LEASING company Alpha Trains announced on March 31 that it has acquired 89 Alstom regional multiple units from Société Anonyme de Crédit à l'Industrie Francaise and SNC Vindelica, two indirectly-owned subsidiaries of Société Générale, for an undisclosed sum.

ISRAEL Railways (IR) reported a net profit of Shekels 265m ($US 70m) in 2015, following a 9% increase in passengers using the network to 52.8 million during the year.

SWISS Federal Railways (SBB) published its 2015 annual results on March 18, confirming a group net profit of SFr 246m ($US 254m), 34.1% down from the previous year, despite recording a 1.4% increase in operating revenues, which rose to SFr 8.8bn.

GLOBAL mining conglomerate Glencore is looking to sell its New South Wales Hunter Valley 'above-rail' coal haulage rail business later this year, with an anticipated price tag of between $A 800m-1bn ($US 610-763m), according to a report in Australia's Financial Review newspaper.

BRITIAN's chancellor of the exchequer Mr George Osborne has allocated funds to advance two new rail projects: High-Speed 3 (HS3) to provide a better link between Manchester and Leeds, and Crossrail 2, a new north-south link through the centre of London.

ANNOUNCING its results for 2015 in Berlin on March 16, German Rail (DB) says revenue increased by 1.9% in 2015 to a record €40.5bn but Ebit plunged by 16.6% to €1.76bn, while DB turned a profit of €988m in 2014 into a loss of €1.3bn in 2015.

Funding and soft loans from European Union facilities and affiliated organisations promise to deliver long-awaited Eastern European rail infrastructure improvements over the next decade or so. Artur Perchel, manager, Central Eastern Europe & Israel at the International Association of Public Transport (UITP), assesses the impact.

FINNISH national train operator VR Group suffered a 9.9% decline revenues last year as competition from other modes took its toll on earnings, according to the company's 2015 financial results which were published on March 10.