UK: Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham remains confident that funding remains available for the development of a new Liverpool – Manchester railway serving Manchester Airport and a new underground station in Manchester following the recent change of government.

SWEDEN: National transport agency Trafikverket has directly awarded state operator SJ a contract to operate Stockholm – Narvik overnight trains for one year from December 15 2024, with an option for a further year.

News from the world rail freight market.

UK: Train operator Northern has reviewed its recruitment processes with the aim of ensuring that applicants with neurodivergent conditions are better supported.

INTERNATIONAL: Investors EQT Future and Kühne Holding have agreed to acquire a 35% minority stake in Flix, which manages the commercial side of open access train and coach services that are operated by partner companies.

HVAC: Liebherr-Transportation Systems has developed its first series-produced heating, ventilation and air-conditioning units to use propane as an alternative to more environmentally harmful refrigerants.

SWEDEN: National infrastructure manager Trafikverket has appointed Sweco to assist with capacity expansion on the busy East Coast trunk line between Stockholm and Uppsala.

UK: Local rail services around Manchester are to be brought into the region’s expanding Bee Network by 2028 as part of a public transport development strategy unveiled by Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham on July 10.

EUROPE: Montenegro and Serbia opened a joint rail border crossing at Bijelo Polje on the Beograd – Bar line on July 8.

This week’s news from the global railway supply chain.

KAZAKHSTAN: Industrial and logistics group Texol has opened a wagon manufacturing plant in Atyrau.

EUROPE: A through regional passenger train service linking Liège in Belgium with Aachen in Germany via Maastricht in the Netherlands was finally launched on June 30.

UK: Royal Mail has decided to stop using rail to move letters and parcels, replacing its electric train services with road haulage from October 10.

Romania’s Railway Reform Authority is procuring new multiple-units to operate regional and inter-regional services under competitively tendered PSO contracts, but this is only part of a wider market opening strategy, ARF President Ștefan Roșeanu explains to Benjámin Zelki.

AUSTRALIA: John Holland has been awarded a A$470m contract for works on the Beveridge to Albury Tranche 2 section of the Inland Rail project to develop a 1 700 km freight corridor linking Melbourne and Brisbane.

GERMANY: The Go-Ahead Deutschland business which Austrian Federal Railways acquired from The Go-Ahead Group in February has been rebranded as Arverio Deutschland, a name derived from the Gallo-Roman ‘god of the roads’ Arvernus.

USA: Project promoter the Gateway Development Commission has secured all of the $16bn of financing needed for the Hudson Tunnel Project to build a second pair of railway tunnels under the Hudson River between New York City and New Jersey.

More than a decade after an abortive attempt to enter the Italian inter-city passenger market, private operator Arenaways is back, with approval to launch seven open access services and PSO contracts to revive operations on two local railways in Piemonte. Chief Executive Matteo Arena explains the company’s renaissance to Benjámin ...

BULGARIA: Stadler Polska has been selected for a contract to supply 35 electric multiple-units, Transport minister Georgi Gvozdeykov said at the Green Transition Forum 4.0 in Sofia on June 26.

GERMANY: The Land of Schleswig-Holstein has established its own train leasing company ZUG.SH, saying this will lower financing costs and widen the pool of potential bidders for train operating contracts.