THE president of Russian Railways (RZD), Mr Oleg Belozerov, and the CEO of China Railway Corporation (CRC), Mr Sheng Guangji, signed a strategic cooperation agreement in Beijing on June 25 in the presence of President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Xi Jinping of China.

RUSSIAN Railways (RZD), Gazprom, Transmashholding (TMH) and Sinara signed an agreement on June 17 at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum aimed at increasing the use of natural gas as a fuel for rail transport.

THE government of Cuba signed a €190m loan agreement with the Export Insurance Agency of Russia (Exiar) during last-week's St Petersburg International Economic Forum, which will be used by Cuban Union Railways (UFC) to finance the modernisation of its locomotive fleet.

MR Oleg Valinskiy, vice-president of Russian Railway (RZD), says that RZD will complete the modernisation of the 1067mm-gauge railway on Sakhalin island and its conversion to 1520mm gauge in 2018.

THE first of a new fleet of 160 new metro cars for St Petersburg has been presented to the city's governor Mr Georgy Poltavchenko by Transmashholding (TMH) at the SmartTransport exhibition, which is being held in the city this week.

RUSSIAN Railways (RZD) reported a 10.8% year-on-year increase in revenues to Roubles 1.99 trillion ($US 30.97bn) in 2015 following growth in freight traffic and infrastructure access revenues during the year.

TRANSMASHHOLDING subsidiary Bryansk Engineering Plant (BMZ) has unveiled a prototype six-axle shunting locomotive for Russian Railways (RZD).

FRENCH National Railways (SNCF) rail freight subsidiary Fret SNCF celebrated the launch of a new China - France container service on April 21, when the first train from Wuhan arrived at the Saint-Priest terminal in Venissieux south of Lyon.

EVRAZ has reported a 12.5% increase in the sale of railway products including rails from 362,000 tonnes in the last quarter of 2015 to 408,000 tonnes in the first quarter of 2016, and a 2% increase in tonnage between the first quarters of 2015 and 2016.

SERBIAN Railways (ZS) launched a modernisation project on the Nis - Presevo line, part of Corridor 10 between Austria and Greece, on April 18.