A cooperation agreement was signed in Zürich on June 14 by the CEO of Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) Mr Andreas Meyer and Italian State Railways (FS) CEO Mr Mauro Moretti.
BULGARIA and Romania celebrated the completion of a new international rail link across the Danube on June 14 with the opening of the 1.97km bridge between Calafat, Romania, and Vidin, Bulgaria.
FINNISH minister of transport Mrs Merja Kyllönen unveiled the first of a new fleet of 40 low-floor LRVs for Helsinki City Transport (HKL) at Transtech's Otanmäki facility on June 13.
BRITAIN's Department for Transport (DfT) confirmed on June 14 that it has reached financial close with the Siemens/Cross London Trains consortium on a £1.6bn contract to finance, supply and maintain the train fleet for London's Thameslink commuter network.
A MAJOR step towards creating a standardised European system for rolling stock approvals was made on June 10, when the EU Transport Council adopted a 'general approach' on new rules which will introduce a single European authorisation for placing into service (APS) for railway vehicles.
BRITAIN's Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) published its 2013 Periodic Review of Network Rail (NR) on June 12, which sets out how the regulator expects how the infrastructure manager to reduce costs by £2bn during Control Period 5 (CP5), the 2014-19 funding period.
ABELLIO Rail NRW signed a contract with Stadler Pankow on June 12 for a fleet of 20 five-car Flirt emus, which will be used on the Dutch-German Lower Rhine Network from December 2016.
SPAIN's Ministry of Transport this week reported that ridership on Renfe AVE services has risen 14% year-on-year in the last four months to 4.7 million passengers, following an 11% cut in all tourist class tickets in early February.
HITACHI Rail Europe's "Verification-Train 3" has successfully completed a series of tests on a Network Rail class 97/3 locomotive equipped with ETCS Level 2 onboard equipment.
THE Xrail alliance of seven European wagonload railfreight operators has unveiled plans for the implementation of a "seamless" international capacity booking system for less-than-trainload consignments with the aim of improving the efficiency of cross-border wagonload operations.
