Erwin Reidinger

AFTER several months of uncertainty, an agreement has finally been reached between Austria's infrastructure manager and open-access operators over access to two new lines which can only be used by rolling stock equipped with ETCS Level 2.

THE board of Rail Cargo Austria (RCA) has approved several measures intended to improve the performance of the company, which has suffered huge losses in the wake of the global economic crisis.

AFTER several consecutive years in the red, Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) railfreight subsidiary Rail Cargo Austria (RCA) is seeking to improve its financial situation by selling wagons to one of its subsidiaries.

THE opening of Austria's new Kundl – Baumkirchen line in December could cause major problems for open-access operators using the Brenner route between Italy and Germany.

It's now almost a year since Austria's first long-distance open-access operator took to the rails. Erwin Reidinger looks back at the challenges encountered by Westbahn in its formative months.

With its punishing gradients, sharp curves, and intensive freight traffic, the Brenner corridor between Germany and Italy poses daily challenges for the many operators that use the route. Erwin Reidinger looks at how significant investment in additional capacity will bring a step-change in performance on this vital transalpine artery.

AUSTRIAN Federal Railways (ÖBB) CEO Mr Christian Kern recently announced that ÖBB results for the first six months of 2012 are better than expected. If the economic situation remains stable he expects ÖBB to return to profit in 2012, a year earlier than previously predicted.

FOLLOWING his resignation as CEO of Austrian open-access passenger operator Westbahn at the beginning of June, Dr Stefan Wehinger has sold his shares in parent company Rail Holding to the other three shareholders.