THE winners of the first European Rail Awards were announced at a ceremony in London on November 12 attended by around 600 delegates.

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.

AUSTRIA's railways experienced a mixed fortunes in 2012 with falling freight volumes offset by rising passenger traffic, according to the annual report from the country's rail regulator Schienen-Control, which was published on July 10.

AFTER several years of poor or mixed results, Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) achieved a strong turnaround in 2012 with a return to profitability.

RAIL Cargo Group (RCG), the recently-renamed railfreight subsidiary of Austrian Federal Railways' (ÖBB), achieved a higher than forecast Ebit last year of €56m compared with a budgeted profit of €13m.

AUSTRIAN Federal Railways (ÖBB) celebrated another landmark in the four-tracking of the Westbahn between Vienna and Linz on April 2 with the opening of the 16.7km Ybbs – Amstetten high-speed line.