Anitra Green

VEOLIA's German public transport subsidiary Veolia Verkehr announced on October 14 that its Ostseeland Verkehr business unit will cease operation of its Leipzig – Berlin – Rostock/Warnemünde InterConnex long-distance passenger services, blaming high infrastructure charges and competititon from Germany's recently-liberalised inter-city bus market for the withdrawal.

In preparation for the start of test operations of the complete tunnel system in autumn 2015, over 650 test runs were carried out on a 13km section of the Gotthard base tunnel in a six-month pilot scheme which ended in June. Anitra Green reports from Switzerland on progress to date.

Enhancement projects are underway along the Rhine corridor to upgrade rail infrastructure and terminal facilities, increasing capacity to meet the enormous growth in freight predicted at Rhine delta ports, Anitra Green reports from Germany.

THE first of 25 double-deck EMUs being built for Moscow's Aeroexpress at Stadler Rail's Altenrhein plant in eastern Switzerland was loaded onto a barge at the port of Basle Auhafen over the weekend on the second stage of its journey to Russia.

SWISS Federal Railways (SBB) published its first half results on September 1, revealing a 3% rise in daily passenger traffic, which increased to 1.002 million, and 27% year-on-year growth in freight traffic, which reached 7.6 billion net tonne-km.

Ambitious plans are afoot in Boston to upgrade the rail network to meet increasing demand. Anitra Green talks to Richard Davey, secretary of transportation and CEO of Massachusetts Department of Transportation.

SWISS Federal Railways (SBB) will spend around SFr 1.5bn ($US 1.66bn) on revamping stations, modernising infrastructure and acquiring new rolling stock for Ticino, Switzerland's southernmost canton by 2020.

SWISS Federal Railways (SBB) has awarded Harsco a SFr 100m ($US 113m) contract to supply 59 catenary maintenance and renewal vehicles, which will replace older units and expand the fleet to meet future maintenance requirements.

ZÜRICH's main station has been transformed from a terminus into a through station thanks to the opening of the new Durchmesserlinie (DML) cross-city link on June 14.

Several projects are in the pipeline or already underway to upgrade rail links in the regional triangle between Germany, Austria and Switzerland, not to mention Liechtenstein a little further south. Anitra Green takes a look at the current state of play.