THE inaugural passenger services with Desiro Rus emus built by Siemens for Russian Railways (RZD) commenced on Wednesday following a ceremony at Moscow Station in St Petersburg.

DANISH infrastructure manager Banedanmark has commissioned Siemens to equip 840 rail vehicles with GSM-R technology in an order worth €20m.

GERMANY's Federal Railway Authority (EBA) granted Siemens approval on December 21 for the operation of Vectron locomotives on the German mainline network.

SIEMENS handed over two 5.2MW Vectron 3kV dc electric locomotives to DB Schenker Rail Poland at a ceremony at the Polish Railway Institute on December 20.

MTR Corporation has awarded two contracts to supply rolling stock and signalling systems for the Shatin – Central Link (SCL), which will establish a new north – south corridor across Hong Kong.

THE board of Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) is expected to conclude a contract with Siemens for 100 Desiro ML dual-voltage emus at a board meeting later this month in a deal worth €550-600m.

INVENSYS has announced it is to sell its rail division to Siemens for $US 2.8bn following a strategic review which concluded that consolidation in the signalling industry would limit the scope for expanding the company's rail activities.

SWISS Federal Railways (SBB) has appointed Siemens to equip 230 rail vehicles operated by SBB Passenger, SBB Cargo, RegionAlps, Ferrovienord and SBB Infrastructure with onboard ETCS equipment.

RUSSIAN Railways (RZD) has signed a letter of intent with Ural Locomotives (UL), the joint venture of Sinara Group and Siemens with RZD concerning contracts to supply 675 electric freight locomotives between 2016 and 2020.

CROSSRAIL, which is building a £14.8bn, 118km east-west rail link across London, has awarded a contract worth around £50m to a joint venture of Siemens and Invensys Rail to install a communications-based train control (CBTC) system on the busy central section of the line.