GERMAN chancellor Mrs Angela Merkel and minister for transport and digital infrastructure Mr Alexander Dobrindt joined German Rail (DB) CEO Dr Rüdiger Grube Thuringia state minister-president Mr Bodo Ramelow and his Saxon counterpart Mr Stanislaw Tillich to inaugurate the 123km €2.74bn Erfurt - Leipzig/Halle high-speed line (VDE 8.2) on December 9.

GERMAN Rail's (DB) next generation high-speed train was officially christened ICE 4 by DB CEO Dr Rüdiger Grube and German federal minister for transport and digital infrastructure Mr Alexander Dobrindt, in a ceremony at Berlin Südkreuz station on December 4.

ALPTRANSIT Gotthard says more than 500 test runs have been successfully carried out in the 57km Gotthard Base Tunnel during the first 50 days of trial operations as final preparations are made for the handover of the tunnel to Swiss Federal Railways (SBB).

HIGH-SPEED test running started on the German Rail (DB) network on September 25 of the first of a fleet of ICx trains being built by Siemens.

A ceremony was held on July 23 to mark the entry into service of the first German Rail (DB) class 407 ICE 3 on cross-border services from Frankfurt to Paris. An agreement was also signed to extend shared DB and French National Railways (SNCF) Germany - France cross-border services, which began in 2007, to 2020.

GERMAN Rail (DB) has decided to terminate the lease on the fleet of 13 class 605 ICE-TD inter-city DMUs used by Danish State Railways (DSB) on Eurocity services from Hamburg to Copenhagen and Aarhus.

GERMAN Rail (DB) says it is on schedule to begin construction on a new depot for ICE high-speed trains at Nippes northwest of Cologne later this year after receiving final planning consent for the €220m project.

Low-price long-distance buses are proving stern competition to rail operations across Germany to the extent that Veolia's InterConnex service was withdrawn in December. Christian Schreyer, Veolia Verkehr's CEO, outlined his views on the situation to Kevin Smith.

GERMAN Rail (DB) has selected Mitsubishi Electric to modernise traction equipment on 46 ICE 2 high-speed trains in a deal worth €22m up to 2019.