US CLASS 1 BNSF Railway announced on Monday it will invest $US 3.5 billion this year with the aim of strengthening infrastructure and improving operational efficiency.

CONSTRUCTION of a 1500km heavy-haul railway between Botswana's Mmamabula coalfield and the Namibian port of Walvis Bay will begin by August 2012, according to the Namibian government.

AUSTRIA'S first open-access long-distance passenger operator Westbahn could soon launch services between the country's second and third largest cities after Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) withdrew its last through trains on the route.

THE city of Milan has signed a Euros 872 million contract with the Metro 5 consortium to build a 7km extension of Line 5 from Garibaldi to the San Siro stadium.

WARSAW Metro has selected a consortium of Siemens and Newag, Poland, in a Euros 272 million deal to supply 35 six-car Inspiro metro trains for operation on its existing 23km Line 1 and the currently under-construction Line 2. Delivery of the trains will commence in autumn 2012 with 15 trains set to be operated on the north-south Line 1 and 20 on the east-west Line 2 after it opens in 2013.

NEDTRAIN, which is responsible for service and maintenance of the Dutch railway fleet, has selected Alstom in a Euros 36 million contract to design and manufacture 161 IGBT traction systems to equip 81 regional trains.

RIDERSHIP on Britain's passenger network increased by 6.9% in 2010 with 1.32 billion journeys made, according to figures released today by the Association of Train Operating Companies (Atoc). The figures show that the railways carried more passengers than at any peacetime year since the 1920s with a record 33.3 billion miles travelled by train. Ridership was also up by 37% compared with 2000.

While the current situation and outlook for national rail traffic is diverse, it is safe to say that global rail traffic as a whole is rapidly recovering from the economic crisis, says Niklas Schüller, associate consultant with SCI Verkehr, Germany.

 

ALSTOM has won a contract with Ile de France Transport Authority (STIF) and Paris Transport Authority (RATP) to supply Citadis LRVs to operate on two currently under-construction light rail lines.

YAPI MERKEZI, the Turkish contractor building the Ankara - Konya high-speed line, has selected Invensys Rail Dimetronic to install the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) Level 2 on the 212km line, the first deployment of this technology on the Turkish State Railways (TCDD) network.