AUSTRIAN Federal Railways (ÖBB) has placed an initial €375m order for eight day trains and 13 night trains as part of a €1.5bn framework agreement it has signed with Siemens Mobility for a new fleet of long-distance trains, which includes the delivery of up to 700 passenger coaches over the next five years.

CANADIAN National (CN) and Vossloh have signed a multi-annual framework contract for the supply of turnouts, following on from a similar agreement for concrete sleepers, which was signed in April.

RAIL.ONE has inaugurated a new concrete sleeper plant at Aschaffenburg in Bavaria, which will have capacity to supply up to 600,000 sleepers a year, primarily for customers in Germany.