Keith Fender

THE Polish government has taken control of financially-troubled train builder Pesa with all of the company’s shares being acquired by the Polish Development Fund (PFR).

FLIXTRAIN has announced plans to add a second train pair on its new Stuttgart - Berlin route from June 21 with frequency set to increase to daily from five times per week from June 12.

BAVARIAN Railway Company (BEG) has agreed to fund the procurement of trains to operate on the 14.6km Gunzenhausen - Wassertrüdingen line in Germany, an extension of the current DMU-operated Pleinfeld - Gunzenhausen service, for 12 years from 2024.

PASSENGER services have resumed on the line between Walbrzych in southwest Poland and Meziměstí in the north of the Czech Republic.

THE Transdev subsidiary North West Rail (NWB) has been chosen by Hannover’s Regional Assembly to operate the 10-line Hannover S-Bahn network totalling 9.1 million train-km annually.

VIVARAIL, which is offering low-cost regional trains to the British and international markets using trains built with former London Underground aluminium coach bodies and bogies has completed its first entirely battery powered train and is making progress with the first diesel-powered class 230 set for West Midlands Trains.

DB REGIO subsidiary Verkehrsgesellschaft Start Ostsachsen has won a contract to operate regional services on a group non-electrified routes in eastern Saxony from December 2019, taking over from Netinera company Länderbahn.

TRANSMASHHOLDING subsidiary TMH-Argentina has won a $US 29.7m contract for the maintenance of Chinese-built locomotives and rolling stock used by Argentinean Trains (TA) to operate services on the San Martin Line from Buenos Aires to Pilar.

PASSENGER numbers on Germany’s main line and urban railway networks continued their upward trend in 2017, according to annual figures published by the Federal Statistics Office (Destatis).