BRITAIN's rail minister Ms Claire Perry opened the new £7m National Training Academy for Rail in Northampton on October 20.

NORFOLK Southern (NS) informed its customers on October 20 that it will no longer accept shipments of poisonous inhalation hazard (PIH) commodities from December 1, and that passenger trains operated by Amtrak, Virginia Railway Express, and Chicago's Metra will be banned from its infrastructure from December 31.

A NEW control centre for the Gauteng area has been commissioned by Siemens for the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) and will start to control trains in January.

IRJ at Railway Interchange: Pintsch Tiefenbach, Germany, had a prototype SIL4 software-based axle counter on display in Minneapolis.

Aarhus is currently developing Denmark's inaugural light rail project which is on course to open in 2017 to coincide with the city becoming the year's European Capital of Culture. Kevin Smith took a trip to eastern Jutland to see how the project is progressing.

Positive Train Control has been a generational challenge for the US freight railways consuming billions of dollars and millions of man hours in the race to reach the federally-mandated deadline for implementation, which is just two months away. However, with the programme well behind schedule there is still considerable uncertainty over what will happen after the clock strikes midnight on December 31, as Keith Barrow explains.

SPAIN's infrastructure manager, Adif, has awarded a €164m contract to a consortium led by Bombardier and including Alstom and Indra to install signalling and provide maintenance for a new high-speed line under construction in the Extremadura region.

A report published on September 16 by the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) has found that most US railways will not be able to complete the installation of Positive Train Control (PTC) by the federally-mandated December 31 deadline, and warns that legislation to extend the deadline will now be required.

IRJ at IRSE Aspect 2015 conference, London: In his presentation on the competencies needed to recruit and retain the signalling engineers of the future, Mr Mohanakrishnan Sarvepalli from Atkins called for the creation of basic and advanced signalling diploma courses for engineers entering the industry.

METROLINX has awarded a €113m contract to Alstom to provide a new computer-based integrated train control system for the Greater Toronto and Hamilton commuter rail network.