Norfolk Southern is among the US railroads looking afresh at the latest iteration of the composite sleeper. Greg Janson, President of supplier Triton Ties, explains to Nick Kingsley how a combination of recycled plastic and glass fibre material can offer durability and environmental gains compared to using wooden or concrete ...

AUSTRALIA: Victoria’s Minister for Public & Active Transport Gabrielle Williams has officially opened the depot in Melbourne where Alstom will maintain 100 G Glass trams which it is supplying for the world’s largest tram network.

GABON: Windhoff has supplied five battery-powered TeleTrac RW100AEM shunters and a cable drum wagon to Comilog’s manganese mine at Moanda, where they move trains of up to 130 wagons.

This week’s news from the global railway supply chain.

UK: Network Rail and the Chartered Institution of Railway Operators have launched a weather learning programme, which is to strengthen meteorological knowledge among operational and other staff to enable more confident and informed decision-making during adverse weather conditions.

SWITZERLAND: Wagon owners remain concerned about changes to the rules governing freight trains passing through the Gotthard Base Tunnel. They say these have been imposed unilaterally by the Swiss authorities and pose a risk to the viability of pan-European rail freight.

COSTA RICA: An international financing package has been agreed to fully-fund the US$800m launch of two electrified tram-train routes in the San José metropolitan area.

UK: The first national railway clock design since British Rail’s 1974 design manual has been unveiled in physical and digital forms.

URUGUAY: Transport Minister Lucía Etcheverry has presented rail investment initiatives for next five-year period to parliament’s budget committee.

INTERNATIONAL: The complexity of the task of moving from bold vision to the reality of a truly digitalised and connected rail ecosystem was in evidence at UIC’s Future Railway Mobile Communication System conference. Nick Kingsley reports from Paris.

LITHUANIA: The first of the Flirt electric multiple-units ordered by national passenger operator LTG Link was delivered to Vilnius on the night of October 12-13, arriving from Stadler’s Polish factory by road because of its wide profile and 1 520 mm gauge.

INTERNATIONAL: Snapper Services has introduced multilingual versions of its Mosaiq suite of public transport data analysis software.

USA: Faster ’super-express’ services started running on MTA Metro-North Railroad’s 120 km Hudson Line between Poughkeepsie and New York’s Grand Central Terminal on October 6.

SERBIA: The section of the Beograd – Budapest main line between Novi Sad, Subotica and the Hungarian border near Kelebija has reopened following a major rebuilding and realignment to allow 200 km/h running.

UK: Chiltern Railways has unveiled the first of its future MkVa push-pull trainsets as it prepares to bring them into service between London Marylebone and Birmingham in early 2026.

AUSTRALIA: Celebrations marked the reopening of the full length of Perth’s Armadale Line following an extensive modernisation and the extension of Transperth suburban services to the fast-growing residential area of Byford.

GERMANY: Deutsche Bahn’s December timetable change will bring a near-doubling of destinations served by half-hourly ICE services.

This week’s round-up of news from the urban transport sector.

UK: The Birmingham Rail Resilience Hub has been created by Network Rail to provide emergency response training for the railway industry and the emergency services.

Reflecting pressure from NATO and the EU to improve interoperability, Finland’s Minister of Transport Lulu Ranne has announced studies for standard gauge lines in northern Finland, with the priority being a link to Tornio on the Swedish border. Benjámin Zelki investigates.