EQT Infrastructure II, a €1.9bn equity fund, is to take a majority stake in Hector Rail, a private Swedish railfreight company which operates trains in Scandinavia and Germany.
DB SCHENKER and Zhengzhou International Land Port Development and Construction Company launched a new direct Germany – China freight service on September 1, when the first train was flagged off from the Billwerder terminal in Hamburg by Dr Karl-Friedrich Rausch, DB management board officer for logistics and the governor of Hunan province Mr Xie Fuzhan.
FINLAND's national train operator VR Group has reported increased profits for the second quarter but while there was growth in the freight business passenger traffic declined.
LOCOMOTIVE leasing company Akiem has signed a contract worth €33m with Bombardier for the delivery of 10 140km/h Traxx DC locomotives, with an option for up to 10 additional units placing the value of the contract at approximately €65m.
POLISH open-access operator CTL Logistics, Poland, carried approximately 7 million tonnes of railfreight in the first half of 2014, including 1.3 million tonnes in Germany, a fall of 8% compared with the same period in 2013.
POLAND's largest railfreight operator PKP Cargo announced on August 19 that it will invest nearly Zlotys 200m ($US 63.7m) in 10 new multi-system electric locomotives to support the expansion of its international business.
PORTUGUESE Trains (CP) railfreight subsidiary CP Carga continued its recovery from the economic crisis with an 11.7% year-on-year increase in volumes in the first half of this year according to its latest figures, which also show Portugal's largest railfreight operator carried a monthly record of 884,060 tonnes of freight in July.
ON August 7 Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) subsidiary ÖBB Produktion published a tender for five second-hand electric locomotives certified to operate in Slovenia.
On-rail competition has transformed the railfreight landscape in Europe over the last 20 years, but in wagonload - a sector competing directly with road for nearly every load - operators increasingly see cooperation as the key to maintaining and growing the business. Keith Barrow looks at how an alliance between wagonload operators is working to deliver service standards comparable with road.
THE president of Saudi Railways Organisation (SRO), H E Mohamed Al-Suwaiket, has signed a Riyals 391.5m ($US 104.4m) contract with a Saudi contractor for the first phase of track-doubling on the Riyadh - Harad - Dammam freight-only line.
