5.6bn, in February 2013.

 

The line will consist of a 7km elevated section, an 800m tunnel as well as a 200m at-grade section running from Zaragoza to Metropolitan Hospital. The line will have eight stations, and will serve around 280,000 passengers per day, with the state government setting an ambitious opening date of August 2015.

 

Monterrey's existing metro network consists of the 18.5km east-west Line 1, which opened in 1991, and the 4.5km north-south Line 2, which opened in 1994, and was extended north by 8.5km in 2008.

 

 

 

 

 

 

TRTrans, a 50:50 joint venture between Alstom and Transmashholding (TMH), Russia, has obtained certification for its new 2ES5 double-unit 25kV ac electric locomotive for Russian Railways (RZD).

 

The 8.4MW freight locomotive is the first in Russia to be equipped with asynchronous traction motors. RZD has ordered 200 of the locomotives which are being built at TMH's Novocherkassk Electric Locomotive Plant. The locomotives will start to enter service on the Baikal Amur Main Line this autumn and all 200 locomotives should be delivered to RZD by 2020.

 

The 2ES5 is the second locomotive to be produced by TRTrans following the 200km/h EP20 passenger electric locomotive.

 

 

 

  

 

MEXICO's Ministry of Communications and Transport (SCT) announced on July 27 that it has issued an international invitation to tender for contracts to construct a 210km high-speed line linking Mexico City with Queretaro.

 

The project is expected to cost around $US 3.3bn and is part of a $US 9.4bn programme of freight and passenger rail projects announced by SCT in February.

 

The line will be designed for operation at up to 300km/h and is expected to carry around 23,000 passengers per day with a journey time of around 59 minutes between Buenavista station in Mexico City and Queretaro.

 

SCT says construction will start by the end of the year and commercial services are expected to begin in the second half of 2017.

 

 

 

 

CERTIFICATION testing has begun in Moscow on a new low-floor tram developed by Transmashholding (TMH) subsidiary Tver Carriage Works (TVZ) for Russian cities.

 

The type 71-911 tram has been developed specifically for Russian operating conditions and TMH says the vehicle features a patented suspension system to ensure high ride quality even on poor track.

 

The tram also has an onboard energy storage system, which enables it to operate for up to 1km without drawing power from the overhead electrification system and allows the vehicle to pass through sections where the power is switched off.

 

TMH says the modular tram can be supplied in a variety of configurations to meet the needs of different operators.

 

Testing of the prototype vehicle in Moscow is expected to take around two months to complete.

 

 

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SERVICES on the first metro line in the Peruvian capital Lima reached the northwestern suburb of San Juan de Lurigancho on July 26 with the opening of the 12.4km second phase from Miguel Grau to Bayóvar.

 

The completion of the extension takes the total length of Line 1 to 34km with 26 stations.

 

The existing fleet of five AnsaldoBreda MB-300 five-car trains is being supplemented by 19 five-car Alstom Metrópolis 9000 sets, providing capacity a six-minute interval service at peak times.

 

The line is operated by concessionaire A & M Ferrovías and a contactless smartcard system has been introduced, although this has yet to be integrated with the city's bus network.

 

Preliminary construction is expected to begin next month on the 35km Line 2 from Ate to Callao and the city's airport. The project is being implemented as a 35-year public-private partnership.

 

 

 

 

THE prime minister of Turkey, Mr Recep Erdogan, officially opened the 245km Eskişehir – Istanbul section of the 533km Ankara – Istanbul high-speed line on July 25.

 

High-speed services will initially terminate at Pendik, a suburban station 25km east of Istanbul, with a journey time from Ankara of 3h 40min. All trains will stop at Eskişehir, with four serving Izmit as well. Services will later be extended to Söğütlüçeşme in Haydarpasa on the Asian side of Istanbul. High-speed trains will start running through the Bosporus tunnel to the European side of Istanbul next year, by which time the Ankara – Istanbul journey time will be reduced to 3 hours.

 

Turkish State Railways (TCDD) will initially operate six round trips a day using its fleet of 250km/h trains supplied by CAF, Spain. TCDD has also purchased a fleet of seven 300km/h eight-car Velaro trains from Siemens for operation on the route.

 

Ankara – Istanbul YHT high-speed trains will have four classes of accommodation: business plus, business, economy plus and economy, and TCDD plans to offer a range of discounted fares to encourage people to use the new service. Train services between Eskişehir and Istanbul were suspended during the construction of the high-speed, so TCDD will have to build the traffic from scratch. Nevertheless TCDD is looking to carry 7.5 million passengers a year and to gain a 78% market share.

 

The $US 4bn project has been completed in phases. The Ankara - Polatli – Eskişehir section opened in March 2009, followed by Polatli – Konya in August 2011. A through service from Konya to Eskişehir was introduced in 2013.

 

The Ankara – Istanbul high-speed line has 31 tunnels totalling 40.8km, the longest of which is 4145m. There are 27 viaducts totalling 14.55km, plus 52 bridges.

 

TCDD is currently building four more high-speed lines: Ankara – Sivas (405km), Sivas – Erzincan (235km), Bilecik – Bursa (106km), and Polatli – Izmir (527km).

 

MOROCCAN National Railways (ONCF) has awarded a €30m contract for the first phase of its national GSM-R deployment to a consortium of Thales, Huawei, and Imet, Italy.

 

The contract covers five lines totalling 712km, including the 183km Tangiers – Kénitra high-speed line, which is currently under construction.

 

Thales will be responsible for managing the project, while Huawei will provide its GSM-R digital radio system for train-to-ground communications. The system will operate over a Huawei IP-based ATCAcore network with distributed base stations to cover tunnels. A double coverage radio access network will be deployed on the high-speed line.

 

Imet will be responsible for site design and construction and splicing fibre-optic cables.

 

ONCF plans to install GSM-R on 1923km of its 2110km network over the next nine years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Atkins has been selected as lead designer for the Doha metro Gold Line project. The east-west line from Airport City North to Al Rayyan South is scheduled to open by 2019 under Phase 1 of Qatar’s four-line metro plan.

 

The design contract announced on July 30 is worth £80m over two years. It was awarded by the consortium of Larsen & Toubro, Aktor, Yapı Merkezi, STFA Group and Al Jaber Engineering which project promoter Qatar Rail has appointed to design and build the line.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A ground-breaking ceremony at Poipet in Cambodia on July 25 marked the start of work to reinstate the cross-border railway to Thailand.

 

The ceremony was attended by Cambodia’s Deputy Minister for Public Works & Transport Guang Sun and Thailand’s Permanent Secretary for Transport Soithip Traisuth. The attendees viewed the site of a 43 m long bridge over a stream close to the border with Thailand; reconstruction of this bridge is a priority, with construction of 42 km of new 1 000 mm gauge railway between the existing Cambodian railhead at Sisophon and Poipet already underway. A further 6 km of line will be reinstated to reach the State Railway of Thailand network at Aranyaphrathet. The last trains ran on the Aranyaphrathet – Poipet line in the early 1970s.

 

The Thai government has already agreed to fund the 2·8bn baht upgrading and double-tracking of the 176 km line from Aranyaphrathet to the junction at Khlong Sib Kao, northwest of Bangkok. The Thai government has agreed to focus on implementing long-planned cross-border rail schemes ahead of the launch of the ASEAN Economic Community in 2015.

 

 

 

 

 

Military equipment manufacturer Fabricaciones Militares is to build 1 050 wagons for state-owned freight operator Trenes Argentinos Cargas y Logística SA, under a contract worth 972m pesos that was signed on July 28 in the presence of Defence Minister Agustín Rossi and Minister of the Interior & Transport Florencio Randazzo.

 

With deliveries scheduled to take place over the next two years, a new production line installed at the Río Tercero plant is to build three wagon types developed by FM following some 5 000 h of design work. Production will provide direct employment for 80 staff and also involve over 150 small and medium-sized suppliers.

 

For the 1 000 mm gauge Belgrano network, FM is to supply 50 covered grain hoppers, each with a payload of 45 tonnes. Two designs suitable for operation on 1 000 mm, 1 435 mm or 1 676 mm gauge are also to be produced: 400 flat wagons capable of carrying containers, steel coil, rail or sleepers, and 600 spine wagons each able to accommodate one 40 ft and one 20 ft container or three 20 ft containers.

 

‘We are resuming wagon production at Fabricaciones Militares because it is a strategic area for national development’, said FM Director Santiago Rodríguez. ‘Today we are leading this new stage where, through the use of the latest technology, we are developing a competitive industry which finds the best solutions for Argentinian logistics’.

 

As well as the Belgrano system, Trenes Argentinos Cargas y Logística is now also responsible for the 1 676 mm gauge San Martín and 1 435 mm gauge Urquiza networks that were formerly operated by private-sector freight concessionaire América Latina Logística SA.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A corporate reorganisation of Bombardier Inc which is scheduled for completion by January 1 2015 will not directly affect the Transportation business segment, where implementation of the ‘OneBT’ cost reduction and standardisation strategy continues as planned.

 

Following the reorganisation the group will have four business segments, all reporting directly to Bombardier Inc President & CEO Pierre Beaudoin:

 

Bombardier Transportation; Bombardier Business Aircraft; Bombardier Commercial Aircraft; Bombardier Aerostructures & Engineering Services.

 

‘This marks another step in Bombardier’s evolution,’ said Beaudoin on July 23. ‘Combined with the implementation of OneBT, the recent Bombardier Transportation reorganisation, the new Aerospace organisational structure will enable us to be more agile and flexible in addressing customer needs, while increasing our focus on growth areas.’

 

 

 

Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp has announced plans to restructure three subsidiary companies with effect from April 1 2015.

 

This would see the rail engineering activities of its NSST subsidiary merged with the railway maintenance equipment business of NSKI to form a new dedicated railway sector company, which NSSMC says would be better equipped to meet the growing market demand for suppliers to provide long-term maintenance and support services.

 

The parent company expects to see synergies between its rolling stock component and track activities in areas such as bogie monitoring.

 

The NSST subsidiary would in future focus on the steel sector, with NSKI’s steel machining business merging with similar activities within the Kantoc subsidiary.