BOMBARDIER Transportation recorded revenues of $US 8.5bn in 2017, a 13% increase from the $US 7.57bn reported in 2016. Ebit also increased by 5% from $US 396m to $US 417m, while Ebitda before special items soared by 23% from $US 657m to $US 810m.

ACCORDING to German press reports, three senior ministers in the German government have written to the European Union’s environment commissioner Mr Karmenu Vella proposing to make public transport in five German cities free-of-charge together with other measures in order to cut road transport pollution.

THE first class 1293 Vectron multi-system electric locomotive for Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) made its main line debut on February 14 with a test run from Siemens’ plant at Munich-Allach to Reichertshausen on the Munich - Ingolstadt line.

TRIMET, the public transport authority in Portland, Oregon, has launched a public consultation on plans to order 26 new LRVs, which will replace the oldest vehicles in the Max light rail fleet.

METROPOLITAN Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (Marta), which operates the Atlanta Streetcar 4.3km Downtown Loop light rail line, has engaged Siemens to maintain the fleet of four S70 LRVs which it supplied prior to the opening of the line in December 2014.

HUNGARIAN State Railways (MÁV) has awarded two contracts to modernise the Rákos - Hatvan section of the Budapest - Miskolc main line.

SLOVENIAN Railways (SŽ) has closed the bidding process for the sale of a 49% stake in its rail freight unit Tovorni Promet.

THE first LRV for the Oklahoma City Streetcar project arrived in the city on February 13 after completing its four-day 1900km road journey from Brookville, Pennsylvania.

THE first Bombardier Traxx DC3 electric locomotive left the company’s plant at Vado Ligure near Genoa on February 12 bound for Trenitalia’s Osmannoro test centre near Florence, where static and dynamic testing will be carried out.

BRITAIN’s infrastructure manager Network Rail (NR) says it wants to increase spending to £47bn in the five-year period from 2019 to 2024 (Control Period 6 - CP6) in order to increase capacity, improve the reliability of infrastructure and reduce delays by 15%.