BRITAIN's Department for Transport (DfT) has awarded incumbent First Group a 23-month contract to continue operating the Great Western franchise, which encompasses services from London Paddington to south Wales and the south west of England, until September 2015.

LINE testing of Edinburgh's long-delayed and over budget light rail line will be extended to the 2.1km section from Gogarburn station to Edinburgh Park on October 8, Edinburgh City Council has confirmed, adding that passenger services on the 13.5km line are due to begin in May 2014.

Railway Interchange 2013: LILEE Systems, United States, showed two new Positive Train Control (PTC) solutions developed in separate partnerships with Alstom and Cisco at this week's Railway Interchange exhibition in Indianapolis, Indiana.

ANSALDOBREDA has filed a lawsuit in a court in Utrecht, Netherlands, against NS Financial Services and Netherlands Railways (NS) for failing to fulfil their obligations under the contract for the 16 V250 high-speed trains which AnsaldoBreda supplied for the now-aborted Amsterdam - Brussels Fyra service.

FRENCH National Railways (SNCF) has ordered 34 Coradia Liner trains from Alstom in a contract worth around €350m.

A report commissioned by the Australasian Railway Association (ARA) shows that passenger journeys increased by 2% in 2011-12 while freight traffic grew even more strongly recording an rise 8.2% in tonnage.

Railway Interchange 2013: GE Transportation unveiled several new products at this week's Railway Interchange exhibition being held in Indianapolis, Indiana, including a new locomotive.

A joint venture is to be established between Zerz, a Ukrainian state-owned electric locomotive maintenance and repair company, and Skoda, Czech Republic, to build dual-voltage passenger locomotives for Ukrainian Railways (UZ).

RENNES Métropole has awarded a €178m turnkey contract to Siemens to for the construction of the French city's second fully-automatic light metro line. This follows a contract for the first phase of studies which was placed in 2010.

EUROPE's railway associations are urging the Council of the European Union to stick to the plan to make the European Railway Agency (ERA) the one-stop-shop for safety certification and vehicle authorisation in Europe rather a proposal by some member states for a modified version of the current appallingly-slow system.