Around 17 000 km of abandoned or poorly used lines in France and Germany could be revived using small, frequent or on-demand vehicles as part of a decarbonisation drive. Thanks to rapidly progressing technologies with minimal investment and low operating costs, there is an opportunity to tap political support to ...

UK: Project promoter HS2 Ltd has let contracts for the supply of signalling and train control systems for the high speed line between London and the West Midlands.

SAUDI ARABIA: National operator Saudi Arabia Railways has selected Swiss design consultancy Nose Design Experience to support the development of its next-generation of inter-city trainsets.

CHINA: Two prototype CR450 high speed trainsets designed for a maximum speed of 450 km/h and an operating speed of 400 km/h have been unveiled in Beijing, ahead of testing to optimise the design and enable the sets to enter service as soon as possible.

INDIA: The 13 km Sahibabad to New Ashok Nagar extension of the Delhi – Ghaziabad – Meerut Regional Rapid Transit System line was opened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 5.

UK: Contracts have been awarded for a mid-life refresh of the Class 376 electric multiple-units used on Southeastern’s London suburban services since 2004.

RUSSIA: Agreements on the organisational structure, financing and risk allocation for the Moskva – St Petersburg high speed rail project were signed on December 23.

The European Union’s Recovery & Resilience Fund is the latest opportunity to fund much-needed improvements in the Romanian rail network, but the looming deadline for project completion is proving tough to meet. Toma Bačić explains.

UK: Train operator owing company association Rail Partners said ‘the bar for new open access applications is being made harder to clear’, after Secretary of State for Transport Heidi Alexander set out her expectations for how applications to run open access services should be considered as the rail industry is ...

USA: New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority has approved the operation of battery-diesel hybrid locomotives ordered from Wabtec to haul maintenance trains on the Subway network.

SWEDEN: The country’s heaviest freight trains outside the iron ore sector are being used to test digital automatic couplers in real-world conditions.

UK: The Office of Rail & Road has directed high speed line concessionaire HS1 Ltd to lower the access charges for passenger and freight trains on the route from London to the Channel Tunnel.

EUROPE: The national passenger train operators of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have launched co-ordinated services to make it more practical to travel between Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn by rail.

ASIA: President of Kyrgyzstan Sadyr Japarov and representatives of the Chinese and Uzbek governments officially launched construction of the US$8bn China – Kyrgyzstan – Uzbekistan railway with a ceremony at Tosh-Kutchu in the Jalal-Abad region of Kyrgyzstan on December 27. Main works are to begin in July.

USA: Swiss plant manufacturer Matisa is ready to deliver a novel track renewals train to Amtrak to support work to modernise the US national passenger operator’s upgrading of the 735 km Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington DC.

As celebrations in Britain this year mark 200 years since the opening of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, our Consultant Editor Murray Hughes reflects on his 50 years writing for Railway Gazette International and assesses where the rail sector might go in the coming half-century.

News from the world rail freight market.

USA: All subsidiaries and divisions of railway sector component supplier A Stucki Company began operating under the parent company’s name on January 1.

CROATIA: Minister of the Sea, Transport & Infrastructure Oleg Butković attended a ceremony on December 18 to mark the completion of work to renew and electrify the Vinkovci – Vukovar line.

EUROPE: Finland’s VR FleetCare has won an international tender to design and build wagons for the transport of tanks and other heavy military equipment in Arctic conditions.