THE mayor of Florence Mr Dario Nardella visited the district of Novoli on April 30 to view progress on the construction of the city's second light rail line and mark the laying of the first 100m of track.

AFTER several weeks of rumours in the financial press, Bombardier confirmed on May 7 that it will sell a minority stake in its rail business Bombardier Transportation through an initial public offering (IPO), which will take place before the end of the year.

THE Greenbrier Companies has completed its acquisition of a 19.5% stake in Brazilian wagon manufacturer Amsted-Maxion Hortolândia for $US 15m.

GREEK infrastructure manager Ergose has awarded Nokia Networks a contract to upgrade its GSM-R core network.

VTG has unveiled what it says is Europe's first tank wagon for transporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) at this week's Transport and Logistics trade fair in Munich.

TALGO made its debut on the Madrid stock exchange on May 7 with shares trading at €9.25, the lower end of the price range, setting the company's total market value at €1.265bn. Only institutional investors were allowed in the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of 45% of the company's capital.

IMPROVING performance at its logistics service division helped Russian Railways (RZD) to report increased revenues in 2014. However, the holding company did report a net loss of Roubles 99.3bn ($US 1.96bn) following the weakening of the Rouble compared with major international currencies which led to significant exchange rate differences and an increase in the value of debt held in other currencies.

NETWORK Rail (NR) has awarded Siemens Rail Automation a contract to develop system architecture and a deployment strategy for the rollout of an ETCS Level 2 overlay on the Great Western Main Line.

RUSSIAN Railways (RZD) began selling tickets on May 6 for its new Moscow - Nizhniy Novgorod Strizh (Swift) services, which will be launched on June 1 using RZD's new fleet of Talgo coaches and EP 20 electric locomotives.

BOMBARDIER confirmed on May 6 that Ile-de-France Transport Authority (Stif) and French National Railways (SNCF) subsidiary SNCF Mobility have placed a €127m order for 19 additional class Z 50000 Francilien EMUs for suburban services in the Paris area.