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THE head of Shanghai Railway Bureau, Mr An Lusheng, said today that the fatal crash between two high-speed trains on July 23 on a viaduct near Wenzhou on the Ningbo - Xiamen line was due to design flaws in the signalling. He explained the signal protecting the first train which had come to halt following a lightning strike failed to turn from green to red allowing the following train to crash into the rear of the stationary train.

STATISTICS gathered by the International Union of Railway (UIC) for 2010 show an overall growth of 3.4% in tonne-km and 3.5% in passenger-km worldwide. This confirms the recovery in freight traffic following the slump of 2008-09, while passenger traffic declines in some countries were compensated by strong growth in India.

A TOTAL of 39 people died and 192 were injured on the evening of July 23 following a collision in China between two trains on a viaduct near Wenzhou on the coastal 250km/h line linking Ningbo and Xiamen. It is reported that train D3115, which had 1072 passengers on board, had stopped following a lightning strike when it was struck by the following train, D301, which was carrying 558 passengers. The impact caused the front four cars of D301 to fall off the viaduct on to the ground below, while the rear two cars of train D3115 were derailed. It is unclear why the signalling system failed to halt train D301 and prevent it from hitting train D3115.

PARIS Transport Authority (RATP) has exercised an option worth more than €300m for a further batch of 66 MF01 metro trains for Line 9 from a consortium of Alstom, Bombardier, and Areva.

GERMAN open-access passenger operator Hamburg-Köln-Express (HKX) today unveiled its new brand image and livery, confirming that it plans to launch services by the end of the year.

BRITISH infrastructure manager Network Rail (NR) has begun consultation on plans to replace 800 mechanical and relay-based signalboxes with just 14 regional control centres as part of its new signalling and train control strategy.

CHICAGO Transit Authority (CTA) has ordered another 300 metro cars from Bombardier worth $US 331m. This brings the total number of cars ordered by CTA under a contract dating back to July 2006 to 706. CTA's total investment in its new fleet of trains is now $US 1bn.

SAUDI Railways Organisation has selected the Al Shoula Group for final negotiation of a contract worth around Euros 7bn to equip, operate and maintain the 450km Haramain high-speed line being built to link the cities of Mecca, Jeddah and Medina. The consortium comprises Al-Rosen, Saudi Arabia, and 12 Spanish companies including Talgo, OHL, Dimetronic, Indra, and Spain's infrastructure manager Adif and national operator Renfe.

REVENUE on Indian Railways (IR) grew by 12.15% to Rs 247.56bn ($US 5.55bn) for the period April 1 to June 30, which is the first quarter of the current financial year, compared with Rs 220.75bn for the first quarter of fiscal 2010.

DEBTS at China's Ministry of Railways (MOR) reportedly reached Yuan 1.98 trillion ($US 306.27bn) at the end of the first quarter of 2011 causing its asset-liability ratio to reach 58.24%, reports CNTV, China.