THE British Treasury has sold the government's 40% stake high-speed train operator Eurostar for £585.1m to Patina Rail, a Canadian-British consortium of fund managers. Eurostar has also agreed to redeem the government's £172m preference share once the sale has been finalised which will increase the total value of the sale to £757.1m.

THE mayor of Ottawa Mr Jim Watson officially relaunched the city's O-Train commuter rail line as the Trillium Line on March 2, marking the completion of a $C 60.3m ($US 48.1m) project to upgrade the 8km diesel-operated line from Bayview to Greenboro.

A mock-up of the forthcoming Alstom Citadis Spirit low-floor LRV for Ottawa's Confederation Line was unveiled on January 29 by the city's mayor Mr Jim Watson, Member of Parliament for Ottawa-Orléans Mr Royal Galipeau, and Ontario provincial transport minister Mr Steven Del Duca.

CANADIAN National (CN) has reported a net profit of $C 3.17bn ($US 2.55bn) in 2014, compared with $C 2.61bn in 2013. Operating income rose last year by 19% compared with the previous year to $C 4.62bn.

ROCKY Mountaineer has awarded Canarail a contract to refurbish its entire luxury tourist Goldleaf fleet, consisting of 16 double-deck domed coaches.

AN update on plans to establish regular-interval all-day services on commuter rail lines in southern Ontario was presented at the meeting of Toronto and Hamilton regional transport authority Metrolinx board of directors on December 11.

MONTREAL's Metropolitan Transport Agency (AMT) launched services on the new 53km Mascouche commuter rail line on December 1 with eight round trips a day on weekdays.

METROLINX, the regional transport authority for the Greater Toronto and Hamilton region, has awarded Alstom a contract worth more than $US 250m to resignal the 6.4km Union Station Rail Corridor (USRC).

THE newly-elected mayor of Surrey, the second-largest city in the Canadian province of British Columbia, has pledged to construct the city's first light rail line within four years.

THE government of Quebec has formed a partnership with mining companies Champion Iron and Lac Otelnuk Mining to carry out a feasibility study into the construction of a multi-user railway linking the port of Sept-Îles with the Labrador Trough, a 1600km-long geological belt which is rich in iron ore deposits.