WHAT began with a 200-year flood event may now be brought to a close through legal action, as the Canadian government is following through with an ultimatum it issued to OmniTrax in October to repair its Hudson Bay Railway (HBR) line in 30 days or face a breach of contract lawsuit.

After years of indecision, Australia’s $A 10bn ($US 7.7bn) Inland Rail project to create a shorter rail link between Melbourne and Brisbane is finally getting underway, as Mark Carter reports.

THE German Railway Authority (EBA) has approved Vossloh’s HSG-city as a heavy ancillary vehicle capable of speeds of up to 60km/h, enabling the track grinding machine to operate on main line and suburban rail infrastructure.

Caroline Huusko, technical manager of the association of European Infrastructure Managers (EIM), explained the organisation’s vision for the future of infrastructure management at the recent Nordic Rail exhibition. Kevin Smith was in the audience.

A new 10km section of railway between Campofelice di Roccella and Ogliastrillo on the Palermo - Messina main line in Sicily was opened on October 16 by the minister of infrastructure and transport Mr Graziano Delrio, and the CEOs of Italian Rail Network (RFI), Mr Maurizio Gentile, and Italferr Mr Carlo Carganico.

BRITAIN’s secretary of state for transport Mr Chris Grayling announced on October 12 that the government has allocated infrastructure manager Network Rail (NR) a budget of £47.9bn for operation, maintenance and renewals in Control Period 6 (CP6), which runs from April 2019 to March 2024.

DUTCH infrastructure manager Prorail has awarded machine-to-machine technology company Dual Inventive a contract to supply 1500 wireless sensors to remotely monitor the health of points and crossings at key locations across the network.

HARSCO Rail has won two orders worth nearly $US 25m to supply track maintenance and measuring equipment for use on the Haramain high-speed line in Saudi Arabia and the Transnet network in South Africa.

VOSSLOH unveiled its first high-performance rail milling train at an open day at its rail welding and storage plant in Hamburg on September 26. The train was developed in cooperation with MFL.