WARSAW celebrated the opening of its second metro line on March 8 when the city's mayor Mrs Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz launched a day of free rides on the initial 6.5km section of the east-west Line M2 from Dworzec Wileński with Rondo Daszyńskiego.
THE European Investment Bank (EIB) signed a €50m loan agreement with Swietelsky Baugesellschaft, Austria, on March 5 to finance a €105m research project into the development of innovative track maintenance techniques.
THE president of the Italian region of Tuscany Mr Enrico Rossi announced on March 2 that the regional government has secured a €200m loan to finance track-doubling on the 44km Pistoia – Lucca line, which is used by around 50 trains a day.
STOCKHOLM Local Transport (SL) and Bombardier unveiled artist's impressions of the forthcoming C30 train for the city's metro network at the EurasiaRail exhibition in Istanbul on March 5.
BELGIAN railfreight operator SNCB Logistics has launched a new fast wagonload service linking Belgium with Switzerland, cutting transit times from a week to 4.5 days.
AN agreement to develop plans for an intermodal rail terminal to serve fresh food and flower producers in the Westland agricultural area near Rotterdam was signed at the Fruit Logistica 2015 exhibition in Berlin last month.
NORTHERN Rail began operating electric services between Manchester and Liverpool on March 5, marking the completion of the second phase of Network Rail's North West electrification programme.
SIX major players in the rail industry came together in Utrecht on March 4 to launch Railsponsible, a new international procurement initiative which aims to achieve improvements in sustainability throughout the supply chain.
With an annual purchasing volume of more than €10bn, German Rail is a key customer for thousands of rail industry suppliers. Chief procurement officer Uwe Günter tells Keith Barrow how DB's procurement strategy seeks to harness both innovation and standardisation to improve performance and reduce life-cycle costs.
Despite the recent launch of a new premium express service intended to draw traffic back to rail, these are turbulent times for Poland's national long-distance passenger operator. Andrew Goltz considers the reasons behind declining traffic and looks at potential solutions to the problem.
