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Found 138 bulletins. The archive was last updated on 18 October 2005 and there are 2345 bulletins.
Railtrack and the Tube
British Railtrack will be barred from taking over day-to-day running of London's Underground system as part of the government's public-private partnership plans for the network, the Times newspaper said on Monday the 19th. (July 21st 1999)
Fancy bidding for the biggest project around, the London Underground, against one of your bigger customers? Thought not. The contractors and engineers lining up to pitch for the Tube's infrastructure concessions must be relieved that Railtrack's insatiable commercial appetite has been restrained to just one out of three concessions. They can get on with their bids for the other two without treading on its toes. (July 21st 1999)
Five people died in a car in Sweden on Tuesday the 22nd when the "Volvo train", loaded with truck cabs in containers en route from Göteborg to a factory in Olofström collided with the car at a crossing east of Borås on the Coast-to-Coast railway. The train weighed 310 metric tonnes and was moving at about 90 km/h; the car was pushed sideways in front of the train a distance of 500 m (see photo). The crossing is equipped with "half gates", meaning gates that cover the right half of the road. Locals say the gates weren't working properly and would be down for hours at a time without any trains coming, and so people would pass them. Rail administration Banverket concedes that communications were inadequate since locals' warnings weren't acted upon. Banverket has no safety hotline but may set one up. "Half gates" are cheaper than full-width ones but you can zig-zag between them. In any case, all such gates in Sweden, even full-width ones, are flexible so you can drive through them even on the electric start motor of your car. This is in case your motor dies when you're on the crossing. More at Borås Tidning, and in English at Infoseek. (June 26th 1999)
British Privatization: Mixed Results
British train travel maintains its upward trend, rising by 7% over last year, according to the Bulletin of Rail Statistics published by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. (June 25th 1999)
Two years later, British rail privatisation remains mired in controversy. The punctuality and reliability of train services shows no sign of improvement, while the number of complaints rises. (June 25th 1999)
The Railtrack director in charge of the £2.1bn modernisation of the west coast main line, Britain's busiest rail route, has resigned only a few days after the company finalised its plans for the first stage. (June 25th 1999)
Pre-tax profits have doubled for Richard Branson's Virgin Trains - despite its rail services being among the most unreliable. A recent report showed that Virgin's West Coast and CrossCountry services failed to achieve targets for reliability and punctuality. However, the company defends its £28m profit figure for 1998-99 as "very modest". (June 24th 1999)
California High Speed
The Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners approved a resolution asking that a statewide high-speed rail route should pass by Palmdale Regional Airport. (July 8th 1999)
Who wouldn't want to travel between Los Angeles and San Francisco on trains hitting 200 mph, completing the trip in a little more than two and a half hours?, the San Francisco Examiner asks in an editorial. Another article in the same paper is equally supportive. But their columnist begs to differ. (June 22nd/24th 1999)
The California High-Speed Rail Authority has received its staff and consultant recommendations for adoption of a statewide route designed to serve the greatest number of travelers while keeping costs and travel times at their minimum for the 200-mile-an-hour train. When adopted, the alignment will become part of the final business plan that the authority will present to the governor and the Legislature by the end of the year. See also the California High Speed Rail Authority website and their corridor alignment options. (June 18th/25th 1999)
The Australian Bluebird tourist train which services the Barossa region could be extended to the Upper Spencer Gulf on Australia's southern coast. (June 22nd 1999)
When it comes to awards for export achievement, the British Council deserves a special honour. In May it organised a one-day seminar in Switzerland to teach the managers of one of the world's best-run railway systems what they can learn from the managers of one of Europe's worst. The title of the seminar - Privatisation and Deregulation of Public Railways: Can it Work? - was pitched diplomatically. (June 17th 1999)
More than 30 "serious" applications have been made to a government fund for improving British passenger rail services, Mike Grant, the newly appointed rail franchising director says. The money is being asked for projects such as park-and-ride schemes, joint ticketing arrangements between trains and buses and more frequent train services. Proposals come from local authorities, train operating companies and private companies new to the railway industry. (June 17th 1999)
BAA, the UK airport authority which owns airports including London Heathrow and Gatwick, is considering setting up further rail links from central London to Heathrow after a rise in passenger numbers on its Heathrow Express service. (June 8th 1999)
France has dropped its reservations about a new rail tunnel under the Alps linking Lyons and Turin in Italy in the wake of the fire in the Mont Blanc road tunnel two months ago. A firm decision could be taken at a Franco-Italian summit in 2000. (June 8th 1999)
Canadian officials launched an investigation on Saturday the 6th into a bizarre series of train accidents in which a passenger train collided with a van, killing three men, and then went on to hit a woman several hours later. (June 8th 1999)