IOWA Pacific Holdings, United States and British track and mining equipment supplier Holdtrade have formed a new company Holdtrade Atlantico, which will apply for licenses to operate freight railways in Colombia.

THE Norwegian city of Bergen has awarded Stadler a contract worth more than €100m to supply and maintain eight additional Variobahn low-floor LRVs and maintain the existing fleet of 20 vehicles until 2026.

IN an effort to fill the void left by the abandonment of Brussels – Amsterdam Fyra services, Thalys is planning to introduce two additional weekday services to Amsterdam from October 7.

THE Northeast Indiana Passenger Rail Association (NIPRA) has released a business plan laying the groundwork for a regional passenger rail corridor linking Columbus, Ohio, and Chicago via Fort Wayne and Warsaw, Indiana.

INFRASTRUCTURE maintenance and construction company Rhomberg Sersa Rail Group is to take on most of the workforce and contracts of Universale Bau, a subsidiary of Austria's insolvent Alpine Bau Group.

BRITAIN's secretary of state for Transport Mr Patrick McLoughlin announced on July 18 that the Department for Transport (DfT) has exercised an option with Agility Trains, a consortium of Hitachi Rail Europe and John Laing Investments on a £1.2bn contract an additional 30 nine-car Super Express Trains (SET) for the East Coast Main Line.

EUROPEAN Union (EU) Marco Polo programmes designed to encourage the transfer of road freight to rail are "ineffective" and should be discontinued in their current form, according to a critical report by the European Court of Auditors (ECA) published on July 16.

HEATHROW Express has celebrated the completion of a £16m programme to refurbish its 14 CAF/Siemens class 332 emus, which coincides with the 15th anniversary of the launch of the service between London Paddington and Heathrow Airport.

THE government of Argentina has announced electrification and re-signalling work will begin next year on the 60km 1676mm-gauge commuter line from Buenos Aires Plaza Constitución to La Plata, the state capital of Buenos Aires province.

THE Slovakian government announced on July 10 that it has adopted proposals to reform struggling state-owned railfreight operator ZSSK Cargo with the creation of three separate business units by the end of next year.