THE first e320 train arrived in Brussels on May 23 on a preview trip from London ahead of the entry of these trains on the London - Brussels route on May 28.

CHINA Railway says construction has begun on the 78.2km Beijing - Bazhou high-speed line, which will serve the city's new international airport at Daxing, 46km south of the capital.

THE premier of Ontario Ms Kathleen Wynne announced on May 19 that the province will move forward with plans to build Canada’s first high-speed line after a report by Mr David Collenette, Ontario’s special advisor on high-speed rail, concluded the project has a positive business case.

STADLER presented the first of 29 Giruno 250km/h electric trains to Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) at a ceremony in Bussnang on May 18 attended by the president of the Swiss Confederation, Ms Doris Leuthard, and the CEO of SBB Mr Andreas Meyer.

CHINA Development Bank (CDB) has signed a $US 4.5bn loan agreement with a consortium of Chinese and Indonesian companies to finance construction of the 142.3km Jakarta - Bandung high-speed line.

AFTER a difficult year in 2016, Eurostar returned to growth in the first three months of this year with increasing revenues and ridership, according to the operator’s first quarter results, which were published on May 10.

IRJ at Railtex 2017: Hitachi and Talgo are both showing concept trains for potential operation on Britain’s HS2 high-speed line, which is due to open between London and Birmingham in 2026.

CONSTRUCTION of the first high-speed line in the Chinese autonomous region of Inner Mongolia on May 7, when high-speed testing commenced on part of the 286.8km line from Hohhot to Zhangjiakou in neighbouring Hebei province.

RB Rail, the company set up to oversee the Rail Baltica high-speed rail project to link the three Baltic states to Poland, has appointed its management team and published the results of a cost-benefit analysis.

SPANISH national train operator Renfe is set to exercise an option with Talgo for 15 additional Avril high-speed trains, just six months after it awarded a contract to supply and maintain an initial batch of 15 of the 330km/h trains.