A ceremony was held at Grasse station in southern France on December 21 to mark the completion of a €39m upgrade of the 16.6km line from Cannes.

Korea marked the completion of a key transport project for the 2018 Winter Olympics on December 22, with the opening of the 120.7km Wonju - Gangneung section of the Gyeonggang Line.

ALSTOM has signed an agreement with Kazakhstan Railways (KTZ) to acquire its remaining 25% stake in the EKZ electric locomotive production joint venture. Once approved by the relevant authorities, the deal will increase Alstom’s share in EKZ to 75%.

NETINERA subsidiary Metronom has been awarded a 15-year concession to continue operating three regional express lines in northern Germany by Lower Saxony’s regional public transport authority LNVG and the cities of Hamburg and Bremen.

ISRAEL Railways (IR) has conducted its first test run with an electric locomotive when a Bombardier Traxx locomotive reached a speed of 160km/h along the first 12km electrified section of the A1 between Anava junction and Latrun Monastery.

SWITZERLAND’s Southeastern Railway (SOB) announced on December 21 that it has awarded Stadler a contract to supply 11 Flirt EMUs to operate Gotthard Panorama Line services from Basle and Zurich to Locarno and Lugarno via the original Gotthard line.

AUSTRALIAN rail freight operator Aurizon has made good on its August 2017 decision to exit the interstate intermodal business, with its last revenue trains running between Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane this week.

DB Regio’s new fleet of Bombardier class 445 and 446 Twindexx EMUs finally entered passenger service in early December.

THREE people were killed and more than 70 injured when an Amtrak Cascades train derailed on December 18 while traversing a curve leading onto a bridge over Interstate 5 highway southwest of Tacoma, Washington state, sending a locomotive and passenger coaches crashing onto the highway below.