April 2005
Heathrow Express Terror Plot Foiled
British authorities have jailed a terrorist who planned to put ricin, a fast-acting and potentially lethal home-made poison, on hand rails and in lavatories on the Heathrow Express airport trains in London. (April 17th)DSB installs WiFi
Danish DSB is installing WiFi internet on trains between Århus and København for first class passengers by the end of the year. TDC and T-Systems are competing for the contract. (April 17th, thanks Bent Flyen)Russia to Join the 300 Club
Siemens and RZD Build 300 km/h Trains
Siemens and Russian RZD yesteday signed a €1,5bn contract for building 60 high-speed trains in Russia. The first will be delivered in 2007. They will be based on the German ICE3/Velaro train and reach 300 km/h. They will run on 1524mm track gauge, compared to the 1435mm gauge used in most of Europe. See also Reuters story in German, FAZ article in German, Ny Teknik article in Swedish, and Velaro pages at Siemens and Hochgeschwindigkeitszuege.com. (April 12th)
Moscow - St Petersburg ICE Deal Imminent
A train trip from Moscow to St Petersburg in 2008 will take three hours at 250 km/h. Russian Railways (RZD) and Siemens expect to strike a $2bn deal as early as April. Sixty trains are to be purchased for $26m each. Currently, the fastest train between St. Petersburg and Moscow takes four and a half hours. A made-in-Russia train, the Sokol, was built at the Transmash plant in the Leningrad region and was to enter service in 2002, but the project was abandoned. • A $16m deal was signed in March between RZD, Transmash and Bombardier to produce twelve dual-voltage passenger locomotives type EP10 by 2006. See also usenet discussion.
(April 3rd, thanks Dave Peilow)