SOUTH African freight logistics, shipping and financial service company Grindrod has announced plans to sell its locomotive assembly business due to the company’s deteriorating financial performance and an impairment of Rand 675m ($US 50.6m) for its rail businesses.

THE governments of Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso have signed a revised operating concession with Sitarail, part of the Bolloré Group, to include responsibility for the infrastructure of the 1260km railway linking the two countries.

TRIAL operation is expected to start in September on the 665km standard-gauge electrified line linking Addis Ababa with Djibouti.

A ceremony was held at the Semaf Railway Factory in Helwan, Egypt, on August 1 to mark the completion of the last of 20 nine-car Hyundai Rotem trains for Cairo metro.

APIX, the Senegalese Agency for Investment Promotion and Public works under the office of the President of Senegal, announced on July 27 it has awarded a €225 m contract to Engie and Thales to design and build infrastructure for the new Dakar Regional Express Train project.

NIGERIA’s capital Abuja finally joined the national railway network on July 26, when a 186.5km standard-gauge link to Kaduna was inaugurated by president Mr Muhammadu Buhari in the presence of transport minister Mr Rotimi Amaechi and Mr Freeborn Edetanlaen Okhiria, acting managing director of Nigerian Railways Corporation (NRC).

DALIAN Locomotive and Rolling Stock, a subsidiary of China’s CRRC Corporation, has rolled out the first of 15 trains for the initial phase of the metro network in Nigeria’s largest city Lagos.

SOUTH Africa’s public enterprises deputy minister, Mr Buleani Magwanishe, marked the completion of the first phase of Transnet’s project to increase capacity on the heavy-haul coal line between the Waterberg district of Limpopo province and the port of Richards Bay, KwaZulu-Natal, on July 14.

CASA Transport has launched a tender for a contract to operate Casablanca's expanding light rail and bus rapid transit (BRT) networks for five years from the end of 2017.