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2007 in rail transport

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2007 in rail transport

This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 2007.

Contents

January events

  • January 5 – The first public trains of Taiwan High Speed Rail operate between Taipei and Kaohsiung, a 216 miles (348 km) journey, in 90 minutes.
  • January 9 – Government of Estonia buys back majority share in Eesti Raudtee, the national rail operator, from private investors.
  • January 12 – Railway Age Magazine selects Bill Wimmer, Vice President Engineering for Union Pacific Railroad to receive the 2007 award for Railroader of the Year.
  • January 30 – The suburban rail network of Melbourne, Australia is thrown into chaos as much of the fleet of new Siemens Electric Multiple Unit trains is withdrawn from service after a number of incidents of brake failure.

    • February events

  • February 7 – At a meeting in Tbilisi, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev sign an agreement authorizing construction of the new Kars-Tiblisi-Baku railway linking the three nations.
  • February 9 – About 2,800 train crew employees of Canadian National Railway (CN) wage a strike action against the railway; the striking workers are members of UTU Canada, the Canadian affiliate of the United Transportation Union.
  • February 13 – During a test run a TGV train reaches 553 km/h (343.75 mph) under test conditions with a shortened train on the LGV Est near Passavant-en-Argonne (Marne), 190 km east of Paris.
  • February 18 – 2007 Samjhauta Express bombings: Terrorist explosions on the international Samjhauta Express near the Indian city of Panipat kill 68.
  • February 23 – Grayrigg derailment: A Virgin Trains services travelling from London Euston to Glasgow Central derails in Cumbria in North-West England due to an inadequate points maintenance regime by Network Rail; one elderly woman dies in hospital as a result of her injuries.
  • February 26 – The United States Federal Railroad Administration delivers its decision to deny a US$2.3 billion loan request made by Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad (DME).

    • March events

  • March 25 – The rebuilt Takahatafudō Station, serving the Keiō Line and the Tama Toshi Monorail Line in Japan opens.

    • April events

  • April 3 – The French TGV sets a new train speed record. The train reached 574.8 km/h (357.2 mph).
  • April 7 – Weekday service begins on T Third Street light-rail line in San Francisco, leading to massive delays in the city's Muni Railway system.
  • April 23 – Trial runs on 250 km long Eskişehir-Ankara part of 533 km long High-speed train line from Istanbul (Turkey's largest metropolis) to Ankara (capital of Turkey) began.
  • April 23 – Construction begins on the Second Avenue Subway in New York City between 63rd and 105th streets, a resumption of a decades-long project with existing segments elsewhere.
  • April 28 – The Orange Line of Montreal Metro is extended 5.2 km to Montmorency in Laval.

    • June events

  • June 8 – Last Orient Express through overnight service from Paris to Vienna runs.
  • June 10 – The first section of LGV Est, a high-speed rail line, opens in France. This coincides with improvements to the German rail network to cut travel times from Paris to Eastern France and Germany.
  • June 15 – Revenue freight traffic starts to use the Lötschberg Base Tunnel in the Swiss Alps.
  • June 28 – Guangzhou Metro's Line 4 extension connecting Huangge to Jinzhou opens.
  • June – $20m allocated for planning and land acquisition for the proposed Australian Inland Railway.

    • July events

  • July 1 – Kampac Oil of Dubai, as consortium leader, is awarded a construction and operation contract for a new railway line in Ghana connecting Takoradi 800 kilometres (500 mi) to Hamile. The contract, valued at US$1.6 billion, also includes the rehabilitation of a line between Takoradi and Kumasi as part of the Ghanaian government's plans to connect to northern Ghana.
  • July 18 – Metronet, holder of the maintenance contract for a majority of the London Underground lines, seeks authority of the Mayor of London to go into Administration following a dispute about responsibility for cost overruns on its contract.

    • August events

  • August 30 – Trubnaya station opened on Moscow Metro.

    • October events

  • October 1 – Ferrovías Guatemala (subsidiary of Railroad Development Corporation) suspends all operations.
  • October 31 – MBTA Commuter Rail Greenbush Line opens in Massachusetts.
  • – Last publication of the monthly OAG Rail Guide, successor to the ABC Railway Guide timetable of 1853.

    • November events

  • November 7 – Minsk Metro Moskovskaya Line gets extended to Uruchye.
  • November 11 – West Midlands train operating company franchise is taken over from Silverlink and Central Trains by London Midland (a Govia company) and the East Midlands franchise from Midland Mainline and Central Trains by East Midlands Trains. National Express Group is the principal loser in these changes. Arriva Trains Cross Country Limited (Arriva Group) takes over a revised Cross-Country franchise from Virgin CrossCountry, branding services as CrossCountry. The London Overground rail franchise commences operation, effectively returning the lines involved to public control.
  • November 13 – Strikes in France begin to disrupt SNCF and Paris Metro service.
  • November 14 – High Speed 1 is opened with public passenger services into rebuilt St Pancras International.
  • November 14 – Gewerkschaft Deutscher Lokomotivführer (GDL, or German Train Drivers' Union) engages in a national three-day strike against Deutsche Bahn.
  • November 26 – LYNX light-rail service begins in Charlotte, North Carolina.

    • December events

  • December 2 – Two railway companies, the Mass Transit Railway Corporation and the Kowloon Canton Railway Corporation are merged.
  • December 8 – Sretensky Bulvar station opened on the Lyublinskaya Line of Moscow Metro.
  • December 9 – National Express East Coast (NXEC Trains Ltd) takes over the British East Coast Main Line train operating franchise from GNER.
  • December 11 – freight service to resume between South Korea and North Korea.
  • December 18 – Grand Central Railway, a new rail operator in England, inaugurates passenger services from Sunderland to London King's Cross.
  • December 23 - The Madrid–Valladolid high-speed rail line opens to passengers in Spain, including the 28 kilometres (17 mi) Guadarrama Tunnel, the fourth longest railway tunnel in Europe.
  • December 24 – Moscow Metro Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line gets extended from Park Pobedy to Strogino.
  • December 28 – SPRINTER light-rail service begins in San Diego County, California.
  • – Regular passenger-train service begins in the Lötschberg Base Tunnel in the Swiss Alps.
  • – High-speed train service is expected to be extended from the current Madrid-Tarragona route to Barcelona.

    • Unknown date events

  • – The Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad expects to complete construction on the railroad's expansion into Wyoming's Powder River Basin.
  • – High speed train service, using newly built ICE trainsets from Siemens, is expected to open between Moscow and Saint Petersburg, Russia.
  • – SNCF is expected to open new high speed train service between Paris and Frankfurt; annual ridership estimates at the time of the service announcement in 2005 are as high as 1.5 million per year.
  • – SNCF is expected to launch a new TGV Est service from Paris through Luxembourg, southwest Germany and Switzerland using new TGV Duplex (double-decker) equipment built by Alstom.
  • – The Vossloh locomotive plant in Valencia, Spain, is expected to begin assembly of the new EMD Euro 4000 model locomotive designed by Electro-Motive Diesels for sales to European railroads.
  • – Construction is expected to begin on a new rail link between India and Bhutan.
  • – The Lok Ma Chau Spur Line of the KCRC East Rail Line in Hong Kong to connect the existing KCRC East Rail to the Lok Ma Chau border crossing between Hong Kong and China is expected to be completed and opened in 2007.
  • – Optimistic opinions on the Donetsk Metro construction estimate the first line of the system will open.
  • – The Eskişehir-Ankara part of 533 km long High-speed train line from Istanbul (Turkey's largest metropolis) via Eskişehir to Ankara (capital of Turkey), is expected to be opened in 2007 reducing the traveling time from 6–7 hours to 3 hours 10 minutes.
  • – The construction of a railway linking Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan will start in the second half of 2007.

    • Accidents

  • January 7 – A Washington Metro train derails near downtown Washington, D.C., sending 16 people to the hospital and prompting the rescue of 60 people from a tunnel.
  • February 18 – The 2007 Samjhauta Express bombings were a terrorist attack that occurred on the Samjhauta Express near the Indian city of Panipat, 80 kilometres (50 mi) north of New Delhi. Sixty-eight people were killed.
  • February 23 – Grayrigg derailment: A Virgin Trains services travelling from London Euston to Glasgow Central derails in Cumbria in North-West England. One elderly woman dies in hospital as a result of her injuries.
  • June 5 – Kerang train crash: Eleven people died in a level crossing collision near Kerang, Victoria, Australia.
  • June 12 – A train on the Atlantic Coast Line in Cornwall collides with a car at Chapel level crossing, on the outskirts of Newquay.
  • July 15 – In Shanghai, platform-edge doors caused a fatal accident. A man tried to force his way onto a crowded train at the station for the Shanghai Indoor Stadium, but failed. When the doors closed, he was trapped between the platform doors and the train, leading to his death.
  • August 1 – The Benaleka train crash in the Democratic Republic of Congo kills over 100.
  • December 19 – Mehrabpur train derailment occurred near Mehrabpur in Pakistan killing 40.

    • February deaths

  • February 23 – Robert W. Richardson, American railroad historian, dies (b. 1910).

    • August deaths

  • August 9 – Walter Rich, Chairman of Delaware Otsego Corporation, New York, Susquehanna and Western Railroad and Central New York Railroad (b. 1946).

    • December deaths

  • December 24 – George Warrington, president of Amtrak 1998-2002, executive director of New Jersey Transit 2002-2007 (b. 1952).

    • Japan

    Awards presented by Japan Railfan Club
  • 2007 Blue Ribbon Award: Toyama Light Rail 0600 series "Portram"
  • 2007 Laurel Prize: JR East E233 series EMU and Nishi-Nippon Railroad 3000 series EMU

    • North America

    2007 E. H. Harriman Awards
    Awards presented by Railway Age magazine
  • 2007 Railroader of the Year: Bill Wimmer (UP)
  • 2007 Regional Railroad of the Year: South Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad (SKOL)
  • 2007 Short Line Railroad of the Year: RJ Corman West Virginia Lines

    • United Kingdom

    Train Operator of the Year
  • 2007: (not yet announced)

    • References

    2007 in rail transport Wikipedia
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