GE Transportation officially presented the first of 1000 Evolution Series diesel locomotives for Indian Railways (IR) to Mr Ashwin Lohani, chairman of the IR board, at a ceremony at Alambagh depot in Lucknow on February 22.

PLANS to extend the 1520mm-gauge network from Kosice, Slovakia, to Vienna by building a €6.5bn 400km electrified freight-only line, have been revived. The line would improve access to Europe for traffic from Russia and the Far East.

THE board of Helsinki Regional Transport (HSL) voted on February 13 to start the procurement procedure for an international competitive tender for the operation of the suburban rail network in the Finnish capital.

SWISS Federal Railways (SBB) could finally begin using its new fleet of RABE 502 and RABDe 502 Twindexx double-deck inter-city EMUs before the end of this month, following a ruling by Switzerland’s Federal Administrative Court in a case on access for passengers with reduced mobility.

NEW Zealand’s national railway, KiwiRail has posted a half-year profit of $NZ 15m ($US 11m) for the six months to December 31 2017.

BOMBARDIER is preparing to start assembly at its Derby, Britain, plant of the 111 Aventra EMUs which it is supplying to Abellio Greater Anglia under a £900m contract.

INDIA’s Rs 27bn ($US 417m) project to manufacture the first lot of 15 inter-city EMUs under a transfer-of-technology agreement with a foreign partner appears to have hit a roadblock once again, with just the Stadler-Medha consortium emerging as the sole qualified bidder after technical bids were opened on February 6.

SOCIÉTÉ du Grand Paris (SGP) has awarded the first of three civil engineering contracts for four work packages on lines 14 North, 16 and 17 South of the Grand Paris automated metro network to a group led by Eiffage Civil Engineering under a €1.84bn deal.

THE French prime minister, Mr Edouard Philippe, conducted the first meetings on February 19 to discuss the reform of French National Railways (SNCF) following the submission to him on February 15 of a report on the future of rail transport by a commission led by former Air France-KLM chairman Mr Jean-Cyril Spinetta.

EUROSTAR operated its inaugural service between London, Rotterdam and Amsterdam on February 20, an event which outgoing CEO Mr Nicolas Petrovic described as historic for the international high-speed operator as it finally expanded east beyond its core London - Paris/Brussels network.