CBH Group, Australia, has awarded a contract to Wi-Tronix, United States, to equip its fleet of 25 diesel-electric locomotives, which are used to haul grain trains, with Wi-Nostix, a predictive fault diagnostics and monitoring system.

MALAYSIA’s Ministry of Communications signed two contracts with CRRC Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive for 22 metre-gauge multiple units at a ceremony in Changsha, China, on April 11.

THE CEO of Italian State Railways (FS), Mr Renato Mazzoncini, signed an agreement in Rome on April 7 with Mr Guillermo Dietrich, Argentina’s minister of transport, for FS to provide technical assistance for the Buenos Aires Regional Express (RER) rail project.

COAL services operated by Australian rail freight operator Aurizon have suffered severe disruption following heavy rain and flooding caused by Cyclone Debbie which made landfall on the Queensland coast during the last week of March.

REGIONS of France, an association of regional authorities, held its first hearings on April 6 to gauge the potential for the introduction of competition in the provision of regional rail services, although this is not expected to start until 2024.

USE of both local and long-distance public transport services in Germany grew by 1.5% in 2016 to reach a new record of 11.38 billion journeys, according to provisional results published by the German Federal Statistics Office Destatis, which attributes the growth to an increase in population, employment and students.

JAPANESE metro operator Tokyo Metro has announced that it will assist Hanoi in the management and operation of its new metro network currently under construction through a new subsidiary, Vietnam Tokyo Metro (VTM).

SWITZERLAND’s Federal Transport Office (BAV) confirmed on April 10 that it has issued a construction permit for the Limmattalbahn, a 13.4km light rail line linking Zürich-Altstetten main line station with Killwangen-Spreitenbach in the neighbouring canton of Aargau.

TRANSMASHHOLDING (TMH), Russia, says it increased turnover by 22% in 2016 to Roubles 120bn ($US 2bn) thanks mainly to strong growth in the sale of passenger vehicles.

THE new Abellio regional cross-border train service between Düsseldorf main station, Germany, and Arnhem Central, Netherlands, began operating on April 6.