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JAPAN'S foreign minister Mr Takeaki Matsumoto has reportedly told his Chinese counterpart Mr Yang Jiechi that his country is "closely monitoring" patent applications for high-speed rail technology filed by Chinese companies.

IRELAND'S transport minister Mr Leo Varadkar officially inaugurated the latest addition to Dublin's successful Luas light rail network on July 2 with the launch of Citywest, a 4.2km extension of the Red Line from Belgard to Saggart in west Tallaght.

THE PRESIDENT of Kazakhstan Mr Nursultan Nazarbaev laid a foundation stone today at Nazarbaev University in Astana to mark the start of construction on the city's light rail network.

There is considerable movement in the world market for freight wagons according to the latest analysis compiled by SCI Verkehr in its study Freight Wagons - Global Market Trends.

THERE is little doubt that South America’s rail network would be a lot smaller than it is today had several governments not taken the bold step to privatise their railways in the 1990s. Years of under-investment coupled with a failure to restructure national networks from bloated bureaucracies into commercial enterprises had taken their toll and put much of the continent’s railway on the road to oblivion.

The second plenary session at the World Congress on Railway Research (WCRR) produced a wide-ranging discussion on the future economic and environmental challenges facing the world’s railways. Kevin Smith was in the audience.

 

DANISH State Railways (DSB) today announced it has appointed a new CEO and CFO, as details emerged of a possible breakthrough over the troubled DSBFirst partnership. The new DSB executive board will comprise CEO Mr Christian Roslev, currently CEO of North Jutland Transport Company, and CFO Mr Jacob Kjaer, who until recently was CFO of TDC Business Nordic.

CHINA's premier Mr Wen Jiabao officially inaugurated the 1318km Beijing - Shanghai high-speed line today at a ceremony at Beijing South station. Scheduled passenger services start tomorrow. Construction began on the Yuan 220.9bn ($US 34bn) project in April 2008, but has been completed much faster than planned, as the line was originally scheduled to open in 2012.

THE European Commission (EC) has invited applications for up to Euros 100m in funding for projects related to the development of the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) as part of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) programme. An information day was held in Brussels today to help applicants understand the priorities, prepare their proposals, and learn about the evaluation process.

THE Freight Rail division of Transnet, South Africa, reported an 8.6% increase in revenue to Rand 22.6bn ($US 3.2bn) for the financial year which ended on March 31. This is despite relatively modest increases in freight traffic and a series of set-backs during the year. These included a three-week strike in 2010, delayed maintenance, inclement weather, derailments, vandalism, and theft of cables.