Rail conquers the Alps

Railway Gazette International | December 2014 7
Main Line INTELLIGENCE
SWITZERLAND
Golden
sleeper
Tracklaying in the 57 km Gotthard base
tunnel was completed at 12.00 on October
31, when the concrete was poured
for a ‘Golden Sleeper’ 54 m from the
southern portal.
Installation of the railway systems is
being undertaken by the Transtec Gotthard
consortium, within which Balfour
Beatty Rail and Renaissance Construction
(formerly Alpine Bau) are responsible
for tracklaying. Installation of
Sonneville low-vibration track with
290 km of rail, 380 000 concrete sleeper
blocks and 131 000 m 3 of concrete took
39 months, employing 125 workers in
shifts around the clock, seven days a week.
Electrification and signalling are due
to be commissioned over the next 12
months, ready for the start of full test
running in the autumn of 2015; testing
at up to 220 km/h has been underway
for some months, using a 13 km section
of one bore.
Alptransit Gotthard has set June 2
2016 as its target date for the opening
ceremony. It will then hand over the
tunnels to Swiss Federal Railways, allowing
six months for driver training
before the start of commercial operations
with the December 2016 timetable
change. n
Transtec Gotthard
Chairman Marco
Hirzel said it was
‘only thanks to
advance planning
and co-operation
between the 720
people engaged
in this work that
we can achieve the
goal of a timely
handover’.
NEWS IN BRIEF
PKP Intercity closed its VIP zones
last month, citing lack of use. The
first of the high-standard first class
lounges offering inclusive catering
and newspapers opened in Warszawa
in 2007, with Wrocław and Kraków
following.
India’s Ministry of Railways and South
Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure
& Transport signed a memorandum
of understanding for technical cooperation
in the rail sector in Seoul on
November 17.
A ceremony in Nürnberg on November
5 launched construction of a new
€3·5m depot for DB Netz’s fleet of 850
track maintenance vehicles.
Indian Railways’ first station wi-fi
installation has been inaugurated at
Bangalore City. The RailWire wi-fi
programme covering all category A
and A1 stations is being undertaken by
the Ministry of Railways’ RailTel Corp
business. Access is free for 30 min, and
passengers can buy further time using
scratch cards or online.
NIGERIA
Coastal Railway contract signed
Nigeria’s federal government and China Railway
Construction Corp officially signed the US$11·97bn
contract to build the 650 km Nigerian Coastal
Railway linking Calabar in the east to Aba, Port
Harcourt, Warri, Benin City and Lagos in the
west at a ceremony in Abuja on November 19.
According to CRCC, the deal is the single largest
international contract awarded to a Chinese firm.
CRCC’s parent company China Civil Engineering
Construction Corp has been developing the project
since 2010, and signed a framework agreement on
May 5 during a visit by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang
ITALY
FS Group privatisation options
The Ministry of Economics & Finance is to ‘consider
the various feasible options’ for the privatisation
of some or all of the Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane
Group, Managing Director Michele Mario
Elia said on November 5. Speaking on the fringes
of the European Rail Summit (p3), Elia said any
decision on future restructuring of the group
would be taken by the government, currently the
sole shareholder. ‘In my personal opinion, the priority
today is to retain the integrity of the group’,
Elia explained, ‘but this does not preclude possible
future options for partial privatisation.’
FS has ongoing plans to maximise the commercial
activities of parts of the group, including
station and property arm Grandi Stazioni and its
power transmission operations. Elia said options
would be assessed with a view to implementation
from 2016.
who committed to providing investment and
expertise (RG 6.14 p12).
The east-west corridor will augment NRC’s
existing north-south lines running inland from
Lagos and Port Harcourt to Kaduna as well as the
Warri – Ajaokuta – Abuja line. The railway is to be
built to ‘Chinese standards’ suitable for maximum
speeds of 120 km/h, and requiring 1 385 km of
1 435 mm gauge track. The project will require
Chinese exports totalling US$4bn, including
construction machinery, steel products and rolling
stock. l
Meanwhile, Elia restated FS’s commitment to
strengthening its operations in countries ‘close to
Italy’. He saw further opportunities for its Netinera
subsidiary to win operating concessions in
Germany, and hoped that the Thello joint venture
with Transdev could introduce more trains between
Italy and France, building on the Marseille
– Milano service launching on December 14. Next
June’s Expo 2015 in Milano would be an opportunity
to increase traffic on routes to Switzerland.
In the longer term, Elia said that he was ‘hopeful’
that the European liberalisation process would
permit FS to compete internationally on a reciprocal
basis, for example by running ETR1000 high
speed trainsets on the French network ‘in commercial
service, not just for tests’. SNCF already has a
toehold in the Italian market through its minority
share in high speed open access operator NTV. n
The Chinese government has agreed
in principle to provide a soft loan to
Thailand for construction of a line
linking Bangkok with Nong Khai.
The 4·5 km Mei Lai Road – Hoi Ting
Road twin tunnels on Hong Kong’s
Express Rail Link were broken
through on October 24.
The Alstom-led Gibela joint-venture
is to start construction in mid-2015
on a 600 000 m 2 factory in Dunnottar
to produce electric multiple-units for
Passenger Rail Authority of South
Africa (RG 7.14 p40).
The UK government has agreed to
cover the £105m cost of extending
the ongoing Great Western Main Line
electrification programme to include
the Cardiff – Swansea route. It is also to
contribute £125m towards the costs of
the Valley Lines electrification scheme.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has
pledged US$40bn to set up a fund for
infrastructure projects linking Asian
markets.
GySEV is to electrify the Hegyeshalom
– Csorna – Porpác route in western
Hungary at a cost of HF12bn.
The introduction of additional trains
on four routes from the December
timetable change means that all
stations served by Dutch national
passenger operator NS will now have
at least one train in each direction
every 30 min.
PKP Cargo subsidiary Cargosped has
launched an intermodal service from
the ports of Gdańsk and Gdynia to the
Franowo terminal in Poznań. It runs
four times a week, and is expected to
increase to daily from early 2015.