RUSSIAN wagon leasor Brunswick Rail has expanded its fleet to more than 20,000 after purchasing 2000 open wagons from Ukranian and Russian manufacturers on November 24.

HITACHI is reportedly seeking a domestic partner to set up a joint venture assembly plant in India.

TURKISH State Railways (TCDD) has awarded Alstom an e89m contract to supply its Atlas ETCS system on the 328km Eskisehir - Kutahya - Balikesir line.

MTU Detroit Diesel Australia (MTU) has signed an agreement with CSR Ziyang, China, for exclusive sales and after-sales distributor rights in the Australia-Pacific rail market.

VTG Rail, a subsidiary of VTG, Germany, has acquired SC Leasing, United States, a subsidiary of Sumitomo Corporation of America, and its 2000 freight wagons, doubling VTG Rail's North American customer base.

FINNISH state-owned railway, VR Group, says it will begin the acquisition of 80 electric locomotives, with an option for an additional 97, in the next few months to replace its oldest SR-1s, 112 of which were built by Novcherkassk Electric Locomotive Plant between 1973 and 1996.

RZD president Mr Vladimir Yakunin says RZD is hopeful of resuming work on the $US 3bn project in Libya having already lost an estimated $US 647m since the project was suspended.

Höft & Wessel has secured a contract with Danish State Railways (DSB) to develop a multi-modal bluetooth ticket reader that can read RFID, OCR and barcode technologies utilised in a range of electronic tickets.