SPEAKING at a track seminar organised by Plasser & Theurer in London recently, Mr Wolfgang Nemetz of ÖBB Infrastructure, explained that ÖBB's efficiency programme, which was launched in 2008, is aimed at cutting new construction, renewal and maintenance infrastructure costs by €1256m or 118% by 2018. 

GERMAN Rail's (DB) long-distance passenger division, DB Fernverkehr, has issued a call for tenders to fit European Train Control System (ETCS) to its ICE1 fleet of high-speed trains.

ÖBB Infrastructure has awarded a three-month proof of concept contract to OptaSense, Britain, to trial its Distributed Acoustic Sensing system in the Vienna area.

THE supervisory board of Czech Railways (CD) has approved the purchase up to 80 long-distance coaches from Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) in a deal worth up to CKr 413m ($US 20.5m).

WIENER Linien, which operates urban rail services in the Austrian capital, inaugurated a 4.2km extension to Line U2 of the Vienna U-Bahn on October 5.

Vienna's long-held ambition to build a central station with through tracks is finally taking shape. Part of the new station is already open, but as Erwin Reidinger explains it will not be fully operational until 2015.

AUSTRIAN Federal Railways (ÖBB) has installed automatic red light cameras at four level crossings as part of a pilot project which seeks to deter motorists from ignoring crossing signals.

AUSTRIAN Federal Railways (ÖBB) is to brand its new fleet of Siemens Desiro emus Cityjet, mimicking the successful Railjet moniker applied to its premium long-distance services.

THE European Union (EU) has agreed to contribute €134m to Austrian TEN-T projects, including €106m for the Brenner base tunnel, €25.5m for the St. Pölten freight bypass, and € 1.5m towards the construction of a bridge on the Koralm line between Graz and Klagenfurt.

TWO European open-access operators have signed contracts with Siemens for a total of five 15kV ac Vectron locomotives, which will be used on freight services in Germany and Austria.