GERMAN infrastructure manager DB Networks has announced plans to invest €95m in renewal of signalling systems in the 6km Frankfurt City Tunnel to increase capacity and improve reliability in the core of the Rhine-Main S-Bahn network.

THE Bavarian Railway Authority (BEG) signed a 12-year contract with German Rail (DB) subsidiary DB Regio Allgäu-Schwaben in Kempten on March 17 for the operation of the Allgäu Diesel Network, which covers around 7.8 million train-km per year.

BRITISH train and bus operator, First Group, has applied to the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) to operate a new open-access service of five trains per day between London King's Cross and Edinburgh starting in 2018.

SIX major players in the rail industry came together in Utrecht on March 4 to launch Railsponsible, a new international procurement initiative which aims to achieve improvements in sustainability throughout the supply chain.

With an annual purchasing volume of more than €10bn, German Rail is a key customer for thousands of rail industry suppliers. Chief procurement officer Uwe Günter tells Keith Barrow how DB's procurement strategy seeks to harness both innovation and standardisation to improve performance and reduce life-cycle costs.

PLANS for open-access car-carrying trains serving the island of Sylt in northern Germany have suffered a setback after the Federal Networks Agency instructed infrastructure manager DB Networks not to sign draft agreements with the German subsidiary of Railroad Development Corporation (RDC), United States, for train paths on the route.

REGIONAL transport authorities in Germany and Poland have announced direct cross-border passenger services between Dresden and Wroclaw will be withdrawn on March 1, even though a four-year operating contract only began last year.

GERMANY's infrastructure manager, DB Networks, has informed open-access intercity operator Hamburg-Köln-Express (HKX) that it can only have three of the six paths it requested for a new service from Bonn to Berlin, which would make the service unviable.

GERMANY's railfreight operators failed to capitalise on growth in the overall freight transport market last year as strikes held back volumes, according to preliminary annual figures released on February 13 by the Federal Statistics Office (Destatis).

FOLLOWING an international tender, the Bavarian Railway Authority (BEG) has selected National Express Rail, the German subsidiary of British rail and long-distance bus operator National Express, as preferred bidder for two 12-year contracts to operate the Nuremberg S-Bahn network.